not possible to install apt-transport-https package on jessie

[John Naggets]

Hi,

I am trying to install the apt-transport-https package in order to
avoid the "E: The method driver /usr/lib/apt/methods/https could not
be found." error message which recently appeared when I want to
apt-get update/upgrade. Unfortunately something is wrong here but I
have no idea what... Have a look below at my commands and output.

Regards,
John


$ sudo apt-get update
Hit http://security.debian.org jessie/updates InRelease
Ign http://ftp.ch.debian.org jessie InRelease
Get:1 http://ftp.ch.debian.org jessie-updates InRelease [145 kB]
Hit http://ftp.ch.debian.org jessie Release.gpg
Hit http://ftp.ch.debian.org jessie Release
Get:2 http://security.debian.org jessie/updates/main Translation-en [178 kB]
Get:3 http://security.debian.org jessie/updates/main Sources [174 kB]
Get:4 http://ftp.ch.debian.org jessie-updates/main Sources [15.4 kB]
Get:5 http://security.debian.org jessie/updates/main amd64 Packages
[336 kB]
Get:6 http://ftp.ch.debian.org jessie-updates/main amd64
Packages/DiffIndex [6,916 B]
Get:7 http://ftp.ch.debian.org jessie-updates/main
Translation-en/DiffIndex [2,704 B]
Get:8 http://ftp.ch.debian.org jessie/main Sources [7,059 kB]
E: The method driver /usr/lib/apt/methods/https could not be found.
N: Is the package apt-transport-https installed?


$ sudo apt-get install apt-transport-https
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have
requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable
distribution that some required packages have not yet been created
or been moved out of Incoming.
The following information may help to resolve the situation:

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
apt-transport-https : Depends: libcurl3-gnutls (>= 7.16.2) but it is
not going to be installed
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.


$ sudo apt-get install libcurl3-gnutls
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have
requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable
distribution that some required packages have not yet been created
or been moved out of Incoming.
The following information may help to resolve the situation:

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
libcurl3-gnutls : Depends: librtmp1 (>= 2.4+20131018.git79459a2-3~)
but it is not installable
Recommends: ca-certificates but it is not installable
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.


$ sudo apt-get install ca-certificates
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Package ca-certificates is not available, but is referred to by another package.
This may mean that the package is missing, has been obsoleted, or
is only available from another source

E: Package 'ca-certificates' has no installation candidate

[Pascal Hambourg]

I guess a line for the jessie repository is missing in
/etc/apt/sources.list.

[John Naggets]

Do you have an idea which line could be missing? Here is the content
of my /etc/apt/sources.list file:

deb http://ftp.ch.debian.org/debian jessie main
deb-src http://ftp.ch.debian.org/debian/ jessie main

deb http://security.debian.org/ jessie/updates main
deb-src http://security.debian.org/ jessie/updates main

# jessie-updates, previously known as 'volatile'
deb http://ftp.ch.debian.org/debian jessie-updates main
deb-src http://ftp.ch.debian.org/debian/ jessie-updates main

[Pascal Hambourg]

Le 30/12/2016 à 14:19, John Naggets a écrit :
> Do you have an idea which line could be missing? Here is the content
> of my /etc/apt/sources.list file:
>
> deb http://ftp.ch.debian.org/debian jessie main
> deb-src http://ftp.ch.debian.org/debian/ jessie main
>
> deb http://security.debian.org/ jessie/updates main
> deb-src http://security.debian.org/ jessie/updates main
>
> # jessie-updates, previously known as 'volatile'
> deb http://ftp.ch.debian.org/debian jessie-updates main
> deb-src http://ftp.ch.debian.org/debian/ jessie-updates main

It looks fine, but is that all ? There is no https repository, so
apt-get should have no reason to complain about missing https transport,
except one of the mirrors is broken and redirects to https URLs.
"apt-cache policy" may provide extra information.

BTW, ca-certificate is only a "recommends", so you could try to install
with --no-install-recommends.

