xz compressed control.tar files not supported
Affects | Status | Importance | Assigned to | Milestone | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
dpkg (Ubuntu) |
Fix Released
|
Undecided
|
Unassigned | ||
Precise |
Won't Fix
|
Medium
|
Unassigned | ||
Trusty |
Fix Released
|
Medium
|
Adam Conrad |
Bug Description
[impact]
trusty dpkg fails when trying to extract a dpkg source package compressed using xz. This breaks running autopkgtest from bionic with any and all trusty packages.
[test case]
on a bionic system, get any trusty source dpkg and run autopkgtest with it. See comment 11 for an example.
[regression potential]
any changes to dpkg has the potential to break all package changes on the system, which obviously is a serious regression. However, this specific change has been upstream for a very long time. Any breakage would happen when dpkg is either building or extracting a deb.
[other info]
this affects debootstrap as well, as described in the original bug description:
---
trusty's dpkg (1.17.5ubuntu5.7) cannot handle .deb files that contain control.tar files that are compressed using the xz compressor.
Here's an example of such a case when trying to show the contents of a .deb file from bionic's repositories:
dpkg-deb: error: archive './var/
This issue makes it currently impossible to create a bionic environment using debootstrap (currently from trusty-proposed).
I have observed the issue on trusty, precisely on
$ lsb_release -rd
Description: Ubuntu 14.04.5 LTS
Release: 14.04
using
$ apt-cache policy dpkg
dpkg:
Installed: 1.17.5ubuntu5.7
Candidate: 1.17.5ubuntu5.7
Version table:
*** 1.17.5ubuntu5.7 0
500 mirror:
100 /var/lib/
1.
500 http://
1.17.5ubuntu5 0
500 mirror:
tags: | added: trusty |
Changed in dpkg (Ubuntu Precise): | |
status: | Confirmed → Won't Fix |
Changed in dpkg (Ubuntu Trusty): | |
assignee: | nobody → Adam Conrad (adconrad) |
description: | updated |
Changed in dpkg (Ubuntu Trusty): | |
assignee: | Dan Streetman (ddstreet) → Adam Conrad (adconrad) |
Commit c17be3cbfc58e5b 54ae1d5ae471446 0d7ae2e15c from git://anonscm. debian. org/dpkg/ dpkg.git seems to contain a fix.
It can be applied to 1.17.5ubuntu5.7, and I successfully built a package. With said patch applied, xz compressed control.tar files seem to be supported.