release-upgrade-motd can't update message via apt proxy

[Kaneg Gong]

[Impact]
apt proxy settings are not applied to https urls, and thus the release-upgrade-motd script fails, and upgrades from bionic to new versions won't be detected either, if you need to use a proxy. This is a regression from the 1:18.04.6 upload which switched changelogs.ubuntu.com from http to https.

[Test case]
Set acquire::http::proxy to a non-existing host, e.g. http://invalid.invalid/, and check that the tool fails.

Do the same with acquire::https::proxy.

(Kind of a reverse check, since I don't have a proxy setup to test against. If there's an actual proxy and otherwise, no internet, it can be verified by setting the actual proxy and checking that it works with it).

[Regression potential]
The fix changes the API of init_proxy() in UpdateManager/Core/utils.py to make it return a dict with 'http' and 'https' members rather than just a string. It seems the return value is only used by the test case, though, so that should be fine.

Apart from that, it also allows https proxies now, since we're doing https anyway, which means that a proxy setting ignored before now is not. The same applies to the the new proxy variables used - they were not used before, so things might fail that used to work - like you specify an invalid https proxy but don't actually need one. Low risk, though.

[Original bug report]
I have configured apt proxy in apt.conf.d and apt update and apt install can work correctly. However, when I logged in system everyday, in the login message, it says:

Failed to connect to https://changelogs.ubuntu.com/meta-release-lts. Check your Internet connection or proxy settings

After further investigation, I found the the issue is caused in package python3-update-manager:

python3-update-manager: /usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/UpdateManager/Core/utils.py

In the init_proxy function of the python script, it only set a http proxy by below code:

proxy_support = ProxyHandler({"http": proxy})

after changing the line to add https proxy, it can work:

proxy_support = ProxyHandler({"http": proxy, "https":proxy})

[Werner Van Geit (wvangeit)]

I confirm this bug. The fix proposed in the original post fixes the issue.

[Julian Andres Klode (juliank)]

The proposed fix is wrong, it needs to look at https proxy options for https proxies. But that's fine, we can fix that :)

[Ben Smith (benjsmith)]

I have the same problem - my Ubuntu machine can now not connect to the Internet at all as a result.

I tried applying the fix as described, but it didn't fix anything for me..

[Ben Smith (benjsmith)]

In my case, I have not configured anything special in apt.conf.d and apt install *no longer* works.

Looking at a comparable machine on the same network, it doesn't look like it should need any proxy configuration.

[Ben Smith (benjsmith)]

Update: appears related to resolv.conf. I copied the correct network settings into the /etc/resolv.conf, and that fixed the problem, but on reboot resolv.conf had been written into its usual state.

I will update once I've figured out what is writing to resolv.conf on my system.

[Ben Smith (benjsmith)]

We ended up disabling systems-resolv.

In any case, probably not related to this bug, in the end.

[Julian Andres Klode (juliank)]

Merge proposal in https://code.launchpad.net/~juliank/update-manager/lp1771914

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package update-manager - 1:18.10.3

---------------
update-manager (1:18.10.3) cosmic; urgency=medium

  * Add support for HTTPS proxies; this breaks UpdateManager.Core.utils.init_proxy()
    API - the return value is now a dict, rather than a string (LP: #1771914).

 -- Julian Andres Klode <email address hidden> Wed, 27 Jun 2018 14:16:45 +0200

[Robie Basak (racb)]

Hello Kaneg, or anyone else affected,

Accepted update-manager into bionic-proposed. The package will build now and be available at https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/update-manager/1:18.04.11.3 in a few hours, and then in the -proposed repository.

Please help us by testing this new package. See https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Testing/EnableProposed for documentation on how to enable and use -proposed.Your feedback will aid us getting this update out to other Ubuntu users.

If this package fixes the bug for you, please add a comment to this bug, mentioning the version of the package you tested and change the tag from verification-needed-bionic to verification-done-bionic. If it does not fix the bug for you, please add a comment stating that, and change the tag to verification-failed-bionic. In either case, details of your testing will help us make a better decision.

Further information regarding the verification process can be found at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/QATeam/PerformingSRUVerification . Thank you in advance!

[Kaneg Gong (kaneg)]

I have tested the proposed packages as below:
  ii python3-update-manager 1:18.04.11.3 all python 3.x module for update-manager
  ii update-manager-core 1:18.04.11.3 all manage release upgrades

Before applying the new packages, the below command reports:

$ /usr/lib/ubuntu-release-upgrader/check-new-release
Checking for a new Ubuntu release
Failed to connect to https://changelogs.ubuntu.com/meta-release-lts. Check your Internet connection or proxy settings
No new release found.

After applying the patch, it says:

$ /usr/lib/ubuntu-release-upgrader/check-new-release
Checking for a new Ubuntu release
No new release found.

