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I can second this.
> apticron report [Thu, 08 Oct 2009 18:59:18 +0000]
> ========================================================================
> apticron has detected that some packages need upgrading on:
> amanita.mayfirst.org
> [ 209.234.249.215 ]
> The following packages are currently pending an upgrade:
> dash 0.5.4-12
> diffutils 1:2.8.1-18
> ========================================================================
>
> Package Details:
> Reading changelogs...
> apt-listchanges: didn't find any valid .deb archives
We, the admins of this Debian 5.0.3 server, kept receiving apticron
generated emails of not up-to-date packages, even after 'aptitude
update' and 'aptitude dist-upgrade'. So I looked at
/var/log/apt/term.log* and
/var/log/aptitude* and found that dash and diffutils are not installed
now and have not been installed, removed/purged or upgraded within the
log period (which reaches back until April this year). This would also
explain why apt-listchanges reports, in the apticron emails: "didn't
find any valid .deb archives". These packages are simply not installed.
So apticron was reporting packages to be pending an upgrade which were
not even installed, namely dash and diffutils. This looked like a bug to
me. So I found this bug report: #531002
Contained in this bug report is a suggestion to run this:
apt-get --ignore-hold dist-upgrade -y -s
This simulates (-s) a dist-upgrade overriding the 'hold' state of any
packages (--ignore-hold), if any, and skips any on screen prompts (-y).
Running this on amanita (after 'aptitude update') does in fact output:
>> The following NEW packages will be installed:
>> dash diffutils
The same output is generated when running just
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
When running
sudo aptitude dist-upgrade
it does, however, not list any packages to be installed and will just quit.
This is even though these packages are also not in any special state
(such as 'hold' or 'forbid'). So I assume dash and diffutils are
actually dependencies of some other packages we have installed, or apt
is buggy or something... It is strange that apt and aptitude would
report different results, though. And by this time we can supposedly
tell that apticron is not the one package acting incorrectly here.
Looking into dependencies, aptitude reports only one revserse dependency
for 'diffutils', namely 'diff'. So it claims that 'diff' is the only
package which would require 'diffutils' to be installed. And 'diff' is
not installed either.
Reverse dependencies for 'dash' are slightly more complex, but according
to aptitude, none of its reverse dependencies are installed either.
I'm somewhat puzzled.
* Why does "apt-get dist-upgrade" report that dash and diffutils need to
be installed?
* Why does "apt-get dist-upgrade" report something different than
"aptitude dist-upgrade"
$ apt-cache policy
Package files:
100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
release a=now
800 http://security.debian.org testing/updates/non-free Packages
release v=None,o=Debian,a=testing,l=Debian-Security,c=non-free
origin security.debian.org
800 http://security.debian.org testing/updates/contrib Packages
release v=None,o=Debian,a=testing,l=Debian-Security,c=contrib
origin security.debian.org
800 http://security.debian.org testing/updates/main Packages
release v=None,o=Debian,a=testing,l=Debian-Security,c=main
origin security.debian.org
900 http://security.debian.org stable/updates/non-free Packages
release v=5.0,o=Debian,a=stable,l=Debian-Security,c=non-free
origin security.debian.org
900 http://security.debian.org stable/updates/contrib Packages
release v=5.0,o=Debian,a=stable,l=Debian-Security,c=contrib
origin security.debian.org
900 http://security.debian.org stable/updates/main Packages
release v=5.0,o=Debian,a=stable,l=Debian-Security,c=main
origin security.debian.org
800 http://mintaka.redetoile.net testing/non-free Packages
release o=Debian,a=testing,l=Debian,c=non-free
origin mintaka.redetoile.net
800 http://mintaka.redetoile.net testing/contrib Packages
release o=Debian,a=testing,l=Debian,c=contrib
origin mintaka.redetoile.net
800 http://mintaka.redetoile.net testing/main Packages
release o=Debian,a=testing,l=Debian,c=main
origin mintaka.redetoile.net
900 http://mintaka.redetoile.net stable/non-free Packages
release v=5.0.3,o=Debian,a=stable,l=Debian,c=non-free
origin mintaka.redetoile.net
900 http://mintaka.redetoile.net stable/contrib Packages
release v=5.0.3,o=Debian,a=stable,l=Debian,c=contrib
origin mintaka.redetoile.net
900 http://mintaka.redetoile.net stable/main Packages
release v=5.0.3,o=Debian,a=stable,l=Debian,c=main
origin mintaka.redetoile.net
Pinned packages:
$
$ cat /etc/apt/preferences
Package: *
Pin: release a=stable
Pin-Priority: 900
Package: *
Pin: release a=testing
Pin-Priority: 800
$
$ cat /etc/debian_version
5.0.3
$
$ uname -a
Linux amanita 2.6.26-2-vserver-amd64 #1 SMP Wed Aug 19 23:56:39 UTC 2009
x86_64 GNU/Linux
$
$ dpkg -l diffutils dash
No packages found matching diffutils.
No packages found matching dash.
$
$ grep -E '^Package: (dash|diffutils)' /var/lib/dpkg/status
$
Please let me know if you need any further information.
Alster
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