Feature #6038: Additional software: fix installation of packages requiring manual confirmation

Feature #6038

Additional software: fix installation of packages requiring manual confirmation

Added by Tails 2013-07-18 07:49:46 . Updated 2018-01-09 20:51:34 .

Status:

Resolved

Priority:

Normal

Assignee:

Category:

Persistence

Target version:

Tails_3.4

Start date:

Due date:

2017-12-15

% Done:

100%

Feature Branch:

feature/6038-debconf-priority

Type of work:

Code

Blueprint:

Starter:

Affected tool:

Additional Software Packages

Deliverable for:

Description

Currently this feature fails to install packages that require manual confirmation. For example sun-java6-jdk. Setting debconf priority to critical should help.

Subtasks

History

#1 Updated by Tails 2013-07-18 10:41:11

Parent task set to ~~Feature #5551~~

#2 Updated by intrigeri 2013-10-03 13:00:11

Category set to Persistence
Starter set to No

#3 Updated by BitingBird 2014-06-09 11:20:17

Subject changed from additional software: fix installation of packages requiring manual confirmation to Additional software: fix installation of packages requiring manual confirmation

#4 Updated by intrigeri 2014-07-20 14:35:32

Type of work changed from Research to Code

Setting debconf priority to critical should be just enough: iirc, it’s a violation of the Debian Policy to require interactive input in other ways that debconf on package installation.

#5 Updated by Anonymous 2017-08-30 12:46:14

Assignee set to alant
Deliverable for set to 299

I strongly suppose that this will have to be done during or even before the work on a GUI for additional software. Assigning to alan.

#6 Updated by BitingBird 2017-08-30 13:19:40

Target version set to 2018

#7 Updated by Anonymous 2017-09-07 08:52:53

Parent task changed from ~~Feature #5551~~ to ~~Feature #14568~~

#8 Updated by Anonymous 2017-09-07 08:54:36

Parent task changed from ~~Feature #14568~~ to ~~Feature #5551~~

#9 Updated by Anonymous 2017-09-07 09:05:12

Target version changed from 2018 to Tails_3.5
Affected tool set to Additional Software Packages

#10 Updated by intrigeri 2017-09-22 08:11:54

If I’m not mistaken, this is not formally part of SponsorW_2017. I propose we move it our of that view for now, but keep that in mind for ~~Feature #14592~~: I doubt many users will install such packages so perhaps we will prefer to focus on polishing & bugfixing that has a greater impact, even though the impact of this bug is pretty bad when it happens.

What do you think?

#11 Updated by sajolida 2017-09-22 09:58:36

I agree.

Now, how complicated would it be to detect such packages as part of SponsorW_2017 and display a message saying “Sorry, Additional Software doesn’t work with this package because it requires manual confirmation.”. So we’re not silently failing.

#12 Updated by intrigeri 2017-09-22 11:12:23

> Now, how complicated would it be to detect such packages as part of SponsorW_2017 and display a message saying “Sorry, Additional Software doesn’t work with this package because it requires manual confirmation.”. So we’re not silently failing.

Probably harder than fixing the problem (which should be easy in itself, so if we have extra time, I’d actually love if we could fix it :)

#13 Updated by Anonymous 2017-09-25 12:49:17

Parent task changed from ~~Feature #5551~~ to ~~Feature #14568~~

#14 Updated by Anonymous 2017-09-25 12:50:13

Deliverable for changed from 299 to 306

I’m keeping this ticket in the view for now, but not as a deliverable for Sponsor_W.

#15 Updated by intrigeri 2017-09-26 05:46:03

> Deliverable for changed from SponsorW_2017 to Tails_3.7

> I’m keeping this ticket in the view for now, but not as a deliverable for Sponsor_W.

Setting “Deliverable for” to a Tails version is new and has no well-defined semantics, so I wonder: did you mean to set “Target version: Tails_3.7” instead?

#16 Updated by Anonymous 2017-09-27 19:41:46

Deliverable for deleted (~~306~~)

Oops, no, I wanted to unset the deliverable.