[Lisi Reisz]

Is ca-certificates perhaps in contrib or non-free?

Lisi

[Greg Wooledge]

On Fri, Dec 30, 2016 at 04:11:43PM +0100, Pascal Hambourg wrote:

> Le 30/12/2016 à 15:46, Lisi Reisz a écrit :
> >
> >Is ca-certificates perhaps in contrib or non-free?
>

> No. AFAIK, packages in main cannot depend on packages in contrib or
> non-free.

Also, the final error message in the original email was for the package
librtmp1 not for ca-certificates. That was just a recommendation.

[Pascal Hambourg]

Le 30/12/2016 à 15:46, Lisi Reisz a écrit :
>

> Is ca-certificates perhaps in contrib or non-free?

[Pascal Hambourg]

By default, apt-get treats "Recommends" as "Depends", unless
--no-install-recommends is passed or APT::Install-Recommends is set to
false.

[John Naggets]

I have now additional source in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/gluster.list
which is the following:

deb http://download.gluster.org/pub/gluster/glusterfs/3.7/3.7.16/Debian/jessie/apt
jessie main

And here would be the output of apt-cache policy:

Package files:
100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
release a=now
500 http://download.gluster.org/pub/gluster/glusterfs/3.7/3.7.16/Debian/jessie/apt/
jessie/main amd64 Packages
origin download.gluster.org
500 http://ftp.ch.debian.org/debian/ jessie-updates/main Translation-en
500 http://ftp.ch.debian.org/debian/ jessie-updates/main amd64 Packages
release o=Debian,a=stable-updates,n=jessie-updates,l=Debian,c=main
origin ftp.ch.debian.org
500 http://security.debian.org/ jessie/updates/main Translation-en
500 http://security.debian.org/ jessie/updates/main amd64 Packages
release v=8,o=Debian,a=stable,n=jessie,l=Debian-Security,c=main
origin security.debian.org
Pinned packages:

[Pascal Hambourg]

Le 30/12/2016 à 16:25, John Naggets a écrit :
> I have now additional source in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/gluster.list
> which is the following:
>
> deb http://download.gluster.org/pub/gluster/glusterfs/3.7/3.7.16/Debian/jessie/apt
> jessie main

Although the URL is http, I checked that the site redirects http to https.
IMO you should directly use "https" to make it clear that this
repository requires the https transport.

> And here would be the output of apt-cache policy:
>
> Package files:
> 100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
> release a=now
> 500 http://download.gluster.org/pub/gluster/glusterfs/3.7/3.7.16/Debian/jessie/apt/
> jessie/main amd64 Packages
> origin download.gluster.org
> 500 http://ftp.ch.debian.org/debian/ jessie-updates/main Translation-en
> 500 http://ftp.ch.debian.org/debian/ jessie-updates/main amd64 Packages
> release o=Debian,a=stable-updates,n=jessie-updates,l=Debian,c=main
> origin ftp.ch.debian.org
> 500 http://security.debian.org/ jessie/updates/main Translation-en
> 500 http://security.debian.org/ jessie/updates/main amd64 Packages
> release v=8,o=Debian,a=stable,n=jessie,l=Debian-Security,c=main
> origin security.debian.org
> Pinned packages:

As I suspected, the jessie/main section on ftp.ch.debian.org is missing,
although the line is present is sources.list :

>>> deb http://ftp.ch.debian.org/debian jessie main

Maybe try to add another mirror and run apt-get update ?
Or comment out the glusterfs repository and run apt-get update.

[Mark Fletcher]

Quick followup question -- what would have been the equivalent command
to apt-cache policy if aptitude (from command line) were the preferred
tool instead of apt-get? Will apt-cache still work in that situation? I
am always confused about which tools play nice together and which don't.

Mark

[John Naggets]

Thanks Pascal for your hints. Indeed I had to comment out the gluster
repository which is forwarding HTTP to HTTPS, then re-run apt-cache
update, install apt-transport-https and finally modify the gluster
repository source to directly use HTTPS. That was an interesting case
;)