please drop ifupdown dependency

[Dimitri John Ledkov]

ifupdown is no longer a supported networking management framework in Ubuntu.

Please drop alternative depends on ifupdown from the cloud-init package metadata.

This is evolution of the https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/cloud-init/+bug/1705639

[Christian Ehrhardt  (paelzer)]

IIRC the packaging is tried to be consistent and the same across releases.
Currently it has "netplan.io | ifupdown"

Surely it could be dropped to be only "netplan.io" but that will make backports (slightly) more effort.

This was pulling in ifupdown in the past and no more did so for a while.
Recently the package src:ifupdown2 added a provides: ifupdown
That made it show up again on component mismatches.

I'd have expected that component mismatches would consider things to be "ok if there is a sufficient dependency in main". Instead of "flag it as mismatch if there is any package having a provides".

I talked with doko in the MIR meeting and he first suggested Extra-Excludes but then wanted to discuss that with Colin first to then get back to us.

Options mentioned so far:
1. cloud-init to drop ifupdown dependency and adding it back on backports
2. Add Extra-Excludes to seeds to mask this from being added
3. fix tooling that generates component mismatches to consider "Provides" in a different way

@Doko if you could reply on this bug once you have talked with Colin that would be great

[Dimitri John Ledkov (xnox)]

This has nothing to do with i386-arch removals, and components-missmatches there missfiring. And actually it's a false positive for MIR from that process point of view.

This is a Product decision. Ubuntu no longer supports alternatives to netplan.io for cloud-init. Please remove /any/ alternatives to netplan.io in eoan and up.

[Dimitri John Ledkov (xnox)]

Backporting efforts are not a reason for shipping unsupported packaging in any series. Even if cloud-init didn't have per-series packaging, it would be forced to introduce them now.

Luckily, cloud-init does have per-series packaging branches already anyway as seen on https://code.launchpad.net/cloud-init

[Christian Ehrhardt  (paelzer)]

Oh I didn't know yet that there was misfiring of components-missmatches for i386-arch removals.
I was following the IRC discussion ~6h back from now. Thanks for that clarification.
To copy it here:
[00:47] <xnox> cyphermox: Odd_Bloke: we have removed i386 arch specific packages, yet cloud-init and ifupdown2 are arch:all and it is a bug that they are (a) published in i386 archive (b) used by components mismatches to promote things
[00:48] <xnox> cpaelzer: my bug report was slightly tangential to the components mismatches being buggy.

Ok, with that resolved I agree that >=Eoan we should drop the "| ifupdown" in the depends of cloud-init.

[Joshua Powers (powersj)]

Fix is merged upstream:
https://github.com/canonical/cloud-init/pull/102/files

We will try to do an upload next week.

[Chad Smith (chad.smith)]

Just pushed cloud-init 19.3-74-g129b1c4e-0ubuntu1 to Focal. This should resolve this issue in new focal builds

[Chad Smith (chad.smith)]

will have to await a new SRU to fix Eoan for this

[Chad Smith (chad.smith)]

19.4 is planned next week to SRU to X B D E I believe.