How to block non-free with apt preferences?

I want to block all packages from non-free, except for those that I
name explicitly. Currently, I have:

/etc/apt/sources.list :

deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian stable main contrib non-free

/etc/apt/preferences.d/non-free_policy :

Explanation: Disable packages from `non-free` tree by default
Package: *
Pin: release c=non-free
Pin-Priority: -1

(The idea is, that I add an explicit stanza for every package I want from non-free.)

But it doesn’t work:

<a href="https://getridbug.com/cdn-cgi/l/email-protection" class="__cf_email__" data-cfemail="13617c7c6753607a7f717661">[email protected]</a>:/etc/apt/preferences.d# apt-get -s install firmware-linux-nonfree
Paketlisten werden gelesen... Fertig
Abhängigkeitsbaum wird aufgebaut.       
Statusinformationen werden eingelesen.... Fertig
Die folgenden NEUEN Pakete werden installiert:
  firmware-linux-nonfree
0 aktualisiert, 1 neu installiert, 0 zu entfernen und 0 nicht aktualisiert.
Inst firmware-linux-nonfree (0.43 Debian:8.4/stable [all])
Conf firmware-linux-nonfree (0.43 Debian:8.4/stable [all])

What am I missing?

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Answers:

Method 1

Answers:

Thank you for visiting the Q&A section on Magenaut. Please note that all the answers may not help you solve the issue immediately. So please treat them as advisements. If you found the post helpful (or not), leave a comment & I’ll get back to you as soon as possible.

Method 1

You need to ensure you don’t have another, more general pin priority which takes priority over your non-free-excluding rule. (This includes the APT::Default-Release configuration setting which assigns a high priority to the given release.)

For example, if your /etc/apt/preferences file (or another file in /etc/apt/preferences.d) contains something like the following:

Package: *
Pin: release a=unstable
Pin-Priority: 200

then unstable packages will have pin priority 200, regardless of the component. To make this work with your additional file, you should change this to

Package: *
Pin: release a=unstable, c=main
Pin-Priority: 200

(and add an additional stanza for contrib if you care about that). (In your case you would have stable of course.)

You can check the effect of your pin priorities by running

apt-cache policy

If your non-free-excluding configuration is working correctly, you should see entries for all the suites you’re tracking, on non-free, with a pin-priority of -1. Once that’s working, you’ll find that you can no longer install raccoon, or in fact any non-free package (even if mentioned explicitly) — you’ll need to add the non-free packages you want to your configuration file, with an appropriate pin priority.

As an example, here’s the setup I use: I have a file named /etc/apt/preferences.d/non-free containing

Package: intel-microcode
Pin: release n=buster, c=non-free
Pin-Priority: 100

Explanation: Disable packages from non-free tree by default
Package: *
Pin: release c=non-free
Pin-Priority: -1

Non-free packages still appear in searches, but I can’t install them:

$ sudo apt install lmbench
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
Package lmbench 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 'lmbench' has no installation candidate

and apt policy agrees:

$ apt policy lmbench
lmbench:
  Installed: (none)
  Candidate: (none)
  Version table:
     3.0-a9+debian.1-2 -1
         -1 http://ftp.fr.debian.org/debian buster/non-free amd64 Packages
         -1 http://ftp.fr.debian.org/debian testing/non-free amd64 Packages
         -1 http://ftp.fr.debian.org/debian unstable/non-free amd64 Packages

But intel-microcode is installable and upgradable. Thus after a forced downgrade to the oldstable version, I get

$ apt policy intel-microcode
intel-microcode:
  Installed: 3.20190618.1~deb9u1
  Candidate: 3.20190618.1
  Version table:
     3.20190618.1 100
         -1 http://ftp.fr.debian.org/debian buster/non-free amd64 Packages
         -1 http://ftp.fr.debian.org/debian testing/non-free amd64 Packages
         -1 http://ftp.fr.debian.org/debian unstable/non-free amd64 Packages
 *** 3.20190618.1~deb9u1 100
        100 /usr/var/lib/dpkg/status

$ apt list --upgradable
intel-microcode/stable,testing,unstable 3.20190618.1 amd64 [upgradable from: 3.20190618.1~deb9u1]

The apt policy output ends up somewhat confusing — refer to the “Candidate” line to see what’s really going to happen.

All methods was sourced from stackoverflow.com or stackexchange.com, is licensed under cc by-sa 2.5, cc by-sa 3.0 and cc by-sa 4.0

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