Subject: Bug#288763: cron-apt: Run apt-listchanges on updated packages

From: Marc Sherman <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 05 Jan 2005 09:55:40 -0500

Package: cron-apt
Version: 0.1.1
Severity: wishlist

I think it would be great if cron-apt would run apt-listchanges on
updated packages after downloading them.  What do you think?

I can't really think of how to best implement that, though.  If you have
any suggestions, but don't feel like doing it yourself, let me know and
I'll take a crack at it.

Bonus points if your suggested implementation is compatible with both
apt-get and aptitude as the APTCOMMAND. :)

- Marc

-- System Information:
Debian Release: 3.1
  APT prefers testing
  APT policy: (500, 'testing')
Architecture: i386 (i686)
Kernel: Linux 2.6.8-1-k7
Locale: LANG=en_CA, LC_CTYPE=en_CA (charmap=ISO-8859-1)

Versions of packages cron-apt depends on:
ii  apt              0.5.27                  Advanced front-end for dpkg
ii  bash             2.05b-24                The GNU Bourne Again SHell
ii  debianutils      2.8.4                   Miscellaneous utilities specific t
ii  mailx            1:8.1.2-0.20040524cvs-3 A simple mail user agent

-- no debconf information

---

From: Ola Lundqvist <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 6 Jan 2005 15:43:32 +0100

Hello

> any suggestions, but don't feel like doing it yourself, let me know and

I'm not really sure what you want to do. Can't you hook apt-listchanges
to apt-get?

> apt-get and aptitude as the APTCOMMAND. :)

I have a patch for that. Problem is that apt-get and aptitute is not
command line argument compatible.

Regards,

// Ola

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From: Marc Sherman <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 06 Jan 2005 10:07:35 -0500

> I'm not really sure what you want to do. Can't you hook apt-listchanges

I want the mail I get nightly from cron-apt to include the 
apt-listchanges output for the updated packages.  The standard 
apt-get/apt-listchanges integration only runs apt-listchanges when I'm 
actually upgrading, not when the packages are just downloaded by cron-apt.

> command line argument compatible.

Yeah, I know, I wrote the patch. :)

- Marc

---

From: Ola Lundqvist <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 6 Jan 2005 16:27:09 +0100

Hello

> actually upgrading, not when the packages are just downloaded by cron-apt.

I think it is better to patch apt in this case as it will be very
difficult to modify cron-apt to do this...

> Yeah, I know, I wrote the patch. :)

Doh! And my memory for names is very bad... :(

Is it possible to hook on aptitude?

Regards,

// Ola

--

---

From: Marc Haber <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 28 Jul 2007 09:03:38 +0200

clone #288763 -1
severity -1 wishlist
reassign -1 apt-listchanges
retitle -1 apt-listchanges: show changes in packages that only have been downloaded
submitter -1 [email-masked]
clone #288763 -2
severity -2 wishlist
reassign -2 apt
retitle -2 apt-get: call apt-listchanges on download-only
submitter -2 [email-masked]
clone #288763 -3
severity -3 wishlist
reassign -3 apt
retitle -3 aptitude: call apt-listchanges on download-only
submitter -3 [email-masked]
thanks

> updated packages after downloading them.  What do you think?

I agree.

> any suggestions, but don't feel like doing it yourself, let me know and

I think it would be a good idea to have this handled by
apt-listchanges, apt-get or aptitude.

For apt-listchanges, this could be implemented by having a command
line option that lists all changes for all packages that can be found
in /var/cache/apt/archives.

For apt-get and aptitude, I suspect that this would need to be
configuratble somewhere in the apt configuration (maybe even in a
library so that a single change cares for apt-get and aptitude
respectively), but I do not have enough clue to judge that. The idea
is to call apt-listchanges even if apt-get/aptitude were called with
--download-only.

I am cloning this bug to apt-listchanges, apt and aptitude.
Maintainers of these packages, please feel free to close your instance
of your bug if you find the fix inappopriate for your package.

-- 
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Marc Haber         | "I don't trust Computers. They | Mailadresse im Header
Mannheim, Germany  |  lose things."    Winona Ryder | Fon: *49 621 72739834
Nordisch by Nature |  How to make an American Quilt | Fax: *49 621 72739835

---

From: Marc Haber <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 28 Jul 2007 09:36:06 +0200

> submitter -1 [email-masked]

this is #434986

> submitter -2 [email-masked]

this is #434987

> submitter -3 [email-masked]

this is #434988

Greetings
Marc

---

From: Marc Sherman <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 28 Jul 2007 10:03:29 -0400

> apt-listchanges, apt-get or aptitude.

For the record, I'm now using apticron instead of cron-apt, and it 
handles this quite nicely. So my interest in this bug is purely academic 
now.

- Marc

---

From: Alexander Reichle-Schmehl <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 4 Apr 2018 17:01:39 +0200

Hi!

I recently run into the same problem, found that ticket, found a work
around, and thought I update the ticket, as my workaround might be
useful for someone else, too.

The basic idea is to call apt-listchanges over all files downloaded to
/var/cache/apt/archives. To avoid getting the changelog of cruft
collected in that directory, I first run apt-get.

To do that, I created /etc/cron-apt/action.d/1-clean which contains:
clean

I also created /etc/cron-apt/config.d/4-listchanges containing:
APTCOMMAND="/usr/bin/apt-listchanges"
OPTIONS=""

And finnally I created /etc/cron-apt/4-listchanges containing:
/var/cahce/apt/archives/*.deb

WARNING: Using this solution might not be what you want, as you'll
download package updates daily, just to remove them the next day from
the cache and downloading them again (unless you install them in time).
It might also remove packages from the archive cache, you might want to
keep.

Best regards,
  Alexander

---

From: Ola Lundqvist <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 14 May 2018 20:24:14 +0200

Hi

Sorry for late reply. Thank you for the contribution. I'll consider adding
this suggestion to the documentation of the package. For the time being it
is good that it is here in the bug report.

Best regards

// Ola

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