Forwarded to devs Kernelcare extension - odd behavior on Ubuntu 18.04

[trialotto]

TITLE:

Kernelcare extension - odd behavior on Ubuntu 18.04​

PRODUCT, VERSION, OPERATING SYSTEM, ARCHITECTURE:

Product version: Plesk Onyx 17.8.11 Update #60
Update date: 2019/07/16 18:30
Build date: 2019/07/04 16:49
OS version: Ubuntu 18.04
Revision: 22908974a4fca7b7469ce60e47055ab1a07823a2
Architecture: 64-bit
Wrapper version: 1.2

Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description: Ubuntu 18.04.2 LTS
Release: 18.04
Codename: bionic​

PROBLEM DESCRIPTION:

Issue with System updates resulted in mail(s) with following content:

Reason: 2019-07-20 06:25:10 INFO: pum is called with arguments: ['--list', '--repo-info', '--json']
2019-07-20 06:25:41 ERROR:
2019-07-20 06:25:41 ERROR: Exited with returncode 1.

ISSUE seems to be related to Kernelcare packages not being updated.​

STEPS TO REPRODUCE:

STR 1 - Running the command

apt-get update && apt-get upgrade -y

does not resolve anything.

The command results in a hint to the potential root cause of the problem:

Calculating upgrade... Done
The following packages have been kept back:
kernelcare
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 1 not upgraded.

STR 2 - Check the version of kernelcare with the command

dpkg -l kernelcare

resulting in the output :

ii kernelcare 2.17-2 amd64 Tools for KernelCare

STR 3 - Testing update of Kernelcare packages via apt-get, run command

apt-get upgrade kernelcare

and the upgrade runs without any problems - see section Actual result.​

ACTUAL RESULT:

ACTUAL RESULT - after updating Kernelcare packages:

Run the command

dpkg -l kernelcare

resulting in output

ii kernelcare 2.18-1 amd64 Tools for KernelCare

In short, Plesk System Updates do not update Kernelcare packages.​

EXPECTED RESULT:

Plesk System Updates should update the Kernelcare packages for the Kernelcare extension.

Somehow, the following applies

- manual upgrades are possible
- Plesk System Updates do not include upgrade for Kernelcare

and that is not what should be expected.​

ANY ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

It is very IMPORTANT TO NOTE the following :

- the Plesk System Update error messages started at the 17th of july,

- Kernelcare has been update to the latest release at the 17th of july,

and this is not coincidence.​

YOUR EXPECTATIONS FROM PLESK SERVICE TEAM:

Confirm bug​

 

[trialotto]

Additional comments:

New notification arises when having update kernelcare package, when running apt-get upgrade:

The following packages have been kept back:
linux-generic linux-headers-generic linux-image-generic

I got the same result as presented above in the error description (see bug report), so I ran the apt-get upgrade command.

This new notification is probably unrelated to the potential bug, as reported in the bug report.

In general, the most obvious (but not certain) explanation is that kernel updates are held back - for some reason, mostly being a bug related issue.

However, that should not make any difference for the update of kernelcare packages.

Nevertheless, it might be important additional information.

Regards.......

 

[IgorG]

Thank you for report. Bug PPPM-10805 has been confirmed and submitted.

 

[trialotto]

@IgorG,

Any known work-around available?

Kind regards.....

 

[IgorG]

Any known work-around available?

Try manual update with

# apt-get upgrade kernelcare

 

[trialotto]

@IgorG,

# apt-get upgrade kernelcare

is a work-around to update / upgrade kernelcare package, not the extension.

I already applied this work-around : the latest kernelcare package is installed with ambivalent results.

On Ubuntu 16.04 there is not really a problem, not that I know of.

On Ubuntu 18.04 the problem still occurs.

I also noticed that the Plesk Update Manager holds back various other packages on Ubuntu 18.04 - this might be related to the bug reported.

Note that running the trustworthy command plesk sbin autoinstaller also does not detect any packages to upgrade sometimes, even if there are packages to update - that is not always a problem, but if there are Plesk related packages to be updated, they should be updateable with the autoinstaller command.

In short, on Ubuntu 18.04 there is a (medium, not minor) issue with package updating - probably not only limited to kernelcare.

Kind regards......

 

[trialotto]

@IgorG, @Developers

UPDATE

Kernelcare extension is 99,99% sure to cause

1 - the holding back of specific package updates : kernel packages and/or the kernelcare package itself are not updated properly,

2 - a delay in kernel package updates : the latest kernels are not installed, even when they are already available,

3 - a bloody mess when updating kernels manually : kernel packages are left behind, this is not desirable,

4 - a bloody mess when removing old kernels manually: after running apt-get remove (without purge flag though), some packages still remain with (dpkg) status "rc".

and this behaviour is very specific to Ubuntu 18.04.


Note that the specific behaviour related to Ubuntu 18.04 is not that surprising, given Kernelcare support for Ubuntu 18.04.

STR : just run a manual update of kernels with apt-get and try to remove old kernels with apt-get (no --purge flag)

STR expected result : a lot of old kernel packages -installed by Kernelcare extension- still residing after a manual update, which old kernel packages can only be removed by running the apt-get remove --purge command.


Note that Kernelcare extension does not

- affect ability to engage in a manual update process of kernels : it it just a messy result, with residual old kernel packages left behind,
- cause problems when running update-grub.


Finally, note that I will remove the obselete old kernel packages to test whether Kernelcare extension will break down after removal of packages installed by Kernelcare.

Will keep you posted!

Kind regards...........