Pfthb

I have set up aptly repositories on Ubuntu 14.04 LTS and 16.04 LTS previously with little problem, but as I tried again recently on 18.04 LTS, something is wrong, and I cannot use my repository. I believe there may be some incompatibility with aptly on 18.04.

Note that the names of the repos, servers and directories were obfuscated.

The first this to note is that the -batch option no longer works because gpg seems to require an agent now in 18.04:

$ aptly publish repo -passphrase '********' -batch myrepo-unstable public/ubuntu
gpg: WARNING: "--no-use-agent" is an obsolete option - it has no effect

In order for signing to work, I had to set up my gpg.conf file:

$ cat ~/.gnupg/gpg.conf
pinentry-mode loopback

Then, I am able to publish my repo:

$ aptly publish repo -passphrase '********' myrepo-unstable public/ubuntu
Loading packages...
Generating metadata files and linking package files...
Finalizing metadata files...
Signing file 'Release' with gpg, please enter your passphrase when prompted:
gpg: WARNING: "--no-use-agent" is an obsolete option - it has no effect
Clearsigning file 'Release' with gpg, please enter your passphrase when prompted:
gpg: WARNING: "--no-use-agent" is an obsolete option - it has no effect

Local repo myrepo-unstable has been successfully published.
Please setup your webserver to serve directory '/mydir/.aptly/public' with autoindexing.
Now you can add following line to apt sources:
 deb http://your-server/public/ubuntu/ bionic-unstable main
Don't forget to add your GPG key to apt with apt-key.

You can also use `aptly serve` to publish your repositories over HTTP quickly.

I add the following repository to /etc/apt/sources.list:

deb [arch=amd64 trusted=yes] http://your-server/public/ubuntu/ bionic-unstable main

However, I get the following error when trying to update the repository

$ sudo apt-get update
Get:1 http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic-security InRelease [83.2 kB]
Hit:2 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic InRelease
Get:3 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic-updates InRelease [88.7 kB]
Get:4 http://your-server/public/ubuntu bionic-unstable InRelease [3,055 B]
Get:5 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic-backports InRelease [74.6 kB]
Err:4 http://your-server/public/ubuntu bionic-unstable InRelease
 Undetermined Error [IP: XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX 80]
Fetched 247 kB in 5s (47.3 kB/s)
Reading package lists... Done
W: Failed to fetch http://your-server/public/ubuntu/dists/bionic-unstable/InRelease Undetermined Error [IP: XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX 80]
W: Some index files failed to download. They have been ignored, or old ones used instead.

I can see that the files were downloaded to /var/lib/apt/lists/partial/, so there is no evidence of a connection problem, which I furthered verified by running wget manually on the URL, obtaining the result.

The problem, I believe, is something in the GPG signing. If I alter aptly the publish command so that it is unsigned, I do not have a problem:

$ aptly publish drop bionic-unstable public/ubuntu
Removing /mydir/.aptly/public/public/ubuntu/dists/bionic-unstable...
Cleaning up prefix "public/ubuntu" components main...
Published repository has been removed successfully.

$ aptly publish repo -skip-signing myrepo-unstable public/ubuntu
Loading packages...
Generating metadata files and linking package files...
Finalizing metadata files...

Local repo myrepo-unstable has been successfully published.
Please setup your webserver to serve directory '/mydir/.aptly/public' with autoindexing.
Now you can add following line to apt sources:
 deb http://your-server/public/ubuntu/ bionic-unstable main
Don't forget to add your GPG key to apt with apt-key.

You can also use `aptly serve` to publish your repositories over HTTP quickly.

Now, I can update the APT list on my target machine:

$ sudo apt-get update
Get:1 http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic-security InRelease [83.2 kB]
Hit:2 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic InRelease
Get:3 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic-updates InRelease [88.7 kB]
Ign:4 http://your-server/public/ubuntu bionic-unstable InRelease
Get:5 http://your-server/public/ubuntu bionic-unstable Release [2,347 B]
Ign:6 http://your-server/public/ubuntu bionic-unstable Release.gpg
Get:7 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic-backports InRelease [74.6 kB]
Fetched 249 kB in 1s (240 kB/s)
Reading package lists... Done

I can also install packages now. However, I would like to be able to produce the signed repository, but I don't have a clue why signing in aptly causes the repository to be unusable.

Any thoughts or suggestions would be most appreciate.