| SYSTEM INFORMATION | |
|---|---|
| OS type and version | Debian Linux 11.7 |
| Webmin version | 2.101 |
| Proxmox VE 7.4-16 issues this warning after updating Webmin to 2.101, “Warning! Use the name of the stable distribution instead of ‘stable’!” We are on Debian Linux 11.7 / Linux 5.15-108.2-pve on x86_64 running Webmin 2.101. Is there any way to get rid of this warning? Will Webmin replace “stable” with an actual stable distribution name at some point in the future. That seems to be the only way to get rid of the Proxmox warning message. This is not a huge deal, more of an annoyance, so I’m just curious about this at this point. |
Is that from the Webmin repo? Yeah, that’s wrong. I thought @Jamie was going to call the distribution webmin or similar.
Up until the latest version, it always reported as “sarge” and presented no warning messages but now it just reports as “stable”. And, yes, it is from the Webmin repo.
sarge was also wrong. We aren’t Debian, and sarge is so ancient it scared people. 
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That may be so, but at least it worked for years without the warnings I am getting now. Previously, the resource entry was “deb [arch=amd64] http://download.webmin.com/download/repository sarge contrib” in etc/apt/sources.list and now it is “deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/debian-webmin-developers.gpg] https://download.webmin.com/download/newkey/repository stable contrib” in etc/apt/sources.list.d/webmin.list. If that is not the correct resource entry, please let me know, but that is what got added with version 2.101. And to get rid of the errors in the Webmin dashboard about wrong key and resource, I had to delete that old entry in etc/apt/sources.list manually.
@Jamie, we could easily change it to:
deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/debian-webmin-developers.gpg] https://download.webmin.com/download/repo webmin main
If you create the repo, I will handle the rest!
I’d prefer not to change it if the only difference is the name - we would have to update all existing systems, or keep maintaining another repo.
Yeah, we would update existing systems for sure. We could even do it silently not to create extra popups on the dashboard.
Besides, there would be no need of supporting old repos more than once…
But the update would only happen once a new version is installed that knows about the new repo. And some users might not upgrade right away … they might take a long while. So I feel like we’re running the risk of breaking users just to make a fix that has no practical impact?
@Joe, would this fix had a practical impact?
Yes, so let’s say for 2.102 you would have to update 3 repos - old, new and very new. Later on, old repo (repository/) and new repo (newkey/) can be abandoned, as Webmin 2.102 despite of which repo it’s installed from, will update the local repos to the very new one (repo/)…
@Jamie, so what’s the final take on this?
@Joe, could you provide more insights, if that change would make any practical impact and if we should bother changing it over again?
I didn’t intend to cause problems with my concern. As I said initially, the warning I am getting is more of an annoyance than an actual problem but then I do tend to be somewhat anal about annoyances. Obviously, I would like to see the warning message go away but whatever you folks decide is best, I’m okay with it, and it has been enjoyable getting a glimpse into your thinking as the comments have gone back and forth.
Yeah, it would require a config file change in the sources file. Distribution is part of how the URL is constructed.
deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal main
In this focal is the distribution, main is the component (of which there can be several). Changing the name of the distribution in the repo requires a change in the sources.list.
I recommended webmin for distribution (and main for component, though that matters less) back when we were discussing it. That said, I’m surprised (unpleasantly so) that anything is complaining about it. I don’t think it is any of Proxmoxes business what a distribution is called; I don’t believe Debian or Ubuntu has a policy about this. I think they just invented it.
If there is a policy about it, I think it’s probably worth us changing. But, if there isn’t a policy, Proxmox should probably shut up about it. I’d welcome a link, if there is such a policy.
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And, to be clear, the reason it uses the name of the version (e.g. focal) is to allow automatic selection of the right URL when it matters; i.e., if we had binary packages build against focal libs and another repo with builds against jammy libs, we’d need it to be possible to easily substitute the right one.
We do not need it to pick, though. Webmin is the same package no matter what deb-based distro it is installed on. We don’t want it to care about distro names, as that’d just be a mess to maintain for no benefit. So, inventing our own distribution name is probably the right thing, as I understand it.
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So, inventing our own distribution name is probably the right thing, as I understand it.
Yeah! Thanks for the brilliant explanations.
So, @Jamie, do you want me to move forward with making a change to Webmin code to support proper distribution and component name? To be clear, the new repo string will be:
deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/ubuntu-webmin-developers.gpg] https://download.webmin.com/download/repo webmin main
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Would the code change need to update existing sources.list files? Or just handle both the old and new names?
If you change the distro name, it will require a change to sources.list on clients. It’s possible to have both distributions pulling packages from the same pool, though, if you’re using a pool-based repo. I don’t recall how the Webmin repo is setup. Looking…
Yeah, you have a pool-based repo. So, you could add a new webmin distribution and keep maintaining the stable one for a couple/few years until no one is pulling from it anymore (adding a distro using the same packages takes almost no extra disk space). Then update the setup-repos.sh script, etc. to use the new webmin distribution.
No need to support it for more than one release, because we will patch webmin.list in-place and switch to the new repos after Webmin 2.102 is installed.
@Jamie, check this PR out. It will just work for both old and new repos!
You would need to update old (download/repository sarge contrib) and recent (download/newkey/repository stable contrib) and create a new one (download/repo webmin main).
In the future, you won’t need to update sarge contrib and stable contrib anymore.