touch-packages team mailing list archive

[Robie Basak <1433761@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make
Ubuntu better.

I understand why you expected apt-key and add-apt-repository to use the
proxy you defined with Acquire::http::proxy in /etc/apt. But I'm not
sure this is the only interpretation.

I expect "Acquire::http::proxy" to define the proxy for the apt
repository itself. But apt-key and add-apt-repository don't actually
access apt repositories at all - they access other metadata sources to
set apt up instead. When configuring an "apt proxy", I might have even
denied access to everything except to apt repositories themselves, and
so apt-key and add-apt-repository wouldn't work in this case anyway.

Instead, I'd expect http_proxy and https_proxy environment variables to
be used instead for these tools. But I believe (this needs to be
checked) that add-apt-repository will need https to access Launchpad,
and both tools need keyserver access which can't easily be proxied (they
access a port most proxies wouldn't allow).

> The long time this issue has been standing and has affected people

Any difficulty with using add-apt-repository and/or apt-key via a proxy
- reasonable. But that Acquire::http::proxy didn't configure apt-key and
add-apt-repository - I'm not convinced, for reasons above. This is the
first bug that I'm aware of that has mentioned this.

I understand the need to for proxy support for these tools for
environments where direct access cannot be permitted. Maybe in this case
only a socks proxy would do.

In any case, I think further discussion is needed, and piecemeal fixes
will exacerbate the problem by adding confusion. I think this needs to
be a blueprint-level item to fix behind-firewall-proxy-access for
standard server/Openstack deployments that covers all use cases (cloud
images, apt, keyserver, utilities like add-apt-repository) in a standard
way.

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1433761

Title:
  apt-key and add-apt-repository don't honor Acquire::http::Proxy

Status in software-properties package in Ubuntu:
  New

Bug description:
  When setting the proxy server globally on the system for the APT
  package manager, add-apt-repository ignores the setting. This issue is
  present on all versions of Debian that I have tested.

  # cat /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/80proxy 
  Acquire::http::proxy "http://w.x.y.z:nnnn/";;

  # apt-key adv --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys 5A9A06AEF9CB8DB0
  Executing: gpg --ignore-time-conflict --no-options --no-default-keyring --homedir /tmp/tmp.TIa517Kcw8 --no-auto-check-trustdb --trust-model always --keyring /etc/apt/trusted.gpg --primary-keyring /etc/apt/trusted.gpg --keyring /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/debian-archive-squeeze-automatic.gpg --keyring /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/debian-archive-squeeze-stable.gpg --keyring /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/debian-archive-wheezy-automatic.gpg --keyring /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/debian-archive-wheezy-stable.gpg --keyring /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/saltstack-salt.gpg --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys 5A9A06AEF9CB8DB0
  gpg: requesting key F9CB8DB0 from hkp server keyserver.ubuntu.com
  gpg: keyserver timed out
  gpg: keyserver receive failed: keyserver error

  This has serious repercussions. Unattended installs such as juju,
  maas, etc are all affected for anyone who is working behind a proxy.
  This is the case for most enterprise environments where such maas and
  juju setups will be tested out, and as such has great repercussions
  for Canonical as a viable supplier of OpenStack environments: if your
  product fails to install, you're not going to get the business.

  Considering that:

  * The setting to use already exists in /etc/apt/apt.conf and that all other tools use this correctly
  * The serious impact of this issue for downstream projects and Debian usage in the enterprise
  * The long time this issue has been standing and has affected people

  I suggest that this either

  1) be fixed, or
  2) the apt-key and add-apt-repository programs are renamed so that it is made clear they are not part of the APT suite of programs and therefor cannot be trusted to behave as if they were part of APT.

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