Select alternative apt mirror to get around the unstable original one

[rake5k]

This should fix #4.

Since this issue hits me in about every month's time, I ran a quick research on the root cause (e.g. https://github.com/actions/runner-images/issues/7048).

The downside of this solution is clearly that we rely on an extra package (apt-spy2). That installation and the repository update take a few additional seconds to complete. But in my very personal case, the gained resiliency is definitely worth it.

Log excerpt of an example run:

...

Successfully installed thor-1.2.2
Successfully installed nokogiri-1.14.5-x86_64-linux
Successfully installed apt-spy2-0.8.2
Parsing documentation for thor-1.2.2
Installing ri documentation for thor-1.2.2
Parsing documentation for nokogiri-1.14.5-x86_64-linux
Installing ri documentation for nokogiri-1.14.5-x86_64-linux
Parsing documentation for apt-spy2-0.8.2
Installing ri documentation for apt-spy2-0.8.2
Done installing documentation for thor, nokogiri, apt-spy2 after 3 seconds
3 gems installed
The closest mirror is: https://mirror.enzu.com/ubuntu/
Updating /etc/apt/sources.list
Updated '/etc/apt/sources.list' with https://mirror.enzu.com/ubuntu/
Run `apt-get update` to update
Get:1 https://packages.microsoft.com/ubuntu/22.04/prod jammy InRelease [3611 B]
Get:2 https://packages.microsoft.com/ubuntu/22.04/prod jammy/main arm64 Packages [14.7 kB]
Get:3 https://packages.microsoft.com/ubuntu/22.04/prod jammy/main armhf Packages [7897 B]
Get:4 https://packages.microsoft.com/ubuntu/22.04/prod jammy/main amd64 Packages [69.1 kB]
Get:5 https://mirror.enzu.com/ubuntu jammy InRelease [270 kB]
Hit:6 https://ppa.launchpadcontent.net/ubuntu-toolchain-r/test/ubuntu jammy InRelease
Get:7 https://mirror.enzu.com/ubuntu jammy-updates InRelease [114 kB]
Get:8 https://mirror.enzu.com/ubuntu jammy-backports InRelease [99.8 kB]
Get:9 https://mirror.enzu.com/ubuntu jammy-security InRelease [110 kB]
Get:10 https://mirror.enzu.com/ubuntu jammy/main amd64 Packages [1395 kB]
Get:11 https://mirror.enzu.com/ubuntu jammy/main Translation-en [510 kB]
Get:12 https://mirror.enzu.com/ubuntu jammy/main amd64 c-n-f Metadata [30.3 kB]
Get:13 https://mirror.enzu.com/ubuntu jammy/restricted amd64 Packages [129 kB]
Get:14 https://mirror.enzu.com/ubuntu jammy/restricted Translation-en [18.6 kB]
Get:15 https://mirror.enzu.com/ubuntu jammy/restricted amd64 c-n-f Metadata [488 B]
Get:16 https://mirror.enzu.com/ubuntu jammy/universe amd64 Packages [14.1 MB]
Get:17 https://mirror.enzu.com/ubuntu jammy/universe Translation-en [5652 kB]
Get:18 https://mirror.enzu.com/ubuntu jammy/universe amd64 c-n-f Metadata [286 kB]
Get:19 https://mirror.enzu.com/ubuntu jammy/multiverse amd64 Packages [217 kB]
Get:20 https://mirror.enzu.com/ubuntu jammy/multiverse Translation-en [112 kB]
Get:21 https://mirror.enzu.com/ubuntu jammy/multiverse amd64 c-n-f Metadata [8372 B]
Get:22 https://mirror.enzu.com/ubuntu jammy-updates/main amd64 Packages [839 kB]
Get:23 https://mirror.enzu.com/ubuntu jammy-updates/main Translation-en [186 kB]
Get:24 https://mirror.enzu.com/ubuntu jammy-updates/main amd64 c-n-f Metadata [12.3 kB]
Get:25 https://mirror.enzu.com/ubuntu jammy-updates/restricted amd64 Packages [566 kB]
Get:26 https://mirror.enzu.com/ubuntu jammy-updates/restricted Translation-en [87.1 kB]
Get:27 https://mirror.enzu.com/ubuntu jammy-updates/restricted amd64 c-n-f Metadata [556 B]
Get:28 https://mirror.enzu.com/ubuntu jammy-updates/universe amd64 Packages [792 kB]
Get:29 https://mirror.enzu.com/ubuntu jammy-updates/universe Translation-en [139 kB]
Get:30 https://mirror.enzu.com/ubuntu jammy-updates/universe amd64 c-n-f Metadata [14.9 kB]
