[Bug 1730627] [NEW] xz compressed control.tar files not supported

[Witold Szczeponik]

Public bug reported:

trusty's dpkg (1.17.5ubuntu5.7) cannot handle .deb files that contain
control.tar files that are compressed using the xz compressor.

Here's an example of such a case when trying to show the contents of a
.deb file from bionic's repositories:

dpkg-deb: error: archive './var/cache/apt/archives/ubuntu-
minimal_1.406_amd64.deb' has premature member 'control.tar.xz' before
'control.tar.gz', giving up

This issue makes it currently impossible to create a bionic environment
using debootstrap (currently from trusty-proposed).


I have observed the issue on trusty, precisely on

$ lsb_release -rd
Description:	Ubuntu 14.04.5 LTS
Release:	14.04

using

$ apt-cache policy dpkg
dpkg:
  Installed: 1.17.5ubuntu5.7
  Candidate: 1.17.5ubuntu5.7
  Version table:
 *** 1.17.5ubuntu5.7 0
        500 mirror://mirrors.ubuntu.com/mirrors.txt/ trusty-updates/main amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
     1.17.5ubuntu5.6 0
        500 http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ trusty-security/main amd64 Packages
     1.17.5ubuntu5 0
        500 mirror://mirrors.ubuntu.com/mirrors.txt/ trusty/main amd64 Packages

** Affects: dpkg (Ubuntu)
     Importance: Undecided
         Status: New

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1730627

Title:
  xz compressed control.tar files not supported

Status in dpkg package in Ubuntu:
  New

Bug description:
  trusty's dpkg (1.17.5ubuntu5.7) cannot handle .deb files that contain
  control.tar files that are compressed using the xz compressor.

  Here's an example of such a case when trying to show the contents of a
  .deb file from bionic's repositories:

  dpkg-deb: error: archive './var/cache/apt/archives/ubuntu-
  minimal_1.406_amd64.deb' has premature member 'control.tar.xz' before
  'control.tar.gz', giving up

  This issue makes it currently impossible to create a bionic
  environment using debootstrap (currently from trusty-proposed).

  
  I have observed the issue on trusty, precisely on

  $ lsb_release -rd
  Description:	Ubuntu 14.04.5 LTS
  Release:	14.04

  using

  $ apt-cache policy dpkg
  dpkg:
    Installed: 1.17.5ubuntu5.7
    Candidate: 1.17.5ubuntu5.7
    Version table:
   *** 1.17.5ubuntu5.7 0
          500 mirror://mirrors.ubuntu.com/mirrors.txt/ trusty-updates/main amd64 Packages
          100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
       1.17.5ubuntu5.6 0
          500 http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ trusty-security/main amd64 Packages
       1.17.5ubuntu5 0
          500 mirror://mirrors.ubuntu.com/mirrors.txt/ trusty/main amd64 Packages

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