[Bug 1781183] Re: Skip updates on metered connections

[Brian Murray]

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

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Title:
  Skip updates on metered connections

Status in unattended-upgrades package in Ubuntu:
  Fix Released
Status in unattended-upgrades source package in Xenial:
  New
Status in unattended-upgrades source package in Bionic:
  Fix Released
Status in unattended-upgrades package in Debian:
  Fix Released

Bug description:
  [Impact]

   * Systems running unattended-upgrades may download updates over
  metered connections causing excessive data usage possibly making users
  being charged for the downloads.

   * Avoiding users being unexpectedly charged due to unattended-
  upgrades' activity warrants an SRU, IMO.

   * The fix uses
  NetworkMonitor.get_network_metered(NetworkMonitor.get_default()) for
  deciding if the connection is metered and skips or gracefully stops
  updates.

  [Test Case]

   * Run "unattended-upgrades --dry-run --verbose" on metered connection
     - The unfixed versions should provide the following output with default configuration:
  $ sudo unattended-upgrade --dry-run --verbose 
  Initial blacklisted packages: 
  Initial whitelisted packages: 
  Starting unattended upgrades script
  Allowed origins are: o=Ubuntu,a=bionic, o=Ubuntu,a=bionic-security, o=UbuntuESM,a=bionic
  No packages found that can be upgraded unattended and no pending auto-removals

     - The fixed versions should provide the following output with default configuration:
  Initial blacklisted packages: 
  Initial whitelisted packages: 
  Starting unattended upgrades script
  Allowed origins are: o=Ubuntu,a=bionic, o=Ubuntu,a=bionic-security, o=UbuntuESM,a=bionic
  System is on metered connection, stopping
   
    - You can check if the default route is on metered connection by running:
  nmcli -t -f GENERAL.DEVICE,GENERAL.METERED dev show `ip route list 0/0 | sed -r 's/.*dev (\S*).*/\1/g'`

    - Also run fixed u-u on not metered connection to check if it still works. U-u in lxc for example does not detect the connection to be metered.
    - Check if the following configuration can enable updates even on metered connections:
  $ cat /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/51unattended-upgrades-metered 
  Unattended-Upgrade::Skip-Updates-On-Metered-Connections "false";

  [Regression Potential]

   * Unattended-upgrades may skip updates even on not metered connections or crash, but those are not likely.
   * U-u also adds two new dependencies with the fix which can be seen as a regression, but those packages exist on most Ubuntu installations already. (The packages are: gir1.2-glib-2.0 and python3-gi)

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