These two bugs both seem related, in that aptitude is masking problems and making it difficult to diagnose a failed (or compromised) mirror:
http://bugs.debian.org/457372 http://bugs.debian.org/121313 Maybe they should be merged? I'm behind an explicit http_proxy which (while it knows that a clean, modern copy of Release and Release.gpg are available), is still coaxing aptitude and apt-get into seeing their requests for an older Release as a "Hit", instead of fetching the new ones. This proxy weirdness is a separate issue which i'll deal with elsewhere, as it could well be the proxy misbehaving and not aptitude. But aptitude and apt-get should both fail clearly and explicitly even if their proxy is not returning the right information. At the moment, aptitude does not. aptitude recognizes the problem and fails with a non-zero error code, but doesn't emit any diagnostic information at all. apt-get, on the other hand, explains something about the problem so the admin knows what's going wrong. In the example below, the number at the start of the command prompt is the return code from the previous invocation. Note the datestamps on the files as well: lenny has been updated much more recently than lenny/updates: 0 vulcan:/var/lib/apt/lists# ls -lR .: total 33992 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 24329225 2008-08-22 08:00 ftp.us.debian.org_debian_dists_lenny_main_binary-amd64_Packages -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 2038 2008-08-25 08:39 ftp.us.debian.org_debian_dists_lenny_main_binary-amd64_Packages.IndexDiff -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 10285295 2008-08-25 08:28 ftp.us.debian.org_debian_dists_lenny_main_source_Sources -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 2038 2008-08-25 08:39 ftp.us.debian.org_debian_dists_lenny_main_source_Sources.IndexDiff -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 74449 2008-08-25 08:42 ftp.us.debian.org_debian_dists_lenny_Release -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 189 2008-08-25 08:42 ftp.us.debian.org_debian_dists_lenny_Release.gpg -rw-r----- 1 root root 0 2008-08-22 14:40 lock drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 2008-08-28 15:30 partial -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 40734 2008-08-23 10:38 security.debian.org_dists_lenny_updates_Release -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 189 2008-08-23 10:38 security.debian.org_dists_lenny_updates_Release.gpg ./partial: total 1116 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 167767 2008-08-26 17:12 security.debian.org_dists_lenny_updates_main_binary-amd64_Packages -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 964323 2008-08-26 17:12 security.debian.org_dists_lenny_updates_main_binary-amd64_Packages.decomp.FAILED 0 vulcan:/var/lib/apt/lists# aptitude update Hit http://ftp.us.debian.org lenny Release.gpg Ign http://ftp.us.debian.org lenny/main Translation-en_US Hit http://ftp.us.debian.org lenny Release Hit http://ftp.us.debian.org lenny/main Packages/DiffIndex Hit http://security.debian.org lenny/updates Release.gpg Ign http://security.debian.org lenny/updates/main Translation-en_US Hit http://ftp.us.debian.org lenny/main Sources/DiffIndex Hit http://security.debian.org lenny/updates Release Get:1 http://security.debian.org lenny/updates/main Packages [168kB] Fetched 1B in 0s (1B/s) Reading package lists... Done 255 vulcan:/var/lib/apt/lists# apt-get update Hit http://ftp.us.debian.org lenny Release.gpg Ign http://ftp.us.debian.org lenny/main Translation-en_US Hit http://ftp.us.debian.org lenny Release Hit http://ftp.us.debian.org lenny/main Packages/DiffIndex Hit http://security.debian.org lenny/updates Release.gpg Ign http://security.debian.org lenny/updates/main Translation-en_US Hit http://ftp.us.debian.org lenny/main Sources/DiffIndex Hit http://security.debian.org lenny/updates Release Get:1 http://security.debian.org lenny/updates/main Packages [168kB] Fetched 1B in 0s (1B/s) W: Failed to fetch http://security.debian.org/dists/lenny/updates/main/binary-amd64/Packages.bz2 Hash Sum mismatch E: Some index files failed to download, they have been ignored, or old ones used instead. 100 vulcan:/var/lib/apt/lists# ls -lR .: total 33992 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 24329225 2008-08-22 08:00 ftp.us.debian.org_debian_dists_lenny_main_binary-amd64_Packages -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 2038 2008-08-25 08:39 ftp.us.debian.org_debian_dists_lenny_main_binary-amd64_Packages.IndexDiff -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 10285295 2008-08-25 08:28 ftp.us.debian.org_debian_dists_lenny_main_source_Sources -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 2038 2008-08-25 08:39 ftp.us.debian.org_debian_dists_lenny_main_source_Sources.IndexDiff -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 74449 2008-08-25 08:42 ftp.us.debian.org_debian_dists_lenny_Release -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 189 2008-08-25 08:42 ftp.us.debian.org_debian_dists_lenny_Release.gpg -rw-r----- 1 root root 0 2008-08-22 14:40 lock drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 2008-08-28 15:31 partial -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 40734 2008-08-23 10:38 security.debian.org_dists_lenny_updates_Release -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 189 2008-08-23 10:38 security.debian.org_dists_lenny_updates_Release.gpg ./partial: total 1116 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 167767 2008-08-26 17:12 security.debian.org_dists_lenny_updates_main_binary-amd64_Packages -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 964323 2008-08-26 17:12 security.debian.org_dists_lenny_updates_main_binary-amd64_Packages.decomp.FAILED 0 vulcan:/var/lib/apt/lists# The idea that aptitude is failing without a clear explanation of the problem is really worrisome, since aptitude is now the officially recommended package manager for debian. If something goes wrong with the update process, the administrator needs to be informed of what's happening. (btw, moving security.debian.org_dists_lenny_updates_Release and security.debian.org_dists_lenny_updates_Release.gpg out of the way and running aptitude update fetches the correct version from the http_proxy in this scenario. I don't know what to make of that yet) Regards, --dkg
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