flashplugin-installer do not honore proxy settings

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

This bug also create same big lock upgrading from ubuntu 12.10 to ubuntu 13.04

Also affects 13.04

Aso affects 12.04

I think the problem is un update-notifier

This bit of code checks the environment
0 jan@muizenberg:/var/autofs/misc/home/jan$grep -C3 nv /usr/lib/update-notifier/package-data-downloader
 Failed downloads are reported to the user via the
 update-notifier interface."""

 # Get our proxy settings from the environment
 proxies = {}
 try:
  for proto in ('http','https','ftp'):
   try:
    proxies[proto] = os.environ[proto+"_proxy"]
   except KeyError:
    pass

0 jan@muizenberg:/var/autofs/misc/home/jan$dpkg -S /usr/lib/update-notifier/package-data-downloader
update-notifier-common: /usr/lib/update-notifier/package-data-downloader

Both these /etc/environment and /etc/apt/apt.conf are ignored:

0 jan@muizenberg:/var/autofs/misc/home/jan$cat /etc/environment PATH="/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/games"
http_proxy="http://proxy.aims.ac.za:3128/"
https_proxy="https://proxy.aims.ac.za:3128/"
ftp_proxy="ftp://proxy.aims.ac.za:3128/"
0 jan@muizenberg:/var/autofs/misc/home/jan$cat /etc/apt/apt.conf
Acquire::http::proxy "http://proxy.aims.ac.za:3128/";
Acquire::https::proxy "https://proxy.aims.ac.za:3128/";
Acquire::ftp::proxy "ftp://proxy.aims.ac.za:3128/";
0 jan@muizenberg:/var/autofs/misc/home/jan$

However when I run

env | grep prox

from either root's crontab -e or from /etc/crontab as root, I do see the appropriate proxies set. I thought this was where os.environ would get the value, but it does not. You can stick a print statement in /usr/lib/update-notifier/package-data-downloader to see that omission.

Some history
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/update-notifier/+bug/1005837
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/update-notifier/+bug/983559
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/sudo/+bug/982684
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/update-notifier/+bug/979477

Some of those workarounds seem way too long. For us it works to go from the command line (not from cron) , where your http_proxy is set:

apt-get --reinstall install flashplugin-installer

In real life, many of my users flash stops working each time there is an update to flashplugin-installer, because they are not familiar with the command line. In addition, their entire apt system stays broken with this error popping up every subsequent time they install/update anything else graphically.

So, while it is marked as WONTFIX here:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/update-notifier/+bug/983559
seems to be due to this:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/update-notifier/+bug/983559/comments/4

That still leaves many users in a bad position. Despite the comment 4 linked above explaining why apt.conf should not be read. However, it goes on to say:

"So you can specify a system proxy by setting the http_proxy variable in /etc/environment. Depending on how you're gaining root privileges for apt, you may still run into problems due to bug #982684, which will hopefully be fixed soon."

That other bug #982684 is fixed released April 2013, but I don't really see how it affects the cronjob /etc/cron.daily/update-notifier, though I'm not sure the cronjob uses sudo or pkexec.

In any case, on Ubuntu 12.04.2, the proxy still isn't rea...

Actually, this piece of code seems to work fine
 # Get our proxy settings from the environment
 proxies = {}
 try:
  for proto in ('http','https','ftp'):
   try:
    proxies[proto] = os.environ[proto+"_proxy"]
   except KeyError:
    pass
  print proxies # my code

  if proxies:
   urllib._urlopener = urllib.FancyURLopener(proxies)
 except Exception:

and then the urllib.urlretrieve should work, and it does when run manually, but somehow not from the cron job. I can't see why.

Ok, when I put

print proxies

the line before "if proxies:" and I run /etc/cron.daily/update-notifier manually, the proxies are printed out correctly. When I leave it to run via cron/run-parts, I get this however:

/etc/cron.daily/update-notifier-common:
{}

Is this due to run-parts or the cron environment?

/usr/lib/update-notifier/package-data-downloader from update-notifier uses python urllib

It seems to be problems when using proxies. In addition, urllib doesn't supports https protocol.

https://docs.python.org/2/library/urllib.html#urllib-restrictions

Using a http proxy, adobe-flashplugin updates will work but not allways:

urllib.urlretrieve("http://archive.canonical.com/pool/partner/a/adobe-flashplugin/adobe-flashplugin_11.2.202.425.orig.tar.gz", "adobe-flashplugin.tar.gz")

Using a https proxy, pepflashpluguin updates will never work:

urllib.urlretrieve("https://dl-ssl.google.com/linux/chrome/deb/pool/main/g/google-chrome-stable/google-chrome-stable_39.0.2171.95-1_i386.deb", "google-chrome.deb")

So, scripts must be something like:

export http_proxy=http://192.168.0.1:3128
export https_proxy=https://192.168.0.1:3128
apt-get install -y flashplugin-installer
apt-get install -y pepflashplugin-installer
echo "" >> /etc/chromium-browser/default
echo ". /usr/lib/pepflashplugin-installer/pepflashplayer.sh" >> /etc/chromium-browser/default
echo "" >> /etc/chromium-browser/default
unset http_proxy
unset https_proxy
apt-get --reinstall install -y flashplugin-installer
apt-get --reinstall install -y pepflashplugin-installer

Of course, if yo do this, your corporative firewall/proxy must allow direct connections to archive.canonical.com (http) and dl-ssl.google.com (https).

In my opinion, update-notifier (and other applications using urllib) should avoid python urllib

There are many bugs related (in fact, they are duplicated):

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/anacron/+bug/1209146
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/flashplugin-nonfree/+bug/1098233
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/flashplugin-nonfree/+bug/1037662
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/update-notifier/+bug/1005837
https://bugs.launchpad.net/zc.buildout/+bug/484735

More bugs about this:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/update-notifier/+bug/983559
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/update-notifier/+bug/820383