Bug#874773: forensics-all: Use of /var/lib/apt/lists internals

Eriberto Mota eriberto at debian.org
Wed Sep 13 00:17:26 UTC 2017


Hi Julian,

Thanks for your message. I have some considerations.


2017-09-09 11:11 GMT-03:00 Julian Andres Klode <jak at debian.org>:
>
> your package appears to be relying on the internal layout of /var/lib/apt/lists
> and the location of that directory (which is configurable), as it matches the
> following regular expression (and a quick check did not rule out a false positive):
>
>     /var/lib/apt/lists/.*(Packages|Sources)
>
> For the matches found, you can have a quick look at:
>
>     https://codesearch.debian.net/search?q=%2Fvar%2Flib%2Fapt%2Flists%2F.*%28Packages%7CSources%29+package%3Aforensics-all
>
> APT since some time supports compressed indices using the option
> `Acquire::gzipIndexes`. Starting with 1.2, index files are stored
> with lz4 compression if that option is enabled, providing significant
> space savings at low overhead.
>
> Some platforms and users might already have these indexes compressed by default
> in order to save space, and your package might not be working for them.


This is a native source that provides a metapackage. The content of
the script isn't for use by final users and this script isn't
installed by the package. The script is used by maintainers only to
aid to create a control file. After this, the new control file must be
double checked to avoid mistakes. Our machines (my machine and
Giovani's machine) and ours Debians are compliant with the script.



> Instead of relying on internals, please use the interfaces provided by
> APT 1.1 and newer:
>
> ## Command-line interfaces
> In order to get paths to index files, please use:
>
>     apt-get indextargets --format '$(FILENAME)' "Created-By: $creator"
>
> where `$creator` is `Packages`, `Sources`, `Contents-deb`, `Contents-udeb`,
> or `Contents-deb-legacy`, depending on which files you need.
>
> To read the file, use
>
>     /usr/lib/apt/apt-helper cat-file <FILE>...
>
> This transparently handles compression supported by apt.


It is interesting but I think that not applicable. As I said, the
script has a special goal and is not destinated to final users. We
have a strict control over the packages list, independently of
compression or other issues.

Can I close this bug?

Thanks a lot for your message.

Regards,

Eriberto



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