Contents files are not listed with checksums

[Jason Cline]

Binary package hint: debmirror

debmirror 1:2.4.4ubuntu2 from lucid lynx appears to ignore --getcontents.

debmirror's --getcontents option appears to do nothing. --diff=use,none,mirror appear to have no effect on the outcome either. I was expecting Contents-<arch>.gz files in every dist's directory, none of which materialized until I went back to 20070123ubuntu1.

I did some troubleshooting, and found that even forcing add_bytes in the if ($getcontents) block appears to be ignored.

---snip including my added debug output--
Get Packages and Sources files and other miscellany.
dists/dapper/Contents-amd64.gz
dists/dapper/Contents-i386.gz
dists/dapper-proposed/Contents-amd64.gz
dists/dapper-proposed/Contents-i386.gz
dists/dapper-updates/Contents-amd64.gz
dists/dapper-updates/Contents-i386.gz
dists/dapper-security/Contents-amd64.gz
dists/dapper-security/Contents-i386.gz
dists/dapper-backports/Contents-amd64.gz
dists/dapper-backports/Contents-i386.gz
dists/hardy/Contents-amd64.gz
dists/hardy/Contents-i386.gz
dists/hardy-proposed/Contents-amd64.gz
dists/hardy-proposed/Contents-i386.gz
dists/hardy-updates/Contents-amd64.gz
dists/hardy-updates/Contents-i386.gz
dists/hardy-security/Contents-amd64.gz
dists/hardy-security/Contents-i386.gz
dists/hardy-backports/Contents-amd64.gz
dists/hardy-backports/Contents-i386.gz
dists/lucid/Contents-amd64.gz
dists/lucid/Contents-i386.gz
dists/lucid-proposed/Contents-amd64.gz
dists/lucid-proposed/Contents-i386.gz
dists/lucid-updates/Contents-amd64.gz
dists/lucid-updates/Contents-i386.gz
dists/lucid-security/Contents-amd64.gz
dists/lucid-security/Contents-i386.gz
dists/lucid-backports/Contents-amd64.gz
dists/lucid-backports/Contents-i386.gz
Parse Packages and Sources files and add to the file list everything therein.
Download all files that we need to get (0 B).
--snip--

[Tim Edwards (tkedwards)]

I can confirm that this bug is still present in 11.10.

After running debmirror with --getcontents I get:

sudo apt-file update
cp: cannot stat `//home/files/packages/ubuntu/dists/oneiric/Contents-amd64.gz': No such file or directory
cp: cannot stat `//home/files/packages/ubuntu/dists/oneiric-updates/Contents-amd64.gz': No such file or directory
cp: cannot stat `//home/files/packages/ubuntu/dists/oneiric-security/Contents-amd64.gz': No such file or directory

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Patrick Banholzer (patrick-banholzer)]

I can confirm this ... we have the same issue here!

[Steve Atwell (satwell)]

This actually appears to be a problem with the Ubuntu archive, not debmirror. The Release files in the Ubuntu archive are missing hashes for the Contents-* files. E.g., see:

http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/precise/Release

Compare this to a Debian archive's Release file, which *does* list the Contents-* files:

http://archive.debian.org/debian/dists/lenny/Release

I think there's a minor bug here where debmirror should be complaining that it can't find Contents files rather than silently dropping them, but the underlying problem seems to be with the Ubuntu archive.

[Tim Edwards (tkedwards)]

I've emailed <email address hidden> as that's listed as the way to report problems with the mirrors. I'll post here if I get a response from them.

[LaMont Jones (lamont)]

Launchpad generates the contents files, making this bug in launchpad

[Patrick Banholzer (patrick-banholzer)]

can anybody give us an update on this bug?

[Tong Sun (suntong001)]

> can anybody give us an update on this bug?
+1!

I'm building Debian source packages from Perl modules with dh-make-perl, which relies on apt-file for dependencies checking. However,

apt-file update says:

Ignoring source without Contents File:
  http://ppa.launchpad.net/suntong001/ppa/ubuntu/dists/saucy/Contents-amd64.gz

I.e., dh-make-perl dependencies checking for my Perl modules will *always fail*, even I have the dependencies modules in my PPA.

[William Grant (wgrant)]

Tong Sun, that's bug #335161.

[Manuel Vazquez Acosta (mva-led)]

So... Is anyone solving this issue?

Last comment is five months old.

[William Grant (wgrant)]

It's not currently on our roadmap to fix, but Launchpad's open source and we'd be happy to mentor someone to fix it themselves. See https://dev.launchpad.net/ to get started with development.

[Colin Watson (cjwatson)]

This is not quite entirely as trivial as it first looks. Firstly, we need to make sure to put Contents in place before publishing the rest of the archive, rather than the other way round as is done today. Secondly, we need to ensure that if any of a pocket's Contents files have changed then the pocket is marked dirty and hence has its Release file rewritten, which is not straightforwardly the case today. There may be a couple of other subtleties I've missed.

[Launchpad QA Bot (lpqabot)]

Fixed in stable r17407 <http://bazaar.launchpad.net/~launchpad-pqm/launchpad/stable/revision/17407>.

[Colin Watson (cjwatson)]

Note that this fix will take effect from vivid onwards (well, and for non-release suites such as -updates), unless we have some pressing reason to regenerate the Release files for stable releases. To date, we've only done that when we've had to remove packages due to pressing legal reasons.