[ moving here a discussion started on #debian-dak ]

It seems that the Release file for the backports suite is the only one not
having a "Suite:" entry which is independent from the actual release name:

  $ find . -name *Release | xargs egrep '^(Codename|Suite):'
  ./sid/Release:Suite: unstable
  ./sid/Release:Codename: sid
  ./jessie/Release:Suite: testing
  ./jessie/Release:Codename: jessie
  ./squeeze-proposed-updates/Release:Suite: oldstable-proposed-updates
  ./squeeze-proposed-updates/Release:Codename: squeeze-proposed-updates
  ./experimental/Release:Suite: experimental
  ./experimental/Release:Codename: experimental
  ./squeeze-updates/Release:Suite: oldstable-updates
  ./squeeze-updates/Release:Codename: squeeze-updates
  ./jessie-proposed-updates/Release:Suite: testing-proposed-updates
  ./jessie-proposed-updates/Release:Codename: jessie-proposed-updates
  ./wheezy/Release:Suite: stable
  ./wheezy/Release:Codename: wheezy
  ./wheezy-proposed-updates/Release:Suite: proposed-updates
  ./wheezy-proposed-updates/Release:Codename: wheezy-proposed-updates
  ./wheezy-updates/Release:Suite: stable-updates
  ./wheezy-updates/Release:Codename: wheezy-updates
  ./squeeze/Release:Suite: oldstable
  ./squeeze/Release:Codename: squeeze
  ./wheezy-backports/Release:Suite: wheezy-backports
  ./wheezy-backports/Release:Codename: wheezy-backports

as you can see from the last 2 lines, both Suite and Codename are set to
"wheezy-backports" whereas, to be consistent with the rest, the suite should be
something like "stable-backports".

In addition to the lack of consistency, currently there seems to be no way to
mirror (or APT pin on) backports in a way that does not require hard-coding the
"wheezy" release name. (Well, the "stable-backports" symlink does exist on
mirrors, but decent mirroring tools prefer to trust the content of Release
files, and for good reasons).

Is this fixable for Wheezy? I guess not, because there might be people pinning
on "Suite: wheezy-backports"... But it would be nice to fix this for jessie and
on.

Cheers.

severity 714726 important
merge 714726 509574
tags 714726 patch
thank you

This bug is almost 5 years old and has been duplicated several times:
http://bugs.debian.org/509574

I'm fairly naive, but it looks to me that wheezy-backports doesn't
report the suite correctly as stable-backports, and also
wheezy-proposed-updates doesn't report Suite=stable-proposed-updates,
as it obviously should according to the wiki:
https://wiki.debian.org/StableProposedUpdates
and the output I get:
W: Conflicting distribution: http://http.debian.net
stable-proposed-updates Release (expected stable-proposed-updates but
got wheezy-proposed-updates)
W: Conflicting distribution: http://http.debian.net stable-backports
Release (expected stable-backports but got wheezy-backports)

This is obviously broken. Symlinking repositories is more than fine
(bind-mounting would be better), but Release files, if with different
content, should be recreated always, obviously!

Why couldn't this make it into wheezy-updates?

Whoever is pinning, should be pinning
  Pin: release n=wheezy-backports
or
  Pin: release a=stable-backports
and not
  Pin: release a=wheezy-backports
as I understood apt_preferences(5).

Can somebody please shed some light on this?
Why does suite vs. codename work for all other archive sources except
stable-backports and stable-proposed-updates?
What happened to codename rc-buggy? Experimental is not in line with
the rest of the sources, missing it's toy like that.
Can somebody please show me way to the source code where this bug manifests?

...

Ok, I hacked a little what may be correct. It is the same hack by Mark
Hymers, just extended for the missing archives.

Is there any reason not to push this to mirrors now? :-)

Heya,

JFTR, it looks like this bug has been propagated to the just released
suite Jessie. Currently,
http://ftp.debian.org/debian/dists/jessie-backports/Release reads:

  Suite: jessie-backports
  Codename: jessie-backports

To cope with this, I've just hard-coded yet another release name in
sources.d.n configuration, to make sure that the new backports suite is
included.

It would be nice to fix this now for jessie+1.

TIA,
Cheers.

Hi,

On Sun, 26 Apr 2015 22:01:03 +0200 Stefano Zacchiroli <zack@debian.org> wrote:

$ curl -s http://ftp.debian.org/debian/dists/stretch-backports/Release
Origin: Debian Backports
Label: Debian Backports
Suite: stretch-backports
Codename: stretch-backports
[...]

Maybe this could still be fixed in time? I guess right now "Suite"
should read "testing-backports", hoping it becomes "stable-backports" on
release.

cheers,
Stefan

Hi,

Still broken after the stretch release.  Maybe this time just fix it
although it is already released (right now there is nothing in it yet
anyway)?

As a workaround if someone wants to pin:

    Pin: release o=Debian Backports,a=stable-backports

They should pin instead or additionally:

    Pin: release o=Debian Backports,n=stretch-backports

Or (if you don't mix oldstable / stable backports sources):

    Pin: release o=Debian Backports

Pinning a=stretch-backports ("a=" instead of "n="!) might work now, but
breaks if this bug gets fixed.

cheers,
Stefan

Hi,

here we are again for the buster release cycle.

