Some findings: a) the bug won't manifest itself it bin:landscape-common is not installed (obviously: just to note it's not a dependency of the test, maybe it should be) b) bin:landscape-common's postinst runs update-motd once, which generates the /var/lib/landscape/landscape-sysinfo.cache file c) the landscape-sysinfo motd script checks the age of the cache file. If it's less than 1min old, it WON'T regenerate it, and just display it[1]: stamp="/var/lib/landscape/landscape-sysinfo.cache" NEED_UPDATE="FALSE" [ -z "$(find "$stamp" -newermt 'now-1 minutes' 2> /dev/null)" ] && NEED_UPDATE="TRUE" Given (c), if the debian/tests/show-motd is reached quickly enough, the bug won't manifest itself. This, maybe with (a), might explain why the bug hasn't shown itself since now. To test this, I ran the dep8 tests in a jammy container. First, without any changes, it passed. Then I added a sleep 60s, like so: --- a/debian/tests/show-motd +++ b/debian/tests/show-motd @@ -2,6 +2,9 @@ unset MOTD_SHOWN +echo "Sleeping 60s" +sleep 60 +echo "Continuing" RET=0 bash -i -c '. /etc/profile.d/update-motd.sh' 2> stdout || RET=$? egrep -v '(bash: cannot set terminal process group|no job control in this shell)' stdout >&2 || true And now it fails: autopkgtest [11:05:10]: test show-motd: [----------------------- Sleeping 60s Continuing Welcome to Ubuntu 22.04.3 LTS (GNU/Linux 6.5.0-13-generic x86_64) * Documentation: https://help.ubuntu.com * Management: https://landscape.canonical.com * Support: https://ubuntu.com/advantage .--._ _.--. ( \ / ) \ /\ / \_ \/ _/ / \ ( /\ ) `--' `--' FreedomBox FreedomBox is a pure blend of Debian GNU/Linux. Web interface is available at https://localhost/ . FreedomBox manual is available in /usr/share/doc/freedombox and from the web interface. System information as of Mon Dec 4 14:04:30 UTC 2023 System load: 1.66357421875 Temperature: 76.0 C Usage of /home: unknown Processes: 27 Memory usage: 0% Users logged in: 0 Swap usage: 0% IPv4 address for eth0: 10.0.102.17 If the empty file ~/.hushlogin exists on the server, login to the server will be super quiet. Only the bash prompt is displayed. Expanded Security Maintenance for Applications is not enabled. 0 updates can be applied immediately. Enable ESM Apps to receive additional future security updates. See https://ubuntu.com/esm or run: sudo pro status *** System restart required *** This message is shown once a day. To disable it please create the /home/test/.hushlogin file. /etc/update-motd.d/50-landscape-sysinfo: 17: cannot create /var/lib/landscape/landscape-sysinfo.cache: Permission denied autopkgtest [11:06:11]: test show-motd: -----------------------] autopkgtest [11:06:11]: test show-motd: - - - - - - - - - - results - - - - - - - - - - show-motd FAIL stderr: /etc/update-motd.d/50-landscape-sysinfo: 17: cannot create /var/lib/landscape/landscape-sysinfo.cache: Permission denied autopkgtest [11:06:11]: test show-motd: - - - - - - - - - - stderr - - - - - - - - - - /etc/update-motd.d/50-landscape-sysinfo: 17: cannot create /var/lib/landscape/landscape-sysinfo.cache: Permission denied d) if the cache file is older than 1min, landscape-sysinfo's motd script will attempt to write to it again, regardless if update-motd(8) was called with --show-only or not. I suggest to revert the change in 23.08-0ubuntu2 asap. 1. https://git.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/landscape-client/tree/debian/landscape-sysinfo.wrapper