[Bug 1795024] Re: setting release-upgrades Prompt to never can cause confusing behavior

[Łukasz Zemczak]

Hello Ted, or anyone else affected,

Accepted ubuntu-release-upgrader into bionic-proposed. The package will
build now and be available at https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source
/ubuntu-release-upgrader/1:18.04.30 in a few hours, and then in the
-proposed repository.

Please help us by testing this new package.  See
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Testing/EnableProposed for documentation on how
to enable and use -proposed.  Your feedback will aid us getting this
update out to other Ubuntu users.

If this package fixes the bug for you, please add a comment to this bug,
mentioning the version of the package you tested and change the tag from
verification-needed-bionic to verification-done-bionic. If it does not
fix the bug for you, please add a comment stating that, and change the
tag to verification-failed-bionic. In either case, without details of
your testing we will not be able to proceed.

Further information regarding the verification process can be found at
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/QATeam/PerformingSRUVerification .  Thank you in
advance for helping!

N.B. The updated package will be released to -updates after the bug(s)
fixed by this package have been verified and the package has been in
-proposed for a minimum of 7 days.

** Changed in: ubuntu-release-upgrader (Ubuntu Bionic)
       Status: Triaged => Fix Committed

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1795024

Title:
  setting release-upgrades Prompt to never can cause confusing behavior

Status in ubuntu-release-upgrader package in Ubuntu:
  Fix Released
Status in update-manager package in Ubuntu:
  Fix Released
Status in ubuntu-release-upgrader source package in Bionic:
  Fix Committed
Status in update-manager source package in Bionic:
  Fix Committed
Status in ubuntu-release-upgrader source package in Cosmic:
  Fix Committed
Status in update-manager source package in Cosmic:
  Fix Committed

Bug description:
  Impact
  ------
  If Prompt=never in /etc/update-manager/release-upgrades and do-release-upgrade is run a likely confusing message regarding no new release being found is returned. This is can be a lie and doesn't help people upgrade if there is in fact a new release.

  Test Case
  ---------
  1) set Prompt=never in /etc/update-manager/release-upgrades
  2) run 'do-release-upgrade' on 18.04 and also run 'do-release-upgrade -d' on 18.10

  Observe an error message regarding no new release being available or
  for the -d case on 18.10 one regarding upgrades to the dev release
  only being supported from the latest supported release.

  With versions of update-manager and ubuntu-release-upgrader (which
  depends on the changes in update-manager) from -proposed you will
  instead see a message about prompt being set to never and the file to
  modify so you can upgrade.

  Additionally, release-upgrades has been modified to indicate that use
  never won't allow you to upgrade and to clarify what happens if you've
  set lts on a non-lts release.

  Original Description
  --------------------
  The prompt setting in /etc/update-manager/release-upgrades controls whether the user is prompted to upgrade, but also controls whether the user can manually upgrade using do-release-upgrade -d.

  Steps to reproduce:
  1) On an 18.04 machine, set Prompt in /etc/update-manager/release-upgrades to lts or never.
  2) Attempt to upgrade to 18.10 beta using do-release-upgrade -d.
  3) The upgrade reports "Upgrades to the development release are only available from the latest supported release."  This is both an incorrect error message, and it prevents upgrade even though the user has specifically requested the development version.

  Possible fixes:
  1) The documentation should be changed to indicate that the Prompt argument controls both whether you are prompted to upgrade, but also whether you can use the upgrade tool at all.
  2) A second configuration option should be added to allow the admin to control the prompting for upgrade separately from the ability to upgrade, allowing users to upgrade the system manually, even when Prompt is set to never.

  Question:  Is the default setting of Prompt=lts going to prevent users
  from upgrading their 18.04 machines to 18.10 until they change it to
  normal?

  Description:    Ubuntu 18.04.1 LTS
  Release:        18.04

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