[Bug 2150631] Re: apt fails to get source for URI that requires authentication
Julian Andres Klode
2150631 at bugs.launchpad.net
Wed Apr 29 12:12:11 UTC 2026
This behavior is intentional; warning the naive way would be quite
verbose. but we can warn smart if we see a 401 I think / add context
** Changed in: apt (Ubuntu)
Status: New => Invalid
** Changed in: apt (Ubuntu)
Status: Invalid => Triaged
** Changed in: apt (Ubuntu)
Importance: Undecided => Wishlist
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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/2150631
Title:
apt fails to get source for URI that requires authentication
Status in apt package in Ubuntu:
Triaged
Bug description:
Let's say you have a private repository hosted and configured to
require authentication with user and password. You put the necessary
information in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/private.sources and also
configured the credentials in /etc/apt/auth.conf.d/private.conf.
Installing binary deb packages from the repo works just as intended.
What does not work is downloading the source.
$ apt-get source mypackage-common
Reading package lists... Done
Picking 'mypackage-meta' as source package instead of 'mypackage-common'
Need to get 24,3 kB of source archives.
Err:1 https://repo.domain.org/private generic/main mypackage-meta 260429.4 (dsc)
401 Unauthorized [IP: $IP 443]
Err:2 https://repo.domain.org/private generic/main mypackage-meta 260429.4 (tar)
401 Unauthorized [IP: $IP 443]
E: Failed to fetch https://repo.domain.org/private/pool/main/r/mypackage-meta/mypackage-meta_260429.4.dsc 401 Unauthorized [IP: $IP 443]
E: Failed to fetch https://repo.domain.org/private/pool/main/r/rl-meta/rl-meta_260429.4.tar.gz 401 Unauthorized [IP: $IP 443]
It turns out, this fails for ordinary users but does work for root
which thinking about it is actually not so surprising, the auth.conf
file is only readable for root. Maybe apt can detect this situation
and show a better warning to the user that they need to sudo so as to
read the credentials file when it exists? "apt download" and "apt
source" work fine for ordinary users for ordinary repos not protected
with an authentication mechanism.
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