$ curl -s http://ftp.debian.org/debian/dists/buster-backports/Release | head -n4
Origin: Debian Backports
Label: Debian Backports
Suite: buster-backports
Codename: buster-backports

$ curl -s http://ftp.debian.org/debian/dists/buster/Release | head -n4
Origin: Debian
Label: Debian
Suite: testing
Codename: buster

The Suite for buster-backports should be "testing-backports" right now
and become "stable-backports" when buster gets released.

cheers,
Stefan

Hi,

it seems dak got improved [1] (or at least the release instructions),
although no changes were made to the current releases afaict (not even
testing/bullseye).

The instructions also don't include yet the part to update the
suite_name on release - backports and (proposed-)updates are in a "MOVE
STUFF AROUND:" section [2] that manipulates symlinks but doesn't
actually update suite_name in the database (contrary to most suites [3]
which are handled by a "rename-suite" function [4]).

The "rename-suite" won't work with broken suites - as its database
updates are based on the previous "suite_name" value (which is the part
that is broken right now afaict).

I hope this is going to work out somehow - and it is nice to see some
progress was made :)

cheers,
Stefan

[1]: https://salsa.debian.org/ftp-team/dak/-/commit/bc0f26a328ff6f3a26ff0f04a6e51a8ac6cd5e7f
[2]: https://salsa.debian.org/ftp-team/dak/-/blob/8f090ecf549fcc8713af3e2a993fc52bcd66bc91/docs/release.txt#L117-136
[3]: https://salsa.debian.org/ftp-team/dak/-/blob/8f090ecf549fcc8713af3e2a993fc52bcd66bc91/docs/release.txt#L69-84
[4]: https://salsa.debian.org/ftp-team/dak/-/blob/8f090ecf549fcc8713af3e2a993fc52bcd66bc91/docs/release.txt#L15-42

Hi again,

small status update: it seems bookworm (now testing) backports was
created correctly (yay \o/), but bullseye (now stable) wasn't fixed.

I still doubt release.txt contains the correct instructions to update
bookworm-backports to suite stable-backports on bookworm release.

$ curl -s http://ftp.debian.org/debian/dists/bullseye-backports/Release | head -n4
Origin: Debian Backports
Label: Debian Backports
Suite: bullseye-backports
Codename: bullseye-backports

$ curl -s http://ftp.debian.org/debian/dists/bookworm-backports/Release | head -n4
Origin: Debian Backports
Label: Debian Backports
Suite: testing-backports
Codename: bookworm-backports
---

cheers,
Stefan

AFAIK this is wanted as ftp-master refused to update suites already
created.  So I suppose this bug will be completely fixed in another ~4
years time.

Could this at least get fixed on time for Trixie?

Martin-Éric

Hi,

current state:

* buster-backports doesn't exist anymore
* bullseye-backports broken
* bookworm-backports fixed
* trixie-backports looking good

This is exactly as one would expect (based on the assumption existing
suites shouldn't be changed).

Given bookworm-backports was released correctly I assume that it will
work with trixie too.

Once bullseye-backports is gone this bug should be resolved completely.

cheers,
Stefan

la 29.3.2025 klo 13.03 Stefan Bühler (source@stbuehler.de) kirjoitti:

Meanwhile Origin is still borked for Trixie.  Basically, Origin=vendor
i.e. it should say Debian, not Debian Backports.

Also, the Label syntax remains inconsistent between Backports,
Security and $release (See #1100749).

Martin-Éric

la 29.3.2025 klo 13.16 Martin-Éric Racine (martin-eric.racine@iki.fi) kirjoitti:
Origin: Debian
Label: Debian
Suite: testing
Codename: trixie
$ curl -s http://deb.debian.org/debian/dists/trixie-updates/Release | head -n4
Origin: Debian
Label: Debian
Suite: testing-updates
Codename: trixie-updates
$ curl -s http://deb.debian.org/debian/dists/trixie-backports/Release | head -n4
Origin: Debian Backports
Label: Debian Backports
Suite: testing-backports
Codename: trixie-backports
[2025-03-29 13:26](STABLE)perkelix@p8h61:/tmp$ curl -s
http://deb.debian.org/debian-security/dists/trixie-security/Release |
head -n4
Origin: Debian
Label: Debian-Security
Suite: testing-security
Codename: trixie-security
$ curl -s http://deb.debian.org/debian-debug/dists/trixie-debug/Release
| head -n4
Origin: Debian
Label: Debian debug
Suite: testing-debug
Codename: trixie-debug
$ curl -s http://deb.debian.org/debian-debug/dists/trixie-backports-debug/Release
| head -n4
Origin: Debian Backports
Label: Debian Backports debug
Suite: testing-backports-debug
Codename: trixie-backports-debug

Martin-Éric

Hi Martin-Éric,

That is not what **this** bug is about; please don't hijack other bugs,
especially since you already opened another bug about what you're
unhappy with.

cheers,
Stefan