[Bug 1175637] [NEW] Kernel updates are being marked as manually installed

[Daniel Hartwig]

On 3 May 2013 22:11, Steve J. <1175637 at bugs.launchpad.net> wrote:
> Unattended-upgrades does perform
> kernel updates, so it's likely installing/dist-upgrade-ing kernel upgrades as new
> packages (which must be why I'm seeing them as being marked 'manual').
>

Looks like an issue with unattended-upgrades (or possibly python-apt).
 It does not specifically install kernel packages, so the new package
('linux-image-3.2.0-41-generic' in the original message) must have
come as a dependency of upgrading 'linux-image-generic' or similar.
In that case, it must not be marked manually installed.

 affects ubuntu/unattended-upgrades

A cursory glance at the main parts of 'unattended-upgrade' did not
reveal any obvious errors, but it performs such heavy manipulation of
the depcache that a more detailed inspection is required.

Do the systems have either apt.conf option set:

- Unattended-Upgrades::MinimalSteps
- Unattended-Upgrade::MinimalSteps


> Do you have any suggestions for automatically flagging obsolete kernels as 'auto', or
> might it be worth adding a feature to the kernel cleanup to do this?
>

Markauto every kernel image as the cleanup script protects the most
relevent ones.

# apt-mark markauto linux-image.*

Although you will have to do that after every new kernel image is
installed, until the issue with upgrade-alternatives is resolved.


** Also affects: unattended-upgrades (Ubuntu)
   Importance: Undecided
       Status: New

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1175637

Title:
  Kernel updates are being marked as manually installed

Status in “apt” package in Ubuntu:
  New
Status in “unattended-upgrades” package in Ubuntu:
  New

Bug description:
  Updates to the linux-image-* packages in Precise are being marked as
  "manually" installed, regardless of the auto/manual flag on the
  existing kernel packages. This happens when updating packages with
  apt, aptitude, or unattended-upgrades. I'm running an up-to-date
  12.04.2 LTS installed (amd64).

  I can see that my existing kernels were marked as automatically
  installed:

  % apt-mark showauto | grep linux-image
  linux-image-3.2.0-40-generic
  linux-image-generic

  And, after the update was performed by unattended-upgrades last night,
  the new kernel is marked manual:

  % apt-mark showmanual | grep linux-image
  linux-image-3.2.0-41-generic

  This is a problem, because it renders the fix in this bug,
  https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/apt/+bug/923876 (Limit and
  clean-up kernel images and headers automatically in LTS) ineffective,
  since apt-get autoremove will not remove packages which are marked as
  manually installed.

  I'm running the following package versions:

  apt: 0.8.16~exp12ubuntu10.10
  aptitude: 0.8.16~exp12ubuntu10.10
  unattended-upgrades: 0.8.16~exp12ubuntu10.10
  aptdaemon: 0.43+bzr805-0ubuntu9

  This bug looks similar to
  https://bugs.launchpad.net/aptdaemon/+bug/1078544, however, I'm
  running a version of aptdaemon that supposedly has this fix applied.

  Please let me know if I can provide any other useful information.

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