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I can't quite wrap my head around pinning in Debian. I'm trying to automatically install a package first from our local project repo, then from our local stable repo and then from official Debian repo, fulfilling dependencies as needed in the same order.

So I have three repos in /etc/apt/sources.list:

deb http://our-stable-repo/ our-squeeze-stable main deb http://official-debian-repo/ squeeze main deb http://our-project-repo/ our-project main

Release files are as follows, our-stable-repo:

Origin: Ourname Label: Ourname Suite: our-squeeze-stable Components: backports main Architectures: MD5Sum: [...] SHA1: [...]

and our-project-repo:

Origin: Ourname Label: Ourname Archive: our-project Component: main Architecture: amd64

All our packages are in our-stable-repo and our-project-repo. I want to test a package from our-project-repo, which will have few dependencies from the same, and some (those which are not to be tested) from our-stable-repo.

Now I set up my /etc/apt/preferences:

Package: * Pin: release a=our-project Pin-Priority: 900 Package: * Pin: release a=our-squeeze-stable Pin-Priority: 750 Package: * Pin: release a=squeeze Pin-Priority: 600

so I expect apt to try and install any package from our-project first.

But that does not happen; our-our-squeeze-stable seems to always "win". And even providing -t our-project on a command line does not help. Only way how I was able to make apt install my package from the project repo was removing other sources, but that way I ended up with broken dependencies.

I tried to debug with apt-cache policy, but that's even more confusing:

root@test:~# apt-cache policy Package files: 100 /var/lib/dpkg/status release a=now 500 http://our-project-repo/ our-project/main amd64 Packages origin our-project-repo 500 http://official-debian-repo/debian-security/ squeeze/updates/non-free amd64 Packages release v=6.0,o=Debian,a=oldstable,n=squeeze,l=Debian-Security,c=non-free origin official-debian-repo 500 http://official-debian-repo/debian-security/ squeeze/updates/contrib amd64 Packages release v=6.0,o=Debian,a=oldstable,n=squeeze,l=Debian-Security,c=contrib origin official-debian-repo 500 http://official-debian-repo/debian-security/ squeeze/updates/main amd64 Packages release v=6.0,o=Debian,a=oldstable,n=squeeze,l=Debian-Security,c=main origin official-debian-repo 500 http://official-debian-repo/debian/ squeeze/non-free amd64 Packages release v=6.0.7,o=Debian,a=oldstable,n=squeeze,l=Debian,c=non-free origin official-debian-repo 500 http://official-debian-repo/debian/ squeeze/contrib amd64 Packages release v=6.0.7,o=Debian,a=oldstable,n=squeeze,l=Debian,c=contrib origin official-debian-repo 500 http://official-debian-repo/debian/ squeeze/main amd64 Packages release v=6.0.7,o=Debian,a=oldstable,n=squeeze,l=Debian,c=main origin official-debian-repo 750 http://our-stable-repo/ our-squeeze-stable/main amd64 Packages release o=Ourname,a=our-squeeze-stable,l=Ourname,c=main origin our-stable-repo Pinned packages: root@test:~#

Why in this apt-cache policy output the project repo has still 500?

Is there something wrong with this setup?

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  • Did you run apt-get update after changing preferences? If our-project has older package versions than our-squeeze-stable, then you need a pin over over 1000, otherwise, you don't need adjusted pinning at all. Commented Jul 29, 2013 at 14:16
  • @jordanm you don't need to run apt-get update after changing preferences Commented Jul 29, 2013 at 14:36

1 Answer 1

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4 
 500 http://our-project-repo/ our-project/main amd64 Packages origin our-project-repo

Note the lack of a release line. That's important, because you're trying to set a pin on a release field. Most likely, you don't have a proper Release file in your archive (or, at least, it doesn't have the fields set).

Not sure what you're using to maintain your package archive, but (e.g.,) for mini-dinstall, you need to set the release_* config options. You can check in /var/lib/apt/lists to find the current release file apt-get has for your archive (if any). If you watch an apt-get update closely, you can see it downloading (or failing to download) the release file as well as related stuff (like Release.gpg, the signature for the release file).

If you can't fix your release file, set a pin on the origin instead:

Package: * Pin: origin "our-project-repo" Pin-Priority: 900
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  • Can I see the Release file without need to ssh to the repo host? I guess it should be cached somewhere after apt-get update but I can't seem to find it. Or I could just wget it -O - if I could mount the URI...? Commented Jul 29, 2013 at 15:03
  • @AloisMahdal Its in /var/lib/apt/lists (if it exists). Or you can grab it however apt would; e.g., http.us.debian.org/debian/dists/wheezy/main/binary-amd64/… is one from Wheezy. Substitute in your repository and path. Commented Jul 29, 2013 at 15:07

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