Debian Bug report logs - #115787
apt-get downgrade

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Message #5 received at maintonly@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Nikolaus Rath <Nikolaus@rath.org>

To: Debian Bug Tracking System <maintonly@bugs.debian.org>

Subject: apt-get downgrade

Date: Tue, 16 Oct 2001 12:48:24 +0200

Package: apt
Version: 0.5.4
Severity: wishlist

Hello!

I would love a apt-get downgrade command. It should downgrade all (or
only the given) packages to the highest avaible version.

Very usefull if you tried XFree 4.1 and want to return to 4.0, but
don't know which packages have been upgraded. In the moment i must
compare Packages.gz by hand, with apt-get downgrade it would be enough
to delete the XFree 4.1 line from sources.list.

-- System Information
Debian Release: testing/unstable
Architecture: i386
Kernel: Linux nikratio 2.2.18 #1 Mon Sep 10 22:55:45 CEST 2001 i686
Locale: LANG=C, LC_CTYPE=de_DE

Versions of packages apt depends on:
ii  libc6                  2.2.4-3           GNU C Library: Shared libraries an
ii  libstdc++2.10-glibc2.2 1:2.95.4-0.010902 The GNU stdc++ library

Message #20 received at 115787@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: "Dr. Andreas Krüger" <andreas.krueger@dv-ratio.com>

To: control@bugs.debian.org, 115787@bugs.debian.org, security@debian.org, deity@lists.debian.org

Cc: 267880@bugs.debian.org

Subject: Need "apt-get dist-downgrade" or similar when Sarge comes out.

Date: Thu, 23 Sep 2004 14:12:21 +0200

[Message part 1 (text/plain, inline)]

tags 115787 + sarge
thank you, control@bugs.debian.org

By the time Sarge comes out officially, some packages will have been removed 
from Sarge, that, at some point in time, have been a part of Sarge.  For a 
(likely) example, see bug 267880 of apt-proxy, i.e., 
http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=267880 .

Personally, I really look forward to the official release of Sarge.  E.g., 
there's this Sarge server waiting to be put into official production.  One of 
the things I look forward to as a really valuable service is, the Debian 
security team's full coverage of the software I use.

Previously, I had hoped that the release of Sarge by Debian, and a subsequent

   apt-get dist-upgrade

by myself, will eventually result in a stable, security-team-covered system.

I'm not so sure about that any more.

E.g., the team will surely not cover apt-proxy, obscure version 1.9.17, just 
because that version has, at one point, been part of Sarge.  On the other hand, 
apt-get is not likely to downgrade apt-proxy from 1.9.17 to 1.3.6 (assuming that 
version makes it into the stable Sarge release).

In my opinion, the general feature wishlisted by bug 115787 would really come in 
handy. See http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=115787 (and its 
merged equivalents) for details. (I'm not sure that it'll help much, given the 
bug's humble "wishlist" priority, but I have taken the liberty to tag that bug 
"sarge".)

Bug 158372 is one of the merge-syblings of 115787.  At that bug, Jason Gunthorpe 
commented, some two years ago, that the required functionalty will not be 
provided as a feature of apt.

If that has not changed in the meantime, I would like to ask Debian to clearly 
announce what else can be done by a Debian Sarge user to "stabilize" her 
machine. In essence,

"After dist-upgrade from Woody (stable) to Sarge (stable), you have software 
that is covered by the security team.  To achive the same effect, Sarge 
(testing) users need to do XXX, to change their machines to Sarge (stable)."

I very much hope there will be a better solution for "XXX", besides the obvious 
"fdisk/mkfs/reinstall".  If so, I have not yet found it documented in any of the 
obvious places.

Regards, and thank you for providing fine software,

Andreas Krüger
-- 
Dr. Andreas Krüger, andreas.krueger@dv-ratio.com
GPG/PGP Fingerprint 8063 4A9B 362D 4220 A546  14C1 EA19 AADC FD44 5EB7
DV-RATIO Nordwest GmbH, Tel.: +49 211 577 996-0, Fax:  +49 211 559 1617
Leostraße 31, 40545 Düsseldorf, Germany

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Message #25 received at 94164-close@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Julian Andres Klode <jak@debian.org>

To: Janos Holanyi <csani@lme.linux.hu>, 94164-close@bugs.debian.org

Subject: Re: Bug#94164: A wish for 'apt-get fallback <package> [<package> ...]'

Date: Thu, 13 Aug 2015 22:39:38 +0200

On Mon, Apr 16, 2001 at 06:15:00PM +0200, Janos Holanyi wrote:
> Package: apt
> Version: 0.5.3
> Severity: wishlist
> 
> Hello,
> 
> I wish there was an option to fall back to an earlier version of packages...
> 
> It should be simple to implment and I could imagine one way for achieving it:
> (of course there could be more)
> 
> 1. Optionally, at every upgrade, the package(s) to be upgraded are repackaged
> before removed including any temporary or newly created file(s) that they need
> (and use) for a proper functionality (the functionality before the upgrade)
> and are put in a temporary place (cache) under a special name (like one letter
> added, or something similar).
> When 'apt-get fallback package' is issued, first that temporary repository
> is looked up, and if found, the backed up package reinstalled. If not found,
> first the testing, then the stable tree is looked up if possible and the version
> there would be installed if posssible. If both fail,
> 'Fallback for package is not possible' message and exit is performed.
> 
> It's been a long time since I'd been thinking of asking for such a feature.
> The actuality for this wish being posted is the latest ssh breakage
> 
> ('OpenSSL version mismatch. Built against 90600f, you have 90601f')
> 
> which isolated my machine from the outside and my X for days.
> With such a fallback feature, it wouldn't have been such a big deal.
> 
> I know unstable is unstable and things break, but those who like the
> bleeding edge I believe would loose less blood with such a feature.

Downgrades are not supported. Use a snapshotting feature in the file
system or block layer.

-- 
Julian Andres Klode  - Debian Developer, Ubuntu Member

See http://wiki.debian.org/JulianAndresKlode and http://jak-linux.org/.

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