ubuntu-advantage-tools ' MOTD is incompatible with Ubuntu Legal's MOTD opt-out directions.

Bug #1956115 reported by wontfix
8
This bug affects 1 person
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
ubuntu-advantage-tools (Ubuntu)
Expired
Undecided
Unassigned

Bug Description

https://ubuntu.com/legal/motd

This file does not exist in Jammy 22.04.

This wouldn't be a problem if it was actually removable without having to build custom metapackages.

wontfix (wontfix)
summary: - ubuntu-advantage-tools ' MOTD is incompatible with Ubuntu Legal MOTD opt
- out instructions
+ ubuntu-advantage-tools ' MOTD is incompatible with Ubuntu Legal MOTD
+ opt-out directions.
summary: - ubuntu-advantage-tools ' MOTD is incompatible with Ubuntu Legal MOTD
+ ubuntu-advantage-tools ' MOTD is incompatible with Ubuntu Legal's MOTD
opt-out directions.
wontfix (wontfix)
affects: ubuntu-meta (Ubuntu) → ubuntu-advantage-tools (Ubuntu)
affects: ubuntu-meta (Ubuntu) → base-files (Ubuntu)
tags: added: rls-jj-incoming
Revision history for this message
Brian Murray (brian-murray) wrote :

Its not clear to me what exactly the bug you are reporting is about. The file '/etc/default/motd-news-config' is provided by the package motd-news-config which in turn is part of the cloud-image, server, and ubuntu-server-raspi packages. If that package is not installed then the file will not exist and you should not see the motd-news message. The opt out directions to which you have linked say the following "The motd-news portion is highlighted in green, the other pieces of the MOTD are informational only and do not reach out to the internet for any information". Could you please elaborate on what you want this bug to be about?

tags: removed: rls-jj-incoming
Changed in base-files (Ubuntu):
status: New → Incomplete
Changed in ubuntu-advantage-tools (Ubuntu):
status: New → Incomplete
Revision history for this message
wontfix (wontfix) wrote (last edit ):

/etc/default/motd-news as outlined in the link
"/etc/default/motd-news has an ENABLED=1 setting that if set to 0 will turn off this functionality."

The file no longer exists by default. This would be required to change the ENABLED variable from 1 to 0.
/etc/update-motd.d/50-motd-news notes the same thing in the code comments.
The directions or pulled location are wrong. ubuntu-advantage-tools requires MOTD which itself it does not control, both of which are not removable as they are dependencies of ubuntu-desktop-minimal. Subsequently there are forced hooks for MOTD and Apt for something most desktop users aren't using with the inability to opt out in the way it is listed.

The reason why this matters is a disabled service through systemd will then be enabled. By doing so it procs the running of said MOTD service which does reach out to the internet. The only certain option is to mask the services and timers entirely.

Since introduction, the totality of these files went from roughly 60-260KB in total to 3+MB.

Revision history for this message
Launchpad Janitor (janitor) wrote :

[Expired for base-files (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]

Changed in base-files (Ubuntu):
status: Incomplete → Expired
Revision history for this message
Launchpad Janitor (janitor) wrote :

[Expired for ubuntu-advantage-tools (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]

Changed in ubuntu-advantage-tools (Ubuntu):
status: Incomplete → Expired
Revision history for this message
Steve Langasek (vorlon) wrote :

You did respond to the questions so this should not have expired out. However, your answers beget more questions so I will be setting this back to incomplete.

> /etc/default/motd-news as outlined in the link
> "/etc/default/motd-news has an ENABLED=1 setting that if set to 0 will turn off this functionality."

> The file no longer exists by default. This would be required to change the ENABLED variable from 1 to 0.

The file did exist by default in the focal release, but the changes in LP: #1888575 were SRUed such that this file also does not exist on an up-to-date Desktop system of a previous Ubuntu release - only on an Ubuntu Server system.

> The directions or pulled location are wrong. ubuntu-advantage-tools requires MOTD which
> itself it does not control, both of which are not removable as they are dependencies of
> ubuntu-desktop-minimal. Subsequently there are forced hooks for MOTD and Apt for
> something most desktop users aren't using with the inability to opt out in the way it is listed.

So your objection is in the context of Ubuntu Desktop, not Server?

> The reason why this matters is a disabled service through systemd will then be enabled. By
> doing so it procs the running of said MOTD service which does reach out to the internet.
> The only certain option is to mask the services and timers entirely.

I do not understand what this refers to, because the /lib/systemd/system/motd-news.service service calls /etc/update-motd.d/50-motd-news, which does nothing if the file /etc/default/motd-news does not exist. This is the case on Desktop systems. So can you clarify what it is that is running that you think should not be?

Changed in base-files (Ubuntu):
status: Expired → Incomplete
wontfix (wontfix)
no longer affects: base-files (Ubuntu)
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