Bad signature for updated packages

[Jochen Antesberger]

Am Wed, 09 Dec 2009 17:45:50 -0800 schrieb Leonard Chatagnier:

>> > think you have
>> > a corrupted file or Ubuntu server issue.  Usually
>> you just have to
>> > accept the install to
>> > get the apps installed on your system.
>> 
>> Yes, I could override the message. I do that with self build packages
>> on
>> my Debian machines, because I'm too lazy to sign them. But with
>> official
>> packages the whole point of the setup is to prevent a compromised
>> mirror
>> to put malign packages on my system. So while I suppose there is an
>> explanation for this I didn't want to just go ahead.
>> 
>> Anyway, since I never really dived into internals it took me a bit to
>> find where apt keeps the files I suspected to be corrupt and so they
>> were
>> indeed. Made a backup, deleted them and reran aptitude update. No more
>> complaints.
>> 
>> Cheers!
>> 
> Interesting, I've never seen that error for a corrupt file before. 
> Maybe because I use the cli and see error codes using aptitude but don't
> know. How did you determine the files were corrupt? IYP, Leonard
> Chatagnier
> lenc5570 at sbcglobal.net

Well, I tried aptitude update several times and everytime I wanted to 
upgrade it said the signature is invalid. After finding and deleting the 
files in /var/lib/apt/lists/ and a new aptitude update to rebuild them 
the upgrade worked flawlessly. Hence I assume some files there must have 
been corrupted.

A little sideeffect... I actually set the option to download and commit 
updates automatically (the machine is for a family member) but it never 
did. It downloaded the new package lists automatically but didn't install 
the updates. Now apparently it does. In six years of Debian this is the 
first time I ever had any trouble with the apt system. Hopefully it'll be 
good for another six, now.

Jochen