Source: python-apt Severity: normal Tags: upstream Hello, while trying to install the 3rd party package NessusAgent-6.5.6-debian6_amd64.deb with ansible, I encountered a bug that may be caused by python-apt.
Ansible uses python-apt to check if a to-be-installed package is already installed. The package name is "NessusAgent" (according to DEBIAN/control) but the normal apt- and dpkg software automatically lower cases all package names. python-apt, however, does not lowercase it. The call to compare_to_version_in_cache() will result in VERSION_NONE instead of VERSION_SAME and ansible will reinstall the package although it's already installed. I'm aware that using upper case package names may be in violation of the Debian Policy Manual: https://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-controlfields.html#s-f-Source Still I think that the behaviour of python-apt should be consistent with apt and dpkg. Test packages: http://wulf.eu.org/hello-traditional_2.10-3_amd64.deb http://wulf.eu.org/HelloWorld_2.10-3_amd64.deb Test code: #!/usr/bin/python3 import apt.debfile info = { apt.debfile.DebPackage.VERSION_NEWER: 'NEWER', apt.debfile.DebPackage.VERSION_NONE: 'NONE', apt.debfile.DebPackage.VERSION_OUTDATED: 'OUTDATED', apt.debfile.DebPackage.VERSION_SAME: 'SAME', } for pkg in [ 'hello-traditional_2.10-3_amd64.deb', 'HelloWorld_2.10-3_amd64.deb', ]: deb = apt.debfile.DebPackage(pkg) print('Package {} is {}'.format(pkg, info[deb.compare_to_version_in_cache()])) Instructions to reproduce: - Install exactly one of the packages - Run the python code - It should display "SAME" for the installed package and "NONE" for the other. - Uninstall the package and install the other. Rerun python code. - You can see that "HelloWorld" is "NONE" even though it's installed. Best Regards Joern Heissler -- System Information: Debian Release: stretch/sid APT prefers unstable APT policy: (600, 'unstable') Architecture: amd64 (x86_64) Foreign Architectures: i386 Kernel: Linux 4.4.0-1-amd64 (SMP w/4 CPU cores) Locale: LANG=en_GB.utf8, LC_CTYPE=en_GB.utf8 (charmap=UTF-8) Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash Init: systemd (via /run/systemd/system) -- no debconf information