Get:31 https://mirror.enzu.com/ubuntu jammy-updates/multiverse amd64 Packages [7988 B]
Get:32 https://mirror.enzu.com/ubuntu jammy-updates/multiverse Translation-en [2448 B]
Get:33 https://mirror.enzu.com/ubuntu jammy-updates/multiverse amd64 c-n-f Metadata [432 B]
Get:34 https://mirror.enzu.com/ubuntu jammy-backports/main amd64 Packages [3324 B]
Get:35 https://mirror.enzu.com/ubuntu jammy-backports/main Translation-en [1580 B]
Get:36 https://mirror.enzu.com/ubuntu jammy-backports/main amd64 c-n-f Metadata [272 B]
Get:37 https://mirror.enzu.com/ubuntu jammy-backports/restricted amd64 c-n-f Metadata [116 B]
Get:38 https://mirror.enzu.com/ubuntu jammy-backports/universe amd64 Packages [6744 B]
Get:39 https://mirror.enzu.com/ubuntu jammy-backports/universe Translation-en [9460 B]
Get:40 https://mirror.enzu.com/ubuntu jammy-backports/universe amd64 c-n-f Metadata [352 B]
Get:41 https://mirror.enzu.com/ubuntu jammy-backports/multiverse amd64 c-n-f Metadata [116 B]
Get:42 https://mirror.enzu.com/ubuntu jammy-security/main amd64 Packages [593 kB]
Get:43 https://mirror.enzu.com/ubuntu jammy-security/main Translation-en [125 kB]
Get:44 https://mirror.enzu.com/ubuntu jammy-security/main amd64 c-n-f Metadata [7800 B]
Get:45 https://mirror.enzu.com/ubuntu jammy-security/restricted amd64 Packages [528 kB]
Get:46 https://mirror.enzu.com/ubuntu jammy-security/restricted Translation-en [81.2 kB]
Get:47 https://mirror.enzu.com/ubuntu jammy-security/restricted amd64 c-n-f Metadata [556 B]
Get:48 https://mirror.enzu.com/ubuntu jammy-security/universe amd64 Packages [634 kB]
Get:49 https://mirror.enzu.com/ubuntu jammy-security/universe Translation-en [86.4 kB]
Get:50 https://mirror.enzu.com/ubuntu jammy-security/universe amd64 c-n-f Metadata [11.3 kB]
Get:51 https://mirror.enzu.com/ubuntu jammy-security/multiverse amd64 Packages [4268 B]
Get:52 https://mirror.enzu.com/ubuntu jammy-security/multiverse Translation-en [972 B]
Get:53 https://mirror.enzu.com/ubuntu jammy-security/multiverse amd64 c-n-f Metadata [228 B]
Fetched 27.9 MB in 5s (6101 kB/s)
Reading package lists...
Reading package lists...
Building dependency tree...
Reading state information...
Package 'dotnet-nightly' is not installed, so not removed
Package 'dotnet-targeting-pack-3.1' is not installed, so not removed
Package 'dotnet-sdk-6.0-source-built-artifacts' is not installed, so not removed
Package 'dotnet-templates-6.0' is not installed, so not removed
Package 'dotnet-apphost-pack-3.1' is not installed, so not removed
Package 'dotnet-runtime-3.1' is not installed, so not removed
Package 'dotnet-sdk-3.1' is not installed, so not removed
Package 'dotnet-hostfxr-3.1' is not installed, so not removed
Package 'dotnet-runtime-deps-3.1' is not installed, so not removed
The following additional packages will be installed:
  aspnetcore-targeting-pack-6.0
The following packages will be REMOVED:
  aspnetcore-runtime-6.0 aspnetcore-runtime-7.0 aspnetcore-targeting-pack-7.0
  dotnet-apphost-pack-6.0 dotnet-apphost-pack-7.0 dotnet-host
  dotnet-hostfxr-6.0 dotnet-hostfxr-7.0 dotnet-runtime-6.0 dotnet-runtime-7.0
  dotnet-runtime-deps-6.0 dotnet-runtime-deps-7.0 dotnet-sdk-6.0
  dotnet-sdk-7.0 dotnet-targeting-pack-6.0 dotnet-targeting-pack-7.0
The following packages will be upgraded:
  aspnetcore-targeting-pack-6.0
1 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 16 to remove and 20 not upgraded.
Need to get 1455 kB of archives.
After this operation, 1002 MB disk space will be freed.
Get:1 https://mirror.enzu.com/ubuntu jammy-updates/universe amd64 aspnetcore-targeting-pack-6.0 amd64 6.0.113-0ubuntu1~22.04.1 [1455 kB]
Fetched 1455 kB in 1s (1792 kB/s)

