[Bug 954197] Re: base system installation is not robust against transient network failures

[Colin Watson]

debootstrap (1.0.39) unstable; urgency=low

  * Retry corrupted downloads rather than carrying on almost regardless.
    Patch mostly due to Michael Gilbert, rearranged somewhat by me (closes:
    #618920).
  * Stop at the end of the retrieval phase if any packages failed to
    download.

 -- Colin Watson <cjwatson at debian.org>  Tue, 13 Mar 2012 17:21:13 +0000

** Changed in: debootstrap (Ubuntu)
       Status: In Progress => Fix Released

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/954197

Title:
  base system installation is not robust against transient network
  failures

Status in “base-installer” package in Ubuntu:
  Triaged
Status in “debootstrap” package in Ubuntu:
  Fix Released
Status in “base-installer” package in Debian:
  New
Status in “debootstrap” package in Debian:
  New

Bug description:
  [This bug was originally reported by Gary Potwin in
  https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ubiquity/+question/158404]

  I have a Supermicro P6SBA motherboard with a 700 MHz Pentium III, 512
  M of ram, 20G and 120G hard drives, and a DSL Internet connection.

  This system has been running Windows 98 for years, and I wanted to try
  Ubuntu 10.04.

  Using the network kernel and initrd, the systems boots OK and
  downloads the rest of the installer OK from the default mirror
  (us.archive.ubuntu.com) except for one small problem (see below).

  Everything seems OK until I try to load the base system.

  After downloading files for about 3.5 minutes (often when it is trying
  to get the file libklibc), I see the network activity stop, and soon
  after I get an error message stating that it has failed to load that
  file (all others up to that point were OK).

  After about 2 more minutes, during which time one or more additional
  files fail to load, the network activity goes back to normal, and all
  the remaining files for the base system download OK.

  Due to the failed files, I get the error message that the base system
  has failed to install.

  I did successfully download the failed files using wget into
  /target/var/cache/apt/archives while the automatic download was still
  in progress using a console, but after the above failure.

  The system still thinks that the files were not successfully
  downloaded, and I don't know how to tell the system that they are
  there and OK.  I have tried using many different mirrors at different
  times of the day, and both http and ftp, all fail as above.

  Using a similar technique, I was able to successfully load Debian
  5.08, so I think the hardware is OK, but I would really like to try
  the Ubuntu.

  To try to rule out any problem with the DSL, I downloaded a very large
  file that took 10 minutes of continuous running under Windows.

  Then I went back to the 10.04 install and did the same thing using
  wget at a console, just after partitioning the hard drive, and just
  before starting the base install, and it worked fine.  While loading
  the installer, one file did fail to load, but you were given the
  opportunity to retry, which took care of the problem.

   I wish the base install allowed retries instead of just "go back" and
  "continue", which don't seem to make any additional attempt to retry.

  Any help would be appreciated.

  Gary

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