touch-packages team mailing list archive

[Ingolf Becker <1267059@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

For some reason the unattended upgrades script is very picky about which
packages are to be removed. It tries to auto-remove only those packages
that have been made redundant by the current set of updates. However,
installing a new kernel does not make any previous kernel version
redundant automatically - a separate script (/etc/kernel/postinst.d/apt-
auto-removal) is run after kernel upgrades that marks all but the two
most recent kernels as 'auto-removable'.

I am not sure that the current behaviour can be described as expected or
intended - the original author clearly does not trust that what apt
thinks is unused (and therefore removable) is unused in reality. He is
trying to work around the possibility of having `apt-get auto-remove`
break running systems.

Really, there should be two changes: Change the documentation for
`Remove-Unused-Dependencies`, and adding a switch that will always
remove kernels that have been marked as `auto-removable`. For those
people that are happy to have `apt-get auto-remove` automatically, there
is the `APT::Periodic::AutocleanInterval` variable in
/etc/apt/apt.conf.d/10periodic. (Which should really be documented
too...)

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1267059

Title:
  "Unattended-Upgrade::Remove-Unused-Dependencies" does not work

Status in unattended-upgrades package in Ubuntu:
  Triaged

Bug description:
  I have a system that runs unattended-upgrades just fine. Now i want to
  automate removal of old kernels and kernel header packages that are
  accumulating otherwise. So i set 'Unattended-Upgrade::Remove-Unused-
  Dependencies "true";'. But it doesn't work.

  ----
  Details: Lots of stuff pending autoremoval:

  $ apt-get --assume-no autoremove 
  Reading package lists... Done
  Building dependency tree       
  Reading state information... Done
  The following packages will be REMOVED
    linux-headers-3.2.0-38 linux-headers-3.2.0-38-generic linux-headers-3.2.0-39 linux-headers-3.2.0-39-generic linux-headers-3.2.0-40 linux-headers-3.2.0-40-generic linux-headers-3.2.0-41 linux-headers-3.2.0-41-generic linux-headers-3.2.0-43 linux-headers-3.2.0-43-generic linux-headers-3.2.0-44 linux-headers-3.2.0-44-generic linux-headers-3.2.0-45 linux-headers-3.2.0-45-generic linux-headers-3.2.0-48 linux-headers-3.2.0-48-generic linux-headers-3.2.0-51 linux-headers-3.2.0-51-generic linux-headers-3.2.0-52 linux-headers-3.2.0-52-generic linux-headers-3.2.0-53 linux-headers-3.2.0-53-generic linux-headers-3.2.0-54 linux-headers-3.2.0-54-generic linux-headers-3.2.0-55 linux-headers-3.2.0-55-generic linux-headers-3.2.0-56 linux-headers-3.2.0-56-generic linux-image-3.2.0-39-generic linux-image-3.2.0-40-generic linux-image-3.2.0-41-generic linux-image-3.2.0-43-generic linux-image-3.2.0-44-generic linux-image-3.2.0-45-generic linux-image-3.2.0-48-generic linux-image-3.2.0-51-generic linux-image-3.2.0-52-generic linux-image-3.2.0-53-generic linux-image-3.2.0-54-generic linux-image-3.2.0-55-generic linux-image-3.2.0-56-generic
  0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 41 to remove and 13 not upgraded.
  After this operation, 2,893 MB disk space will be freed.
  Do you want to continue [Y/n]? N
  Abort.

  Note that the majority of these packages have been installed by
  unattended-upgrades from precise-security.

  According to the comments within/etc/apt/apt.conf.d/50unattended-
  upgrades, this should automate autoremoval:

    // Do automatic removal of new unused dependencies after the upgrade
    // (equivalent to apt-get autoremove)
    Unattended-Upgrade::Remove-Unused-Dependencies "true";

  but nothing happens (note the line "Packages that are auto removed: ''
  ":

  $ unattended-upgrades --debug --dry-run
  Initial blacklisted packages: 
  Starting unattended upgrades script
  Allowed origins are: ['o=Ubuntu,a=precise-security']
  adjusting candidate version: '<Version: package:'accountsservice' version:'0.6.15-2ubuntu9.6.1'>'
  adjusting candidate version: '<Version: package:'libaccountsservice0' version:'0.6.15-2ubuntu9.6.1'>'
  adjusting candidate version: '<Version: package:'libdrm-intel1' version:'2.4.43-0ubuntu0.0.3'>'
  adjusting candidate version: '<Version: package:'libdrm-nouveau1a' version:'2.4.43-0ubuntu0.0.3'>'
  adjusting candidate version: '<Version: package:'libdrm-radeon1' version:'2.4.43-0ubuntu0.0.3'>'
  adjusting candidate version: '<Version: package:'libdrm2' version:'2.4.43-0ubuntu0.0.3'>'
  Checking: bc (["<Origin component:'main' archive:'precise-updates' origin:'Ubuntu' label:'Ubuntu' site:'gb.archive.ubuntu.com' isTrusted:True>"])
  Checking: grub-common (["<Origin component:'main' archive:'precise-updates' origin:'Ubuntu' label:'Ubuntu' site:'gb.archive.ubuntu.com' isTrusted:True>"])
  Checking: grub-pc (["<Origin component:'main' archive:'precise-updates' origin:'Ubuntu' label:'Ubuntu' site:'gb.archive.ubuntu.com' isTrusted:True>"])
  Checking: grub-pc-bin (["<Origin component:'main' archive:'precise-updates' origin:'Ubuntu' label:'Ubuntu' site:'gb.archive.ubuntu.com' isTrusted:True>"])
  Checking: grub2-common (["<Origin component:'main' archive:'precise-updates' origin:'Ubuntu' label:'Ubuntu' site:'gb.archive.ubuntu.com' isTrusted:True>"])
  Checking: iproute (["<Origin component:'main' archive:'precise-updates' origin:'Ubuntu' label:'Ubuntu' site:'gb.archive.ubuntu.com' isTrusted:True>"])
  Checking: landscape-common (["<Origin component:'main' archive:'precise-updates' origin:'Ubuntu' label:'Ubuntu' site:'gb.archive.ubuntu.com' isTrusted:True>"])
  pkgs that look like they should be upgraded: 
  Fetched 0 B in 0s (0 B/s)                                                                                                                                                      
  blacklist: []
  Packages that are auto removed: ''
  InstCount=0 DelCount=0 BrokenCout=0
  No packages found that can be upgraded unattended

  
  ----
  I am using unattended-upgrades-0.76ubuntu1 on Ubuntu 12.04.3 LTS

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