OBS project repos do not work w/ apt-file

[drmuey]

OBS project repos do not work w/ apt-file

Packages made by OBS do not show up for apt-file (even w/ apt update) because OBS does not generate a Contents file.

Expected Result

apt-file should work w/ OBS project repos

How to Reproduce

1. Build a package on OBS, say, on home:whatever:whatever w/ xUbuntu_20.04 enabled

2. Do this on an Ubuntu 20.04 server:

3. configure the project ➜

# cat /etc/apt/sources.list.d/home\:whatever\:whatever.list
deb [ allow-insecure=yes trusted=yes ] https://your.internal.build.server.test:444/home:/whatever:/whatever/xUbuntu_20.04/ ./
#

2. import that repo’s key
3. apt update ➜ the internal one is updated, no Ign no W or E
4. ✅ dpkg -S /path/to/a/file/that/my-pkg/owns
5. ❌ apt-file search /path/to/a/file/that/my-pkg/owns
6. ✅ dpkg -L my-pkg # need to strip intermediate paths …
7. ❌ apt-file list my-pkg

Further Information

• apt-file $? is 1, which, from apt-file man page that means ➜ apt-file completed a search successfully, but it had no results.
• From what I can tell it is because the repo has no Contents file
• If so, that means apt-ftparchive contents . > Contents && gzip -9 < Contents > Contents.gz needs to happen in createrepo_debian() (probably near the end if not last)
  ** could be opt in so people are not surprised by it but those of us that need it could have it

[drmuey]

Confirmed that the cause of apt-file having no results for an OBS repo is almost certainly due to missing Contents file 👍

Details at nthykier/apt-file#2

thanks!

[Conan-Kudo]

This doesn't work because dpkg-scanpackages(1) does not provide a way to do so.

[nickbroon]

This doesn't work because dpkg-scanpackages(1) does not provide a way to do so.

Is there a particular reason OBS uses dpkg-scanpackages? Could it switch to apt-ftparchive instead?

From the apt-ftparchive manpage:

apt-ftparchive is a superset of the dpkg-scanpackages(1) program, incorporating its entire functionality via the packages command. It also contains a contents file generator, contents, and an elaborate means to 'script' the generation process for a complete archive.
https://manpages.debian.org/bullseye/apt-utils/apt-ftparchive.1.en.html

[Conan-Kudo]

Mostly because nobody knows about it and apt is not packaged in openSUSE. 😅

[nickbroon]

Ah, no 'apt' in opensuse, that's a real shame. I see a very old 'apt' package lingering at https://build.opensuse.org/project/show/system:packagemanager but factory doesn't appear to have it anymore. 😢