There is no error message anymore. It seems the patch works.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package update-manager - 1:18.04.11.3

---------------
update-manager (1:18.04.11.3) bionic; urgency=medium

  * Add support for HTTPS proxies; this breaks UpdateManager.Core.utils.init_proxy()
    API - the return value is now a dict, rather than a string (LP: #1771914).

 -- Julian Andres Klode <email address hidden> Fri, 29 Jun 2018 14:44:16 +0200

[Łukasz Zemczak (sil2100)]

The verification of the Stable Release Update for update-manager has completed successfully and the package has now been released to -updates. Subsequently, the Ubuntu Stable Release Updates Team is being unsubscribed and will not receive messages about this bug report. In the event that you encounter a regression using the package from -updates please report a new bug using ubuntu-bug and tag the bug report regression-update so we can easily find any regressions.

[Oliver Brakmann (obrakmann)]

This is still broken when you use something like apt-cacher-ng

[Julian Andres Klode (juliank)]

Sorry, obrakmann, but I don't think there's much to do there. I think you could patch acng to always accept HTTPS connections to changelogs.u.c, but I'm not sure I want to pursue that.

[Tapani Tarvainen (ubuntu-tapani)]

apt-cacher-ng can work around this without patching, just add

PassThroughPattern: ^changelogs.ubuntu.com:443$

to /etc/apt-cacher-ng/acng.conf

Perhaps that could even be put in to apt-cacher-ng package?

[Paul Boven (p-boven)]

Using https for changelogs.ubuntu.com breaks both release-update-motd, and ubuntu-release-upgrader-core, when apt-cacher-ng is being used.

The solution in #15 worked for me, and I support the suggestion to add this statement to the default apt-cacher-ng configuration, as it takes a while to figure out what's going wrong.

[Julian Andres Klode (juliank)]

Targetting this to xenial so we can verify that this regression won't happen there when fixing bug 1744318.

[Brian Murray (brian-murray)]

Hello Kaneg, or anyone else affected,

Accepted update-manager into xenial-proposed. The package will build now and be available at https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/update-manager/1:16.04.16 in a few hours, and then in the -proposed repository.

Please help us by testing this new package. See https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Testing/EnableProposed for documentation on how to enable and use -proposed. Your feedback will aid us getting this update out to other Ubuntu users.

If this package fixes the bug for you, please add a comment to this bug, mentioning the version of the package you tested and change the tag from verification-needed-xenial to verification-done-xenial. If it does not fix the bug for you, please add a comment stating that, and change the tag to verification-failed-xenial. In either case, without details of your testing we will not be able to proceed.

Further information regarding the verification process can be found at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/QATeam/PerformingSRUVerification . Thank you in advance for helping!

N.B. The updated package will be released to -updates after the bug(s) fixed by this package have been verified and the package has been in -proposed for a minimum of 7 days.

[Simon Déziel (sdeziel)]

I tried to reproduce the problem on an unpatched Xenial machine but couldn't as it seems that /usr/lib/ubuntu-release-upgrader/check-new-release (from comment #10) doesn't use HTTPS to get to changelogs.ubuntu.com. If someone has clear steps to reproduce on Xenial, I'll be happy to try it out.

[Julian Andres Klode (juliank)]

Yes, you can't reproduce this, the ubuntu-release-upgrader change needs to land first.

[Julian Andres Klode (juliank)]

I actually verified this now, with an even better method: I configured an actual proxy and checked that its log and configured http and https proxies and checked that they were used accordingly.

Versions tested:

# dpkg -l ubuntu-release-upgrader-core update-manager-core
Desired=Unknown/Install/Remove/Purge/Hold
| Status=Not/Inst/Conf-files/Unpacked/halF-conf/Half-inst/trig-aWait/Trig-pend
|/ Err?=(none)/Reinst-required (Status,Err: uppercase=bad)
||/ Name Version Architecture Description
+++-=================================================================-=====================================-=====================================-=======================================================================================================================================
ii ubuntu-release-upgrader-core 1:16.04.27 all manage release upgrades
ii update-manager-core 1:16.04.16 all manage release upgrades

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package update-manager - 1:16.04.16

---------------
update-manager (1:16.04.16) xenial; urgency=medium

  * Use HTTPS for changelogs.ubuntu.com (LP: #1744318)
  * Add support for HTTPS proxies; this breaks UpdateManager.Core.utils.init_proxy()
    API - the return value is now a dict, rather than a string (LP: #1771914).

 -- Julian Andres Klode <email address hidden> Tue, 20 Aug 2019 13:59:31 +0200

[Tormod Volden (tormodvolden)]

I think this xenial update (the change to dict) broke changelog display - please see my patch in #1850208.