(In)Release files unconsistent: references missing files

Package: ftp.debian.org

Hi,

On Tue, Nov 18, 2014 at 02:47:47PM +1100, Geoff Crompton wrote:
> I've noticed today the installation of a VM isn't working.
> 
> I think it may be because when I download http://mirror.aarnet.edu.au/pub/debian/dists/wheezy/main/i18n/Translation-en,
> I get a bz2 compressed file instead. I've also noticed that at
> http://mirror.aarnet.edu.au/pub/debian/dists/wheezy/main/i18n/ the
> uncompressed file isn't listed.
> 
> I don't think the Debian installer expects that. The
> http://mirror.aarnet.edu.au/pub/debian/dists/wheezy/Release file suggests I
> should be able to download either main/i18n/Translation-en or
> main/i18n/Translation-en.bz2.

But the file lies, as there is no dists/wheezy/main/i18n/Translation-en in the archive, but only dists/wheezy/main/i18n/Translation-en.bz2
http://ftp.nz.debian.org/debian/dists/wheezy/main/i18n/Index

The same problem applies to Packages, Sources, which are not provided uncompressed.
On a mirror of the archive, the following command provide the list of missing files:
perl -lne 'my $file = $1 if /^ [a-f0-9]+\s+\d+\s+(.*)/; print $file if (defined($file) and ! -f $file) ;' Release

The archive should be fixed:
* either by providing uncompressed files
* or by making the Release file consistent with reality.

The fact that sometimes
http://mirror.aarnet.edu.au/pub/debian/dists/wheezy/main/i18n/Translation-en
returns something is apache multiviews and content negociation: apt says it may
accept bz2, then apache finds a file with and bz2 extension and considers it's
good.

See also apt bug #657560

$ wget -S -O /dev/null 'http://mirror.aarnet.edu.au/puLANG=C b/debian/dists/wheezy/main/i18n/Translation-en'
Connecting to mirror.aarnet.edu.au (mirror.aarnet.edu.au)|202.158.214.106|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 
  HTTP/1.1 200 OK
[..]  
  Content-Location: Translation-en.bz2
  Vary: negotiate
  TCN: choice
  Last-Modified: Sat, 18 Oct 2014 10:07:28 GMT
  Accept-Ranges: bytes
  Content-Type: application/x-bzip2



-- 
Simon Paillard