[Bug 2038453] Re: [SRU] apt snapshot integration backport

[Launchpad Bug Tracker]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

** Changed in: apt (Ubuntu Jammy)
       Status: New => Confirmed

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Title:
  [SRU] apt snapshot integration backport

Status in Ubuntu Pro:
  Triaged
Status in Ubuntu Pro 18.04 series:
  Triaged
Status in apt package in Ubuntu:
  Fix Released
Status in apt source package in Bionic:
  Won't Fix
Status in apt source package in Focal:
  Confirmed
Status in apt source package in Jammy:
  Confirmed
Status in apt source package in Lunar:
  Won't Fix
Status in apt source package in Mantic:
  Fix Released

Bug description:
  [Impact]
  The snapshot service provides users access to older states of the archive with ease of use, and enables a consistent user experience across all supported releases, as otherwise users would have to rewrite their sources.list to make use of snapshots and set up pinning; hence partners requested the feature be SRUed to older releases as well.

  [Test plan]
  The complete regression test suite in autopkgtests includes an automatic test case for this and the known limitations that have been fixed. Aside from that, it is also worthwhile to do an end-to-end test:

  Configure snapshot=yes for Ubuntu sources in your sources.list and

  1. run apt update - it should not use snapshot
  2. run apt update --snapshot 20231001T000000Z, it should download the snapshot
  3. run apt install --snapshot 20231001T000000Z hello, it should install hello from the snapshot

  [Where problems could occur]
  The integration has been purposefully limited in how it works to reduce the impact it has on the APT code; hence it was possible to cherry-pick this into 22.04, 20.04, and even 18.04, with only a minor editorial change. This significantly limits the risk.

  This feature is only enabled for sources with snapshot=yes (.list) or
  Snapshot: yes (.sources) or other truthy values apt recognizes. Most
  users will not have such entries as they did not have an APT
  supporting it.

  This combined should ensure that users do not experience any
  regressions. However the feature may be lacking in some ways that we
  may want to address in follow up SRUs; it has not been used in the
  wild a lot.

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