MAAS complains about commissioning release during initial setup

[Adam Vest]

Hello,

It seems as though MAAS heavily prefers to have Focal available for commissioning new machines, to the extent that it seems to be hard-coded as the default when MAAS is first setup. When one signs in for the first time and gets to the Images page, if they cancel the auto-import of the focal image and start something else (say, jammy), then a red banner at the top will pop up complaining:

"ubuntu focal is configured as the commissioning release but it is not selected for download!"

It's weird that it is throwing an error about something that we have no control over yet anyway, and seems to (incorrectly) suggest that focal is a prerequisite for MAAS to function properly. Going further, these docs[1] state that:

"MAAS chooses the latest Ubuntu LTS release as the default image for commissioning."

So maybe MAAS just needs to be updated on what the latest LTS release is? In any case, I believe MAAS should defer selection of the commissioning release until after the Images page, and instead of demanding focal, select whatever happens to be available from the users choices (preferring focal if that's available and desirable for whatever reason).

While this may sound more like a feature request, I think it's a bug at the least because it's throwing an error about something that the user has no control over yet (setting aside the obvious "just download focal" - maybe the user doesn't need or want it?). If "always focal by default" is a necessity for some reason, then maybe defer the error message until the full dashboard is available to the user?

Thanks!

Running:
root # snap list maas
Name Version Rev Tracking Publisher Notes
maas 3.3.0-13159-g.1c22f7beb 25850 3.3/stable canonical✓ -

[1] https://maas.io/docs/snap/2.7/ui/manage-machine-interfaces

[Anton Troyanov (troyanov)]

We indeed have `focal` hardcoded, while it should be latest LTS as stated in the documentation.

src/provisioningserver/drivers/osystem/ubuntu.py

def get_lts_release(self):
    """Return the latest Ubuntu LTS release."""
    # XXX ltrager 2020-07-28 - Lock the latest LTS release to Focal so
    # we can fully test the next LTS before it becomes the default
    return "focal"

[Peter Mattingly (peter-mattingly)]

I have the same issue.

```
snap list maas

maas 3.3.1-13169-g.94920eb1e 26658 3.3/stable canonical✓ -
```

Also, in settings:

```
Machine settings
Default Ubuntu release used for commissioning

Ubuntu 22.04 LTS "Jammy Jellyfish"
```

So it seems like the preferred "commissioning release" should be set to Jammy; But the error indicates some problem with that?

Edit:

Strangely setting the "Default OS release used for deployment" option to focal seems to have resolved it. Even thought the error mentions "commissioning" rather than deployment? Could the error be incorrect?