Date in Debian feed release file malformed

daniel.scati

Hi, I'm getting warnings about invalid date using Debian feeds when update from clients.
The specific error is the following:

W: Invalid 'Date' entry in Release file /var/lib/apt/lists/neptuno.sisifo.this:8080_debian_test_dists_bionic_InRelease

The issue is that the release file generated by ProGet writes the Date in local format, not following the Debian guidelines:

The date has the following format 7 (compatible and with the same semantics of RFC 2822 and RFC 5322):

day-of-week, dd month yyyy hh:mm:ss +zzzz

where:

day-of-week is one of: Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu, Fri, Sat, Sun
dd is a one- or two-digit day of the month (01-31)
month is one of: Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec
yyyy is the four-digit year (e.g. 2010)
hh is the two-digit hour (00-23)
mm is the two-digit minutes (00-59)
ss is the two-digit seconds (00-60)
+zzzz or -zzzz is the time zone offset from Coordinated

Executing a grep among the InRelease files I notice that the Date in ProGet release files is in Spanish format instead of English:

operador@scatipc:~$ grep Date /var/lib/apt/lists/*_InRelease

/var/lib/apt/lists/archive.ubuntu.com_ubuntu_dists_bionic_InRelease:Date: Thu, 26 Apr 2018 23:37:48 UTC
/var/lib/apt/lists/archive.ubuntu.com_ubuntu_dists_bionic-updates_InRelease:Date: Fri, 19 Apr 2024  1:22:01 UTC
/var/lib/apt/lists/linux.teamviewer.com_deb_dists_stable_InRelease:Date: Tue, 23 Apr 2024 07:26:48 UTC
/var/lib/apt/lists/neptuno.sisifo.this:8080_debian_test2_dists_bionic_InRelease:Date: vie., 19 abr. 2024 06:09:01 UTC
/var/lib/apt/lists/neptuno.sisifo.this:8080_debian_test3_dists_bionic_InRelease:Date: jue., 25 abr. 2024 06:31:46 UTC
/var/lib/apt/lists/neptuno.sisifo.this:8080_debian_test4_dists_bionic_InRelease:Date: jue., 25 abr. 2024 06:31:46 UTC
/var/lib/apt/lists/neptuno.sisifo.this:8080_debian_test_dists_bionic_InRelease:Date: jue., 25 abr. 2024 06:31:45 UTC
/var/lib/apt/lists/security.ubuntu.com_ubuntu_dists_bionic-security_InRelease:Date: Mon, 13 Nov 2023  0:36:15 UTC

I presume the problem is originated because my ProGet server runs in a Windows Server in Spanish language, otherwise many users would have reported it. But the Release generation should ignore any language format, using always the English standard to avoid those warnings in client computers.

Thank you.

stevedennis

Hi @daniel-scati , thanks for the analysis!

We'll get this fixed via PG-2635 in an upcoming maintenance release (hopefully 2024.2), which is targeted for next Friday.