#17 Updated by Anonymous 2017-10-16 12:14:51

Target version changed from Tails_3.5 to Tails_3.6

#18 Updated by Anonymous 2017-10-16 12:15:39

Target version changed from Tails_3.6 to Tails_3.5

#19 Updated by alant 2017-10-16 12:47:09

Due date set to 2017-12-15

#20 Updated by alant 2017-12-05 14:40:28

Assignee deleted (~~alant~~)
QA Check set to Info Needed
Feature Branch set to feature/6038-debconf-priority

I don’t understand what would anything else then -y:

> -y, —yes, —assume-yes
>
> Automatic yes to prompts; assume “yes” as answer to all prompts and run non-interactively. If an undesirable situation, such as changing a held package, trying to install a unauthenticated package or removing an essential package occurs then apt-get will abort. Configuration Item: APT::Get::Assume-Yes.

In case it is needed the branch feature/6038-debconf-priority should fix debconf priority.

However I failed to find a way to test this: sun-java6-jdk isn’t available anymore, and I can’t find another package that fails. Please provide another example if you have one.

It’s unclear to me if solving this issue is a requirement before working on additional software packages. I engaged to do so, but the above comments seems to disagree. In case it’s not that easy, what sould we do?

#21 Updated by alant 2017-12-05 14:57:52

Status changed from Confirmed to In Progress

Applied in changeset commit:7d47cbaf78e7fdf5853a71c36ec80cb69d9f1542.

#22 Updated by intrigeri 2017-12-06 08:57:33

Assignee set to intrigeri

> I don’t understand what would anything else then -y:

> […]

> In case it is needed the branch feature/6038-debconf-priority should fix debconf priority.

> However I failed to find a way to test this: sun-java6-jdk isn’t available anymore,
> and I can’t find another package that fails. Please provide another example if you
> have one.

I’ll try to.

> It’s unclear to me if solving this issue is a requirement before working on additional software packages. I engaged to do so, but the above comments seems to disagree. In case it’s not that easy, what sould we do?

I’ll send this back to u if, and only if, there’s a need to.

#23 Updated by intrigeri 2017-12-06 13:23:29

Assignee changed from intrigeri to alant
% Done changed from 0 to 10
QA Check deleted (~~Info Needed~~)

alant wrote:
> I don’t understand what would anything else then -y:

I think this ticket is about input requested via debconf. I don’t think this APT option affects debconf’s behaviour so it solves a different problem.

> In case it is needed the branch feature/6038-debconf-priority should fix debconf priority.

Great. At first glance it should fix the problem for debconf questions with priority < critical. It won’t fix it for questions with priority >= critical but I think there’s nothing we can do non-interactively about those.

> However I failed to find a way to test this: sun-java6-jdk isn’t available anymore, and I can’t find another package that fails. Please provide another example if you have one.

Any package that ships a debconf question with priority at least as high as the value of our current debconf/priority setting (== high?) should expose the problem. One way to find them is to look e.g. for db_input high on codesearch: https://codesearch.debian.net/search?q=db_input+high&perpkg=1.

Once you’ve tested your change, please reassign to me for QA :)

> It’s unclear to me if solving this issue is a requirement before working on additional software packages. I engaged to do so, but the above comments seems to disagree.

This ticket is not formally on the detailed list of things we’ve promised so from a purely bureaucratic point of view, one can surely argue it’s not a deliverable. But if you look at things at a user-centric level, this project is about making ASP Just Work™ for non-technical users, so arguably anything that causes UX annoyances is potentially in scope. Now, of course we can’t fix all the bugs in the world, so it’s our job to prioritize what is worth fixing depending on the cost/benefit. In this case it seems that a one-liner trivial change makes the situation much better, so it seems to me it’s worth it even though it probably does not affect many packages that users would want to add to their list of ASP (now, once this feature is easier to use and vastly more people use it, who knows what’ll happen :).

Still, that’s a good question:

> In case it’s not that easy, what sould we do?

Re-prioritize => best effort or simply give up for now.