Wrong version number in ubuntu docker-ce packages

General
1

Hello

I have found a bug in the docker-ce…deb packages for ubuntu xenial amd64 on download.docker.com, not sure if it appears in other distribution/architectures.

Since the version 18.09.0, there is line like this in DEBIAN/control file in the package:

Version: 5:18.09.5~3-0~ubuntu-xenial

The problem is the 5: on the beginning of the version number. This number is also consequently apperaring in the Packages.bz2 package list in the repository. However the packages in official repository (https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu/dists/xenial/pool/stable/amd64/) are correct, when I make the mirror of this repository using aptly, it interprets the metadata and renames the files putting the string 5: in the filename, making it unusable becase then the package name is not docker-ce but docker-ce_5 and it’s not possible to update it from this mirror.

Last usable version was docker-ce_18.06.3~ce~3-0~ubuntu_amd64, later versions look like docker-ce_5:18.09.1~3-0~ubuntu-xenial_amd64, the same with the package docker-ce-cli.

Could you please explain why there is this apparently useless string?

Could you please eventually remove this string?

I didn’t try another mirroring software, but since the mentioned version the mirror made by aptly is unusable.

Thank you

2

naming convention: https://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-controlfields.html#version
Ubuntu uses Debian packaging and as such the same convention.

3

Thanks, this explains what the number means.
But why do they put it there? I have mirrored whole ubuntu 16.04 a 18.04 repositories and many application repositories and this appeared in none of them. Moreover, in docker versioning model, the epoch number is absolutely useless. Why did they start to use it? And will they stop using it? Using this mirror I would have to remove docker-ce package from all servers and install docker-ce_5 package instead, that’s nonsense.

1 Like
4

I know the feeling :slight_smile: It broke my Ansible installation script I use to provision a specific Docker-CE version on our developer machines…