...

I hope, this helps others too.

[jlumbroso]

Thank you so much @rake5k!

I hope you won't mind me asking you a few questions:

• Do you think this should be an option? Maybe a allow-apt-mirrors that defaults to true but can be set to false if needed for some reason?
• @kfir4444 submit PR #8 also under consideration, which makes the point that these statements can cause the action to terminate when they fail.
  • What happens if the installation of the package, sudo gem install apt-spy2, fails?
  • Can this line fail too? sudo apt-spy2 fix --commit --launchpad --country=US
• In the line sudo apt-spy2 fix --commit --launchpad --country=US, I notice that you hardcode the country. Presumably this would force the wrong mirrors to be picked for a user in say, East Asia. Maybe instead of using an option allow-apt-mirrors, there should be a apt-mirror-country that defaults to US, that can be changed to other countries — and when it is empty, the apt-spy2 feature is not turned on?

Thanks so much for your contribution!

[rake5k]

Good questions, @jlumbroso!

• It might be a good idea to make this feature an opt-out one, I highly agree. To keep the action's configuration interface simple, I did not come up with it in the first iteration.
• Good catch! The error handling is just not there yet. I will bring up one, just let me know if I should invest in that as #8 would definitively be a viable solution in my opinion, since it does not bring in additional complexity like this one here.
• Honestly, this change absolutely relies on naïvely trusting on some comments inside somewhat related GitHub issues. I did a quick research and found that the GH runners are actually located in the US. Therefore, hard-coding the country can be ok, even if it would be better to get that information dynamically, as this might change in the future.

Thank you a lot for this GH action, I heavily rely on it 🙏🏻

[jlumbroso]

Hello @rake5k,

Just wanted to follow-up and see why you had closed this PR?

I think the option of picking a different mirror for the packages is still a useful one, but I was looking into adding the configuration we discussed:

• setting to turn on/off alternate mirrors (defaults to "false")
• setting to select country code (defaults to US)

Do you not think this feature is useful anymore?

Thank you!

[rake5k]

Hi @jlumbroso,

Please excuse my unexpected closing of this PR, I thought it was not relevant anymore after merging #16. If you are still considering this change, I will implement your suggestions, of course. This weekend I am a little busy though, I hope to get on it soon (next week probably).

[rake5k]

Apt mirror selection tested with apt-mirror-country: CH:

Successfully installed thor-1.3.0
Successfully installed nokogiri-1.14.5-x86_64-linux
Successfully installed apt-spy2-0.8.2
Parsing documentation for thor-1.3.0
Installing ri documentation for thor-1.3.0
Parsing documentation for nokogiri-1.14.5-x86_64-linux
Installing ri documentation for nokogiri-1.14.5-x86_64-linux
Parsing documentation for apt-spy2-0.8.2
Installing ri documentation for apt-spy2-0.8.2
Done installing documentation for thor, nokogiri, apt-spy2 after 3 seconds
3 gems installed
The closest mirror is: http://mirror.infomaniak.ch/ubuntu/
Updating /etc/apt/sources.list
Updated '/etc/apt/sources.list' with http://mirror.infomaniak.ch/ubuntu/
Run `apt-get update` to update