[Bug 1886572] Re: Remove uptime from the motd-news user agent

Tue Aug 25 17:36:20 UTC 2020

Xenial verification                                                             

Current version:                                                                
ubuntu at xenial-motd-news-no-uptime:~$ apt-cache policy base-files                
base-files:                                                                     
  Installed: 9.4ubuntu4.12                                                      
  Candidate: 9.4ubuntu4.12                                                      
  Version table:                                                                
 *** 9.4ubuntu4.12 500                                                          
        500 http://br.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial-updates/main amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status                                                

Uptime is there:                                                                
ubuntu at xenial-motd-news-no-uptime:~$ grep uptime /etc/update-motd.d/50-motd-news
# Some messages may only be pertinent before or after some amount of uptime     
read up idle < /proc/uptime                                                     
uptime="uptime/$up/$idle"                                                       
USER_AGENT="curl/$curl_ver $lsb $platform $cpu $uptime cloud_id/$cloud_id"      

After updating:                                                                 
ubuntu at xenial-motd-news-no-uptime:~$ apt-cache policy base-files                
base-files:                                                                     
  Installed: 9.4ubuntu4.13                                                      
  Candidate: 9.4ubuntu4.13                                                      
  Version table:                                                                
 *** 9.4ubuntu4.13 500                                                          
        500 http://br.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial-proposed/main amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status                                                

Uptime is gone:                                                                 
ubuntu at xenial-motd-news-no-uptime:~$ grep uptime /etc/update-motd.d/50-motd-news
ubuntu at xenial-motd-news-no-uptime:~$                                            

Xenial verification succeeded.

** Tags removed: verification-needed-xenial
** Tags added: verification-done-xenial

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1886572

Title:
  Remove uptime from the motd-news user agent

Status in base-files package in Ubuntu:
  Fix Released
Status in base-files source package in Xenial:
  Fix Committed
Status in base-files source package in Bionic:
  Fix Committed
Status in base-files source package in Focal:
  Fix Committed

Bug description:
  [Impact] 
  The uptime value in the user-agent string sent to the motd-news server is unused and not necessary. It should be removed.

  [Test Case]
  Inspect the /etc/update-motd.d/50-motd-news script and verify that uptime is no longer used.

  Previous version:
  $ grep uptime /etc/update-motd.d/50-motd-news 
  # Some messages may only be pertinent before or after some amount of uptime
  read up idle < /proc/uptime
  uptime="uptime/$up/$idle"
  USER_AGENT="curl/$curl_ver $lsb $platform $cpu $uptime cloud_id/$cloud_id"

  Updated version:
  $ grep uptime /etc/update-motd.d/50-motd-news
   (no output)

  [Regression Potential] 
  The server side, if it were checking this value, could be surprised by this change.

  [Other Info]
  N/A

  [Original Description]
  I don't why that was included but it shouldn't be. Please remove it.

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