APT-LISTBUGS(1) General Commands Manual APT-LISTBUGS(1)
NAME
apt-listbugs - Lists critical bugs before each APT installation/upgrade
SYNOPSIS
apt-listbugs [-s severities] [-T tags] [-S states] [-B bug#] [-D] [-H
hostname] [-p port] [-P priority] [-E title] [-q] [-C apt.conf] [-F]
[-N] [-y] [-n] [-d] command [argument ...]
apt-listbugs -h
apt-listbugs -v
DESCRIPTION
apt-listbugs is a tool which retrieves bug reports from the Debian Bug
Tracking System and lists them. In particular, it is intended to be in-
voked before each installation or upgrade by APT, or other compatible
package managers, in order to check whether the installation/upgrade is
safe.
In the typical use case, the user is installing or upgrading a number
of packages with APT or some other compatible package manager. Before
the package installation or upgrade is actually performed, apt-listbugs
is automatically invoked: it queries the Debian Bug Tracking System for
bugs (of certain configured severities) that would be introduced into
the system by the installation or upgrade; if any such bug is found,
apt-listbugs warns the user and asks how to proceed. Among other
things, the user has the opportunity to continue, to abort the instal-
lation or upgrade, or to pin some packages (so that the unsafe instal-
lation or upgrade is deferred). However, pinning is not effective imme-
diately, and requires restarting the APT session (by aborting and then
re-running the same APT command).
Each package pin is automatically removed by a daily cron job (or by an
equivalent systemd timer), as soon as the corresponding bug is fixed in
(or no longer affects) the package version available for installation
or upgrade. When the pin is removed, the installation or upgrade of the
package becomes possible again.
In order for the automatic pin removal to work correctly, the daily
cron job or systemd timer has to be actually executed: if systemd is
used as init system, this should be taken care of automatically; other-
wise, if the system is up and running almost 24/7, then cron should
suffice; in all other cases, the installation of anacron is recom-
mended. Moreover the Internet link must be working, while the daily job
is run. Finally, the APT package lists should be kept up-to-date.
OPTIONS
-s severities , --severity severities
Filter (and sort) bugs by severity, showing only the bugs match-
ing specified values. List the bug severities that you want to
see, separated by commas and in the desired order. Possible val-
ues are critical, grave, serious, important, normal, minor,
wishlist, or the special value all to disable filtering. De-
fault: critical,grave,serious. The default list may be changed
by setting the AptListbugs::Severities configuration option.
-T tags , --tag tags
Filter bugs by tags, showing only the bugs matching all speci-
fied values. List the tags that you want to see, separated by
commas. Default: no filter. Possible values include con-
firmed,l10n to show only bugs that have both these tags.
-S states , --stats states
Filter (and sort) bugs by pending-state, showing only the bugs
matching specified values. List the pending-state categories
that you want to see, separated by commas and in the desired or-
der. Default: pending,forwarded,pending-fixed,fixed,done. Pos-
sible values are: pending (open bug), forwarded (marked as "for-
warded"), pending-fixed (tagged as "pending"), fixed (tagged as
"fixed"), absent (not found in this distribution/architecture),
done (resolved in some version for this distribution/architec-
ture). Note that a bug can only match one such state (when mul-
tiple conditions on this list match, the later one takes prior-
ity), and that pending does not mean "tagged as pending".
-B bug# , --bugs bug#
Filter bugs by number, showing only the bugs directly specified.
List the bug numbers that you want to see, separated by commas
(e.g. 123456,567890,135792). Default: no filter.
-D, --show-downgrade
Show bugs of downgraded packages. (apt mode only)
-H hostname , --hostname hostname
Specifies the hostname of the Debian Bug Tracking System. De-
fault: bugs.debian.org .
-p port , --port port
Specifies the port number of the web interface of the Debian Bug
Tracking System. Default: 80.
-P priority , --pin-priority priority
Specifies Pin-Priority value. Default: 30000.
-E title , --title title
Specifies the title of RSS output.
