Not able to set an empty --root option

[Boris]

# lsb_release -rd
Description: Ubuntu 14.04.5 LTS
Release: 14.04

debmirror:
  Installiert: 1:2.16ubuntu1.1
  Installationskandidat: 1:2.16ubuntu1.1
  Versionstabelle:
 *** 1:2.16ubuntu1.1 0
        500 http://xxx/ubuntu/ trusty-updates/universe amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
     1:2.16ubuntu1 0
        500 http://xxx/ubuntu/ trusty/universe amd64 Packages

Following command will be executed:
debmirror /srv/debmirror/puppet \
 --method=http \
 --nosource \
 --root=/ \
 --host=apt.puppetlabs.com \
 --dist=trusty,precise \
 --section=main \
 --arch=amd64,i386 \
 --check-gpg \
 --verbose \
 --keyring=/home/debmirror/.gnupg/pubring.gpg \
 --postcleanup \
 --rsync-extra=none \
 2>&1 | egrep -v '(Warning: --rsync-extra is not configured to mirror the trace files|This configuration is not recommended)'

And gives the following error:
Mirroring to /srv/debmirror/puppet from http://apt.puppetlabs.com//
Arches: amd64,i386
Dists: trusty,precise
Sections: main
Pdiff mode: use
Will clean up after mirroring.
Attempting to get lock ...
Getting meta files ...
[ 0%] Getting: dists/trusty/Release... failed 404 Not Found
[ 0%] Getting: dists/precise/Release... failed 404 Not Found
Errors:
 Download of dists/trusty/Release failed: 404 Not Found
 Download of dists/precise/Release failed: 404 Not Found
Failed to download some Release or Release.gpg files!
WARNING: releasing 1 pending lock...

---
The Problem is, there is no option to unset --root, because it defaults to /ubuntu.
If you try to fetch the file http://apt.puppetlabs.com//dists/trusty/Release you will get an 404 error.
If you fetch http://apt.puppetlabs.com/dists/trusty/Release you will get the content.

At first I would say "The puppet repo is a broken piece of ..." but it would be nice to set it empty. I also tried to set --root=. but this expands to http://apt.puppetlabs.com/./dists/trusty/Release witch works with curl but not with debmirror.

Any suggestions?

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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

[Joel Smith (dalesit)]

It is possible to override the --root option by creating an /etc/debmirror.conf file with the appropriate entry to override the default:

# Taken from /usr/share/doc/debmirror/examples/debmirror.conf
$remoteroot="";
# The config file must return true or perl complains.
# Always copy this.
1;

However, debmirror still fails to mirror the puppet repo, trying to download:

http://apt.puppetlabs.com//dists/trusty/Release

still with a // in the URL, which generates a 404 error in a browser as well.

[Joel Smith (dalesit)]

It is possible to bypass the default root entry by creating /etc/debmirror.conf with the following entry:

# Taken from /usr/share/doc/debmirror/examples/debmirror.conf
$remoteroot="";
# The config file must return true or perl complains.
# Always copy this.
1;

However, debmirror still fails with a 404 error as it tries to download

http://apt.puppetlabs.com//dists/trusty/Release => 404 Not Found

still with a double // in the URL, which also generates a 404 when tried in a browser

[Boris (kervyn)]

Ah ok,
thanks for the input.

We switched to rsync for puppet. See: https://gist.github.com/KervyN/be6ee207792a08d757e939d436c5aa58

[Benjamin (popibrossard)]

Hello,

Personally, I modified the /usr/bin/debmirror script:

sed -i 's#$remoteroot/#$remoteroot#g' /usr/bin/debmirror
sed -i 's#${remoteroot}/#${remoteroot}#g' /usr/bin/debmirror
sed -i '/^$remoteroot =~.*/i $remoteroot =~ s|/?$|/| ;' /usr/bin/debmirror

For some explanation, if you want to understand, I'm just including the final '/' inside the $remoteroot variable, and adding it automatically if it wasn't at the end of the string ( "ubuntu" became "ubuntu/"). If the variable is empty, the line 793 "$remoteroot =~ s%^[:/]%% unless downloads_via_file();" will remove my extra "/" ("" => "/" => "").
I don't know if it's the best way to do this in perl, but it does the work. In case it can help / save time to somebody.
I'm not proposing a pull request because I don't know how package management works and don't want to do something wrong.

[Benjamin (popibrossard)]

Sorry, little mistake in my previous comment,
it's not:
sed -i '/^$remoteroot =~.*/i $remoteroot =~ s|/?$|/| ;' /usr/bin/debmirror
But:
sed -i '/^$remoteroot =~.*/i $remoteroot =~ s|\/?$|\/| ;' /usr/bin/debmirror

[Jean-Christophe (kibidouil-i)]

Hi, i've got the same issue with Ubuntu 22.04.1 LTS.

My patch :

$ diff -u /usr/bin/debmirror.old /usr/bin/debmirror
--- /usr/bin/debmirror.old 2022-08-11 13:42:34.104000000 +0200
+++ /usr/bin/debmirror 2022-08-11 13:49:24.384000000 +0200
@@ -600,6 +600,7 @@
 use if $] lt "5.022", "Net::INET6Glue";
 use Net::FTP;
 use LWP::UserAgent;
+use URI ();

 our $version="1:2.36ubuntu1";

@@ -856,12 +857,12 @@
 $|=1 if $debug;
 if ($passwd eq "anonymous@") {
   if (downloads_via_http()) {
- say("Mirroring to $mirrordir from $download_method://$host/$remoteroot/");
+ say("Mirroring to $mirrordir from ", URI->new_abs($remoteroot, "$download_method://$host"));
   } else {
- say("Mirroring to $mirrordir from $download_method://$user\@$host/$remoteroot/");
+ say("Mirroring to $mirrordir from ", URI->new_abs($remoteroot, "$download_method://$user\@$host"));
   }
 } else {
- say("Mirroring to $mirrordir from $download_method://$user:XXX\@$host/$remoteroot/");
+ say("Mirroring to $mirrordir from ", URI->new_abs($remoteroot, "$download_method://$user:XXX\@$host"));
 }
 say("Arches: ".join(",", @arches));
 say("Dists: ".join(",", @dists));
@@ -1796,10 +1797,10 @@
   my $file=shift;
   my $url;
   if ($user eq 'anonymous'){
- $url="$download_method://${host}/${remoteroot}/${file}";
+ $url = URI->new_abs("${remoteroot}/${file}", "$download_method://$host");
   }
   else {
- $url="$download_method://${user}:${passwd}\@${host}/${remoteroot}/${file}";
+ $url = URI->new_abs("${remoteroot}/${file}", "$download_method://${user}:${passwd}\@$host");
   }
   my $ret=1;

[Jean-Christophe (kibidouil-i)]

Oops!

Sorry, something just went wrong in Launchpad.

We’ve recorded what happened, and we’ll fix it as soon as possible. Apologies for the inconvenience.

If you report this as a bug, please include the error ID below, preferably by copying and pasting it rather than by taking a screenshot.

(Error ID: OOPS-cdfd6f23868dac26ead11b923923f0ba)

-> Can't attach the patch

[Sven (sacredsheep)]

Hi, I'm also affected by this (debmirror 1:2.36ubuntu1 on Ubuntu 22.04.1 LTS)

Is there any timeline when this be fixed?