[Spacewalk-list] Problems with Debian Stretch on SW 2.7. Can reinstall packages over and over again

[Robert Paschedag]

On 10/16/17 21:25, Paul-Andre Panon wrote:
> On Saturday, October 14, 2017 12:02 AM, Robert Paschedag [mailto:robert.paschedag at web.de] wrote:
>> Am 14. Oktober 2017 01:38:59 MESZ schrieb Paul-Andre Panon <paul-andre.panon at avigilon.com>:
>>> On Fri, 13 Oct 2017 19:17:12, Robert Paschedag
>>>
>>> Hi Robert,
>>>
>>> I can confirm that. I've been experiencing the same thing with Ubuntu
>>> 14 clients last month and Ubuntu 16 clients this month. The python
>>> packages had updated and attempts to update kept on cycling through
>>> with the same packages identified as needing updates, until I went
>>> through and manually copied the Multi-Arch: allowed settings for the
>>> packages that had it (looking at the Packages on the Ubuntu repos). I
>>> was thinking of doing what you propose but I've been to busy to dig
>>> into the code to try to add the Multi-Arch field to the copied data. I
>>> look forward to your changes.
>>>
>>> Paul-Andre Panon
>>> Senior systems administrator
>>>
>> Hi Paul-Andre,
>>
>> the big problem is... "allowed" is not the only value for Multi-Arch. In Debian stretch "main" repo, there are 8979 Packages with "Multi-Arch" header. No way to do that by hand.
> Agreed, but so far I have only had problems with packages where the missing Multi-Arch value is "allowed". Maybe I've just been lucky though. The annoying thing is that, even with the ~couple dozen cases of "Multi-Arch: allowed" in the Ubuntu main and universe repos (mostly from python and the gcc toolchain), every sync wipes out your last set of manual fixes.  When I ran into the problem, I found the clue to a workaround in matus' Jan 30th 2015 comment at http://www.devops-blog.net/spacewalk/registering-ubuntu-and-debian-servers-with-spacewalk, so this isn't a new issue. I'm not happy with his kludgy "fix" though since it also winds up adding that property to many packages where it doesn't apply.
Yeah. I'm also using that workaround from the bugzilla report about the 
missing Multi-Arch headers and in jessie, this really works quite good.
Now, with "stretch", this is just a nightmare. I was so happy, that now 
in SW2.7, the debian version string parsing has been improved and now 
debian has "improved" "apt". But that improvement somehow throws a big 
stick between your legs while you're running at max speed, causing you 
to crash and break with your face on the ground :-P

>
>> Another thing. I hope you can give me a hint. Apt now tries (or even just generates) "binary-all" package files for all "amd64" repos, the client has subscribed.
>> How can I stop that? All "architecture" settings are set to "amd64". Don't know, where this *feature* came from but it looks like breaking my "workaround" I'm trying to implement.
> I'm not sure, we've only been using the 64-bit amd64 images, not the 32-bit i386 images. When I look at the Packages file on the binary-amd64 Ubuntu directory from the closest mirror, there doesn't seem to be a package with something other than Architecture: amd64 . Since we've been all 64-bit it hasn't been an issue for us, and maybe that's why I'm not having any issues with other possible values of Multi-Arch as well.
>
>> Thanks
>> Robert
> Paul-Andre Panon
> Senior systems administrator
>
> Office: 604.629.5182 ext 2341 Mobile: 604.679.1617

I found the "error". It is really because of the "missing" "Release" 
file. If this is found, and there is an "Architectures:" header, the new 
"apt" will download the Packages for this architectures. If the 
"Release" is missing, "apt" will download the Packages for the clients 
configured "architectures" + "all".

This is a new behaviour.

But I think, that this is not my main error. Because I'm still using 
Steve Meier's "debian sync" tool to download and import the debian 
packages, I modified that to create a "temporary" file with the 
"package" name and possible "multi-arch" header, which I can insert, 
after SW has created his own "Packages" file.

But this does not yet work 100%, because there are sometimes more than 
one package with exact same name. I have to improve that and keep trying.

Really the best thing would be, if the "Multi-Arch" header would be 
added to the database. If I'm right, this header is already "present", 
while the .deb files gets parsed but it just gets ignored. And I don't 
know, how much work and modification is needed to fully implement this 
header to every .deb package.

Would be cool, if the main developers of SW could look into that issue 
and I'll really try to support them with as much information as possible 
to get this fixed.

As final information. This is not an error in SW. This is "an 
improvement" in Debian 9, which most of us (and I think most of SW 
developers) just did not get but its a major problem to "manage" debian 
9 with spacewalk.

Robert