[3.1][3.1+snap7] debootstrap missing

[Erich Eickmeyer]

It appears as though debootstrap is now missing from the snap? I'm not sure what changed, but something must have. This shows up regardless of the stable or edge branch:

$ sudo ubuntu-image -v classic -O output/ ubuntu-images/ubuntu-pi-arm64.yaml
[0] parse_image_definition
[1] calculate_states
[2] make_temporary_directories
[3] determine_output_directory
[4] build_gadget_tree
[5] prepare_gadget_tree
[6] load_gadget_yaml
[7] verify_artifact_names
[8] germinate
[9] create_chroot
Error: Error running debootstrap command "/snap/ubuntu-image/658/usr/bin/eatmydata debootstrap --arch arm64 --variant=minbase --components=main,restricted,universe,multiverse noble /tmp/ubuntu-image-17f5da20-2f3d-4398-909a-fd964047066e/chroot http://ports.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-ports/". Error is "exit status 1". Output is:
E: No such script: /snap/ubuntu-image/658/usr/share/debootstrap/scripts/noble

[Erich Eickmeyer (eeickmeyer)]

Got it to work but only after symlinking /root/snap/ubuntu-image/common/usr/sbin/debootstrap to /usr/sbin/debootstrap and /root/snap/ubuntu-image/common/usr/share/debootstrap to /usr/share/debootstrap, but this is far from a long-term solution.

[Paul Mars (upils)]

Based on the path in the error it looks like you ran the currently 3.1 stable version, on an arm64 based machine (a raspi I suppose?). Can you try with the version in edge? (3.1+snap7)

[Erich Eickmeyer (eeickmeyer)]

This was after trying both, per the description.

[Steve Langasek (vorlon)]

E: No such script: /snap/ubuntu-image/658/usr/share/debootstrap/scripts/noble

It is correct that this script does not exist. What is incorrect is that something is looking for it. debootstrap 1.0.128+nmu2ubuntu3 requirement for per-release scripts for Ubuntu, and also removed the script symlinks.

So debootstrap should fall back to invoking /usr/share/debootstrap/scripts/gutsy, UNLESS the command `distro-info --series noble` fails.

The debootstrap package depends on distro-info, which in turn depends on distro-info-data.

But looking at snap 3.1+snap7 on amd64, I see that /snap/ubuntu-image/current/usr/share/distro-info is absent, so something may be wrong with the snap build, across architectures? /snap/ubuntu-image/current/snap/manifest.yaml lists distro-info=1.1ubuntu0.2 but does not list distro-info-data.

However, I cannot reproduce the reported failure with revision 696 on mantic/amd64; as a classic snap it is unsurprising that it is using /usr/share/distro-info from the host system. Erich, do you have outdated distro-info-data in your environment?

Ideally the snap would not depend on distro-info-data from the host system any more than it does debootstrap from the host system. But that would require funny mount business and I don't know to what extent that's supported in classic snaps.

[Paul Mars (upils)]

> But that would require funny mount business

What do you mean? We could add distro-info-data to stage-packages and be done with it, no?

[Steve Langasek (vorlon)]

On Wed, Jan 17, 2024 at 08:00:47AM -0000, Paul Mars wrote:
> What do you mean? We could add distro-info-data to stage-packages and be
> done with it, no?

distro-info hard-codes the path /usr/share/distro-info for its lookups.
Because this is a classic snap, when run, distro-info will not see
/usr/share/distro-info within the snap at /usr/share/distro-info - it will
be exposed in the VFS only at
/snap/ubuntu-image/current/usr/share/distro-info. So even if it's present,
distro-info won't find it.

This is why `distro-info` *ever* works at all today within the ubuntu-image
snap, since /snap/ubuntu-image/current/usr/share/distro-info is currently
empty and would otherwise cause a failure!

--
Steve Langasek Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS
Debian Developer to set it on, and I can move the world.
Ubuntu Developer https://www.debian.org/
<email address hidden> <email address hidden>

[Paul Mars (upils)]

> Erich, do you have outdated distro-info-data in your environment?

Erich, did you check on this?

Steve, would it be acceptable to submit a MP to distro-info to use a flag or an env var to prefix (or replace) the path of the distro-info data dir (/usr/share/distro-info)? We could then define this env var in snapcraft.yaml and so only use the distro-info shipped into the snap.

[Erich Eickmeyer (eeickmeyer)]

Honestly, I'm not having this problem anymore. https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-cdimage/+livefs/ubuntu/noble/edubuntu-preinstalled/

[Steve Langasek (vorlon)]

> Steve, would it be acceptable to submit a MP to distro-info to use a flag
> or an env var to prefix (or replace) the path of the distro-info data dir
> (/usr/share/distro-info)?

It's certainly acceptable to propose! It'll be up to the maintainer to decide whether to accept such a patch

[Paul Mars (upils)]

Erich: OK, good news. But the underlying issue remains so I will set this bug as low priority.

Steve: cool. I will talk about it with bdrung, thanks.

[Benjamin Drung (bdrung)]

A patch for distro-info to make the distro-info data dir configurable will be accepted by at least one of the distro-info maintainers.