Apt update wait 10 seconds before downloading anything.

[georgesgiralt]

Hello Guys!
So I take some time to test this.
I've "ticked off" all additional repos except the Ubuntu standard ones.
Apt update command start at .... approx 9 seconds (if my memory serves me right, yesterday it was around 10~ 12 seconds delay) so not a huge difference and maybe not where the problem lies...
As per the /etc/apt.conf.d, here is the content of the directory.

# ls apt.conf.d/
00aptitude    01autoremove-kernels  15update-stamp	 20auto-upgrades  30autoproxy	       50unattended-upgrades   60icons-hidpi	90junior-config
00trustcdrom  01-vendor-ubuntu	    20apt-esm-hook.conf  20dbus		  50appstream	       51ubuntu-advantage-esm  70debconf	99synaptic
01autoremove  10periodic	    20archive		 20packagekit	  50command-not-found  60icons		       88libdvdcss-pkg	99update-notifier
#

Have a nice day.

[schragge]

Compared to what I have in there, I'd like to have a look at those I don't have

20auto-upgrades 30autoproxy 51ubuntu-advantage-esm 88libdvdcss-pkg 90junior-config

Perhaps,

grep APT::Update::Pre-Invoke /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/*

will catch something?

Besides, squid-deb-proxy which 30autoproxy is related to should write logs to /var/log/squid-deb-proxy/access.log on the proxy server (which is probably not the host we're looking at that has squid-deb-proxy-client installed). I should say 30autoproxy looks like the most probable culprit to me.

I don't have junior-config installed, but from what I know about Debian Blends is should be innocent. It probably just updates user menu in DPkg::Post-Invoke.

[georgesgiralt]

Hello here I am again.

# grep APT::Update::Pre-Invoke /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/*
#

And :

# cat 20auto-upgrades
APT::Periodic::Update-Package-Lists "1";
APT::Periodic::Download-Upgradeable-Packages "0";
APT::Periodic::AutocleanInterval "0";
APT::Periodic::Unattended-Upgrade "0";
# cat 30autoproxy
Acquire::http::ProxyAutoDetect "/usr/share/squid-deb-proxy-client/apt-avahi-discover";
# cat 51ubuntu-advantage-esm
Unattended-Upgrade::Allowed-Origins {
  "${distro_id}ESM:${distro_codename}-security";
};
# cat 88libdvdcss-pkg 
DPkg::Post-Invoke { "[ -x /usr/lib/libdvd-pkg/b-i_libdvdcss.sh ] && /usr/lib/libdvd-pkg/b-i_libdvdcss.sh || true"; };
# cat 90junior-config
/*
 * APT configuration file for junior-config package
 */

DPkg {
	Post-Invoke {"test -f /var/run/junior-config.usermenu && if [ -x /usr/sbin/blend-update-usermenus ] ; then /usr/sbin/blend-update-usermenus junior ; fi ; rm -f /var/run/junior-config.usermenu";};
}
# ls /var/log/squid-deb-proxy/access.log
ls: impossible d'accéder à '/var/log/squid-deb-proxy/access.log': Aucun fichier ou dossier de ce type
#

Edit : You should know that this system has history. It has been installed eons ago and upgraded since with every LTS version availlable. IT also had suffered hardware "upgrades" as I switched laptops keeping the hard drive from the old to the new system.Taking benefit from LVM versatility, I've since switched from total mechanical HDD to M.2 Sata and after that, M.2 NVME mixed with harddisk and then M.2 NVME and SSD.... So the apt configuration (which I did not touch per se) comes from long time ago...

[schragge]

Rename 30autoproxy to 30autoproxy~, then try apt update again. APT ignores config files that end in ~, .bak, .disabled, or .dpkg-[a-z]+.

[georgesgiralt]

Rename 30autoproxy to 30autoproxy~, then try apt update again. APT ignores config files that end in ~, .bak, .disabled, or .dpkg-[a-z]+.

Bingo !
That did it !
I have still to figure why it suddenly slowed the "thing"....
Thanks a big lot !
A thorn less in my foot.

[schragge]

Do you have a caching proxy server running in your local network? If not, squid-deb-proxy-client cannot possibly work.

sudo apt purge squid-deb-proxy-client

and remove that 30autoproxy~ completely.

Alternatively, you do have a proxy server, but your Avahi Daemon is broken/misconfigured.

[TheFu]

I would never have figured out the proxy thing. It is pretty unusual. BTW, I USE a proxy, apt-cacher-ng, for my APT configs across all systems, here. I don't know anyone else doing something similar in a home environment.

It was previously configured to use or seek out a system proxy settings?

BTW, dircmp can compare all the files from /etc/apt/ on both systems. Just use sshfs to mount 1 system's files to the other box. While I've never done this, /etc/apt/ isn't really THAT system specific, so using rsync to mirror the settings from 1 to the other could have been attempted. Just make a backup (or simply move /etc/apt ... /etc/apt-old/) before moving the structure into place. Then do an update/upgrade cycle.

[schragge]

It was previously configured to use or seek out a system proxy settings?

It was configured to listen on the network and to discover proxy services advertised via Avahi. I don't understand why it took 10–12 sec. Default timeout in the source is two seconds. Perhaps, APT::Avahi-Discover::Timeout was set to another value in /etc/apt/apt.conf. Or the code in Focal uses different timeout than the latest version on Launchpad.

[georgesgiralt]

So answer to various questions :
No I do not have any apt-cache server on my network. We had one at work a very long time ago but it would be very difficult for me to set up one now... Retirement has it's toll...
I've removed squid-deb-proxy-client with --purge, the 30autoproxy~ file and checked that the desktop machine had no 30autoproxy nor squid-deb-proxy-client ... This may explain why it was running fine
I've to figure what and why this .deb was installed in the first place.
Strange, strange....
Thank you all for your help ! I've to ask another question, though, TheFu, do you have something on configuring secure DNS ?
Have a nice and bright day !

[TheFu]

So answer to various questions :
No I do not have any apt-cache server on my network. We had one at work a very long time ago but it would be very difficult for me to set up one now... Retirement has it's toll...
I've removed squid-deb-proxy-client with --purge, the 30autoproxy~ file and checked that the desktop machine had no 30autoproxy nor squid-deb-proxy-client ... This may explain why it was running fine
I've to figure what and why this .deb was installed in the first place.
Strange, strange....
Thank you all for your help ! I've to ask another question, though, TheFu, do you have something on configuring secure DNS ?
Have a nice and bright day !

Since I setup DNS-over-HTTPS, I've since moved to using a raspberry pi for LAN DNS and DNS filtering. All DNS queries go through those 2 systems. I have posted here how to setup a raspberry pi inside an LXD container, but it was less about steps 1 ... 10 and more about which guides I followed and how easy it was. Let me search my local wiki for that post ... Https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread....4#post13947454 . Just enough hints to follow along and do it, but it assumes based knowledge of lxd, networking, backing storage. My storage is extremely layered because lxd hates LVM and nearly demands that we use zfs.

My notes say that after I had the pi-hole running, setting it up as a LAN DNS took 4 minutes, so it was really fast for me to accomplish the 2nd part. I need to move the pi-hole systems to 20.04. They are fairly self contained and the migration should be really easy. In theory.