Package: apt Version: 0.8.10 Control: severity -1 important Hi,
lately this bug prevented two of my Sqeeze/LTS machines from updating some packages. The other Squeeze/LTS machines updated just fine. apt-get update reported: WARNING: The following packages cannot be authenticated! Of course, I did not install the unauthenticed packages. The root cause for this problem was the existence of a partial "Release" file in /var/lib/apt/lists/partial/. The apt version in question is 0.8.10. I'd say this is a security bug, because it prevents installation of security updates. This is a long-standing, security relevant bug in a Debian specific package. This should not happen. :-( The obvious solution is for 'apt-get update' to retrieve fresh versions of every partial list and replace the old partial list if a complete list could be downloaded. As an optimization apt may try to continue from the partial list, but if that should fail for any reason, it needs to start a fresh download of the complete list. This must be done automatically. In addition, bug #762891 should be fixed as well, because partial lists are just a kind of cache. Perhaps the location of the partial Release files should be moved to /var/cache/apt/lists/partial/ to clearly show that. The non-obvious workaround for this bug is # rm /var/lib/apt/lists/partial/* # apt-get update That should not be necessary. Neither should be 'apt-get clean' (with a fix for #762891). Apt itself should handle this situation safely and automatically. The bug is easily reproducible by placing incomplete Realease lists inside the /var/lib/apt/lists/partial/ directory. Please fix this bug. Thanks, Erik -- Dipl.-Inform. Erik Auerswald http://www.fg-networking.de/ auersw...@fg-networking.de T:+49-631-4149988-0 M:+49-176-64228513 Gesellschaft für Fundamental Generic Networking mbH Geschäftsführung: Volker Bauer, Jörg Mayer Gerichtsstand: Amtsgericht Kaiserslautern - HRB: 3630 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-bugs-dist-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
