apt repository in proposed packages availability issue

[Chris Valean]

We have a watcher that does the following:
- verifies if any linux-azure kernels have been published in proposed repo.
- if it detects one, it will install.

The problem we have is that even though we detect a new kernel in proposed, the installation of it will fail as there are unmet package dependencies not being available.
This does resolve after several hours, but the way it works is not reliable that we see the main package being available, but the packages in the repo are not ready yet.
So it seems to be a timing issue from the time the kernel is released, and the time the packages actual get on the repo.

Can you please suggest on some methods to better handle the detect & install for these, or some suggestions to how we do this from below.

How we search for new kernel availability from proposed:
#apt-cache madison linux-azure | grep ${release}-proposed

But doing an install right after that will fail most of the times if the kernel was just published:
#apt clean all
#apt -y update
#apt install linux-azure/$release
^ this is after we add the proposed repo in sources.list.

Actual error in the end:
linux-azure : Depends: linux-image-azure (= 4.15.0.1034.34) but 4.15.0.1030.30
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.

This is observed on all LTS versions.

[Ubuntu Kernel Bot (ubuntu-kernel-bot)]

This bug is missing log files that will aid in diagnosing the problem. While running an Ubuntu kernel (not a mainline or third-party kernel) please enter the following command in a terminal window:

apport-collect 1805849

and then change the status of the bug to 'Confirmed'.

If, due to the nature of the issue you have encountered, you are unable to run this command, please add a comment stating that fact and change the bug status to 'Confirmed'.

This change has been made by an automated script, maintained by the Ubuntu Kernel Team.

[Joseph Salisbury (jsalisbury)]

I received information that this is how -proposed works for kernels. It appears you are trying to install the kernel before the signing bits are done.

What needs to be done, is to wait until all of the consistent sets are published. Waiting for linux-signed-azure to be completely published for _binaries_ would work.

Does this help?

[Chris Valean (cvalean)]

We have worked around this by doing dry test installs of azure kernel inside containers, and wait until that is successfully getting installed.
We also tried to look for a set of packages for linux-azure - from linux-azure, headers, image, but that also didn't help.

I wasn't aware of linux-signed-azure, which isn't installed by default.
We can close this, thank you!