-q, --quiet
Don't display progress bar. This option is assumed if stdout is
not a terminal.
-C apt.conf , --aptconf apt.conf
Specifies an additional APT configuration file to use. This
file will be read after the default APT configuration files.
-F, --force-pin
When in apt mode, assumes that you want to automatically pin all
buggy packages without any prompt. This option is assumed if
stdout is not a terminal, unless the -N command-line option is
used.
-N, --force-no-pin
When in apt mode, never automatically pin any package without
prompt. This is the default behavior, as long as stdout is a
terminal.
-y, --force-yes
Assumes that you select yes for all questions. When in apt
mode, this implies that you accept to continue with the instal-
lation/upgrade, even when bugs are found or errors occur.
-n, --force-no
Assumes that you select no for all questions. When in apt mode,
this implies that you want to abort the installation/upgrade, as
soon as bugs are found or errors occur. This option is assumed
if stdout is not a terminal, unless the -y command-line option
is used.
-a, --force-default
Assumes that you select the default (automatic) reply for all
questions. When in apt mode, this implies that you accept to
continue with the installation/upgrade, even when bugs are
found, but not when errors occur.
-d, --debug
Give extra debug output, important for debugging problems.
Please include -d when reporting problems.
-h, --help
Print usage help and exit.
-v, --version
Print version number and exit.
COMMANDS
apt Reads package actions from a file descriptor specified in the
$APT_HOOK_INFO_FD environment variable (typically provided by
APT or other compatible package manager; Pre-Install-Pkgs hook
info protocol version 3 is expected - see apt.conf(5) for more
details).
list [ package [: arch ][/ version ] ...]
Reads package names from the arguments and simply lists bugs of
these packages. Package versions may be specified with a slash,
as in apt/1.0 for example. Package architectures may be speci-
fied with a colon, as in apt:amd64 or apt:amd64/1.0 (but please
note that the Debian Bug Tracking System does not distinguish
the architectures, hence the same bugs will be listed, regard-
less of the specified architecture).
rss [ package [: arch ][/ version ] ...]
Reads package names from the arguments and lists bugs of these
packages in RSS format. Again, package versions may be specified
with a slash and architectures with a colon.
ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
APT_LISTBUGS_FRONTEND
If this variable is set to "none", apt-listbugs will not execute
at all; this might be useful if you would like to script the use
of a program that calls apt-listbugs.
http_proxy
If $http_proxy is set, the value is used for HTTP Proxy, unless
proxy settings are found in APT configuration (see below).
APT_HOOK_INFO_FD
File descriptor from which package actions will be read (APT or
other compatible package managers are expected to write informa-
tion to this file descriptor and to properly set this environ-
ment variable).
CONFIGURATION FILE
apt-listbugs reads the APT configuration (see apt.conf(5) for more de-
tails). The following configuration options are recognized:
Acquire::http::Proxy
Default HTTP Proxy setting (overrides any $http_proxy environ-
ment variable value). An empty string or the special keyword
"DIRECT" will disable proxy.
Acquire::http::Proxy-Auto-Detect
Automatic HTTP Proxy discovery (overrides the default HTTP Proxy
setting and any $http_proxy environment variable value). It can
be used to specify an external command that is expected to out-
put the proxy on stdout.
Acquire::http::Proxy::bugs.debian.org
Specific HTTP Proxy setting (overrides any other proxy setting).
Useful for setting HTTP proxy for apt-listbugs. The special
keyword "DIRECT" will disable proxy.
AptListbugs::Severities
Default (comma-separated) list of bug severities to be shown.
When this option is not set, the list is "critical,grave,seri-
ous", unless explicitly altered by using the -s command-line op-
tion. On the other hand, when this option is set, the list of
severities is its value, unless explicitly altered by using the
-s command-line option.
AptListbugs::IgnoreRegexp
Bugs to ignore when in apt mode. This is evaluated using Ruby
regular expressions: if the bug title matches, the bug is ig-
nored. Default: nothing. A possible suggested value is "FTBFS",
since those bugs tend to not affect the user.
