InRelease issues with debootstrap

[FranticAtheist]

sudo: edit-chroot: command not found

Hi, I am a total noob so I most likely did something wrong or forgot something.

I have a chromebook acer 15. in the past I successfully installed a chroot and it worked fine.
I needed to delete the previous chroot.
now when I try to install a chroot with cruoton It has problems downloading ubuntu.

when I enter the command sudo sh ~/Downloads/crouton -t xfce in the shell I get this output:

Downloading latest crouton installer... ######################################################################## 100.0% Installing precise-amd64 chroot to /usr/local/chroots/precise Downloading latest debootstrap... Download from Debian gitweb failed. Trying latest release... 2016-12-23 02:06:51 URL:http://debian.grena.ge/debian/pool/main/d/debootstrap/ [6171/6171] -> "-" [1] Downloading debootstrap version 1.0.87... 2016-12-23 02:06:52 URL:http://debian.grena.ge/debian/pool/main/d/debootstrap/debootstrap_1.0.87.tar.gz [65875/65875] -> "-" [1] Patching debootstrap... Downloading bootstrap files... W: Cannot check Release signature; keyring file not available /usr/share/keyrings/ubuntu-archive-keyring.gpg I: Retrieving InRelease W: Retrying failed download of http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/precise/InRelease I: Retrieving InRelease W: Retrying failed download of http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/precise/InRelease I: Retrieving InRelease

I have downloaded the chouton several times with no change. also I took my pc out of develeper mode and back into develeper mode with no change.

thanks in advance to anyone how can help

[DennisLfromGA]

@FranticAtheist,

Just a suggestion, why not try a newer release like trusty or xenial?

Hope this helps,
-DennisL

[FranticAtheist]

Get the same problem, that it can't down the distro.
What I don't understand is why is it looking for it in http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/trusty/InRelease
Since it seems there is no such directory.

[octopusnz]

@FranticAtheist Interesting one! I did some searching and found that there may be a problem with the InRelease files for these older Ubuntu releases.

I found this attempt to log the bug: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/1623613
The author mentions both trusty and precise as exhibiting the issue.
It looks like they want issues logged following the process here:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/FindRightPackage#Ubuntu_mirror_issues

A suggestion:

If you haven't already can you try specifying xenial as the release?
it looks like that is behaving better via mirror sites in particular.

Using something like:

sudo sh ~/Downloads/crouton -r xenial -t xfce

I know you might not want a xenial chroot but at least that would confirm it's specific to the trusty and precise releases.

Also it looks like #2915 is the same or at least a similar issue.

[FranticAtheist]

@octopusnz Thanks for the comment I tried xenial and it worked.
will see if there are any problems with xenial since it is not supported.

[octopusnz]

I emailed the good people at the Ubuntu mirrors team - who have politely reminded me that InRelease files were only added from xenial onwards so won't exist for precise/trusty.

See: https://bugs.launchpad.net/launchpad/+bug/1430011

And lots of useful information on the implementation here: http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~cjwatson/blog/no-more-hash-sum-mismatch-errors.html

So - the question I have is, what is causing it to look for the InRelease file over and over and then stopping.
Might be:

a) debootstrap
b) crouton patches applied to debootstrap
c) something else (apt?)

I found this exciting piece of code in crouton/installer/ubuntu/bootstrap

# Patch debootstrap so that it retries downloading packages
echo 'Patching debootstrap...' 1>&2
if awk '
    t == 3 && /warning RETRY/ { print "sleep 1"; t=4 }
    t == 2 && /-z \"\$checksum\"/ { sub(/\$checksum/, "$checksum$failed"); t=3 }
    t == 1 { if (/if \[/) { sub(/if \[/, "elif ["); t=2 } else { exit 1 } }
    /if ! just_get \"\$from\" \"\$dest2\"; then continue 2; fi/ {
        sub(/if !/, "failed=; if !")
        sub(/continue 2; fi/, "failed=y")
        t=1
    }
    1
    END { if (t != 4) exit 1 }
        ' "$tmp/functions" > "$tmp/functions.new"; then
    mv -f "$tmp/functions.new" "$tmp/functions"
else
    rm -f "$tmp/functions.new"
    echo "Unable to patch debootstrap, moving on..." 1>&2
fi

Maybe it's getting fixated on the InRelease file - trying a few times and then giving up altogether.

I also found this bug here: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/debootstrap/+bug/1599459

Basically the yarn is, specifying the --debian-installer flag causes debootstrap to fail to fall back to also checking for a Release file. Not sure if that is applicable for crouton but perhaps some wisdom that might help.

[dnschneid]

Is this still an issue, or has this been fixed with updated debootstrap?

[octopusnz]

I think it may still be an issue but the majority of people that were posting about it here just migrated to xenial which has InRelease files, so all good.
I feel it may still hit people who try trusty.

The only possible reference to a bug I found in debootstrap itself was related to using the --debian-installer flag - do you know if any of the scripts in crouton invoke debootstrap using that?

I don't think that has been investigated by the debootstrap folks as yet so newer versions probably haven't resolved the issue.

[dnschneid]

Nope, we don't use that flag...