Wrong result/count in update-notifier depending of the python version

[Hassan El Jacifi]

Hi Guys,

I have seen a strange behavior regarding the update notifier. Our monitoring system isn't able to show missing updates.

After starting looking closer, the script apt-check is not providing the correct result depending the python version. Changing python from 3 to 2 or changing the shebang solve the issue.

Details:

root@xx ~ # ls -al /usr/bin/pytho*
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 9 Dec 21 2013 /usr/bin/python -> python2.7
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 9 Dec 21 2013 /usr/bin/python2 -> python2.7
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 3345416 Jun 22 2015 /usr/bin/python2.7
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 9 Mar 23 2014 /usr/bin/python3 -> python3.4
-rwxr-xr-x 2 root root 3709944 Oct 14 2015 /usr/bin/python3.4
-rwxr-xr-x 2 root root 3709944 Oct 14 2015 /usr/bin/python3.4m
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 Mar 23 2014 /usr/bin/python3m -> python3.4m

root@xx ~ # /usr/bin/python3 /usr/lib/update-notifier/apt-check
0;0

root@xx ~ # /usr/bin/python2 /usr/lib/update-notifier/apt-check
4;0

root@xx ~ # head /usr/lib/update-notifier/apt-check
#!/usr/bin/python3

#nice apt-get -s -o Debug::NoLocking=true upgrade | grep ^Inst

import apt
import apt_pkg
import os
import sys
from optparse import OptionParser

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 14.04
Package: update-notifier-common 0.154.1ubuntu1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.13.0-53.89-generic 3.13.11-ckt19
Uname: Linux 3.13.0-53-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.14.1-0ubuntu3.21
Architecture: amd64
Date: Wed Jun 22 13:42:22 2016
PackageArchitecture: all
SourcePackage: update-notifier
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

thank you for your bug report, did you forget to include the output for the upgrade command or does it return nothing?

[Steve Langasek (vorlon)]

It seems very unlikely that this bug would be in update-notifier itself, since the python code there is straightforward and only calls into update-manager and python-apt. So the bug is probably in one of those components.

As Seb mentions, the output of an upgrade would be helpful here; and possibly an apt-clone of the affected system.

Is this problem reproducible in 16.04?

[Hassan El Jacifi (waver)]

Hi Guys,

I don't know if the bug affect 16.04 too.

The result is shown after the command apt-check. As you can see when you run it with:
- python3 you have 0,0 that means no package to update.
- python2 you have 4,0 that means 4 packages to update.

Start-Date: 2016-06-22 15:03:38
Commandline: apt dist-upgrade -uV
Upgrade: grub-common:amd64 (2.02~beta2-9ubuntu1.7, 2.02~beta2-9ubuntu1.8), grub2-common:amd64 (2.02~beta2-9ubuntu1.7, 2.02~beta2-9ubuntu1.8), grub-pc-bin:amd64 (2.02~beta2-9ubuntu1.7, 2.02~beta2-9ubuntu1.8), grub-pc:amd64 (2.02~beta2-9ubuntu1.7, 2.02~beta2-9ubuntu1.8)
End-Date: 2016-06-22 15:03:49

[Hassan El Jacifi (waver)]

Hi,

I can reproduce the behavior on xenial.

root@yy:~# /usr/bin/python3 /usr/lib/update-notifier/apt-check
0;0root@yy:~#
root@yy:~# /usr/bin/python2 /usr/lib/update-notifier/apt-check
2;0root@yy:~# lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description: Ubuntu 16.04 LTS
Release: 16.04
Codename: xenial

The following packages will be upgraded:
   linux-firmware (1.157 => 1.157.1)
   lshw (02.17-1.1ubuntu3.1 => 02.17-1.1ubuntu3.2)
2 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 32.8 MB of archives.