AptListbugs::QueryStep
Maximum number of packages to be queried (on the Debian Bug
Tracking System) in a single batch. Default value is 200. The
query operation is performed in batches of at most QueryStep
packages, for performance reasons; setting a lower value may
slow down apt-listbugs, but may increase reliability on poor
network links.
AptListbugs::ParseStep
Maximum number of bug reports to be queried (on the Debian Bug
Tracking System) and parsed in a single batch. Default value is
200. The query and parse operation is performed in batches of at
most ParseStep bugs, for performance reasons; setting a lower
value may slow down apt-listbugs, but may increase reliability
on poor network links.
OUTPUT EXAMPLE
[bug severity] bugs of [package] ([current version] -> [package version to be installed]) <[state of bug report]>
[bN] - [#bug] - [bug title] [(Fixed: fixed version, if it's fixed in a future version)]
Summary:
[package]([number of] bugs)
e.g.:
important bugs of apt-listbugs (0.0.47 -> 0.0.49) <Outstanding>
b1 - #332442 - apt-listbugs: Apt-listbugs doesn't actually download any bug reports
b2 - #389903 - apt-listbugs: Does not offer to exit if timeout occurs fetching reports
Summary:
apt-listbugs(2 bugs)
EXIT STATUS
0 If the program ran successfully and (when in apt mode) you de-
cided to continue with the installation/upgrade. Or otherwise,
if a SIGUSR1 was received (for instance because you issued the
command killall -USR1 apt-listbugs).
1 If an error occurred.
10 If the program ran successfully in apt mode, but you decided to
abort the installation/upgrade.
130 If a SIGINT was received (for instance because you pressed
[Ctrl+C]).
N.B.: When the program is invoked by APT, any non-zero exit status will
cause the installation/upgrade to be aborted.
FILES
/etc/apt/preferences.d/apt-listbugs
Version preferences file fragment for APT managed by apt-list-
bugs: this is where the package pins are added by the apt-list-
bugs program and removed by its daily cron job or systemd timer.
This file is managed automatically and there's normally no need
to modify it by hand.
/var/lib/apt-listbugs/ignore_bugs
Automatic list of bug numbers to be ignored by apt-listbugs:
this is where the program saves the bug numbers that the user
decided to ignore. This file is managed automatically and
there's normally no need to modify it by hand.
/etc/apt/listbugs/ignore_bugs
User list of bug numbers and packages to be ignored by apt-list-
bugs: this is where the (root) user may manually add bug numbers
or package names that apt-listbugs will ignore. This file is
only read by apt-listbugs, but never modified: the (root) user
has to edit it by hand. The format is: one bug number or package
name per line; lines whose first non-blank character is '#' are
treated as comments and skipped entirely.
/etc/apt/apt.conf and /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/*
Default APT configuration files (see apt.conf(5) for more de-
tails).
/etc/apt/apt.conf.d/10apt-listbugs
Configuration file fragment for APT containing options related
to apt-listbugs: this is the recommended place where the (root)
user may tweak the behavior of apt-listbugs, but usually no cus-
tomization is required.
AUTHORS
2002 - 2004: apt-listbugs was originally written by Masato Taruishi
<taru@debian.org>.
2006 - 2008: Junichi Uekawa <dancer@debian.org> rewrote it to handle
BTS Versioning features and the SOAP interface. The --bugs option was
added by Francesco Poli in 2008.
2009 - 2010: apt-listbugs was maintained by Francesco Poli <inver-
nomuto@paranoici.org> and Ryan Niebur <ryan@debian.org>
2011 - 2012: maintenance was carried on by Francesco Poli and Thomas
Mueller <thomas.mueller@tmit.eu>.
2013 - present day: apt-listbugs has been maintained by Francesco Poli.
The latest source code is available from https://salsa.de-
bian.org/frx-guest/apt-listbugs
SEE ALSO
apt.conf(5), sensible-browser(1), xdg-open(1), www-browser(1),
querybts(1)
January 2023 APT-LISTBUGS(1)
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