Time out error

[dawrasau]

TimeroutError: [Errno 110] Connection timed out when running sudo add-apt-repository --yes -u ppa:ansible/ansible

[mikagouzee]

Similar error running on ubuntu/2404:

sudo apt-add-repository ppa:ansible/ansible
Ansible is a radically simple IT automation platform that makes your applications and systems easier to deploy. Avoid writing scripts or custom code to deploy and update your applications— automate in a language that approaches plain English, using SSH, with no agents to install on remote systems.

http://ansible.com/

If you face any issues while installing Ansible PPA, file an issue here:
https://github.com/ansible-community/ppa/issues
More info: https://launchpad.net/~ansible/+archive/ubuntu/ansible
Press [ENTER] to continue or ctrl-c to cancel adding it

gpg: keyring /tmp/tmpmpggankz/secring.gpg' created gpg: keyring /tmp/tmpmpggankz/pubring.gpg' created
gpg: requesting key 7BB9C367 from hkp server keyserver.ubuntu.com
Error: retrieving gpg key timed out.
gpg: keyserver receive failed: keyserver error

[Evovita]

TLDR: What has worked for is to use the timeout command with retries when calling sudo add-apt-repository --yes -u ppa:ansible/ansible.

Background

We have had similar issues when calling sudo add-apt-repository --yes -u ppa:ansible/ansible in a CaC bash script as part of automated Linux Ubuntu Azure 22.04 VM deployment. Sometimes the command would work, sometimes it doesn't, and when it doesn't our script 'freezes' and the deployment eventually fails. Very frustrating.

We have no indication of network problems that would explain why.

I experimented with using a curl command to 'ping' the relevant PPA Url at https://ppa.launchpadcontent.net/ansible/ansible/ubuntu/dists/jammy/main with retries to determine if it was 'alive', prior to running sudo add-apt-repository --yes -u ppa:ansible/ansible however though I noticed it would sometimes be unresponsive that didn't help i.e. the PPA Url was live just before calling sudo add-apt-repository --yes -u ppa:ansible/ansible but it still timed out.

Workaround

I ended up writing a 'retry command on timeout' function in our CaC bash script - 3 minutes before timing out has worked for us.

Note that our CaC bash script has the line set -e set at the beginning (not shown here) so the script exits immediately on an error, but this needed to be disabled for the timeout command functionality to work as expected.

# Retry a command with a timeout.
# Example: retry_command_with_timeout sudo add-apt-repository --yes --update ppa:ansible/ansible
retry_command_with_timeout() {

    local cmd="$@"
    local retries=5
    local delaySecs=5
    local timeoutSecs=180 # 3 minutes
    local success=0    

    for ((i=1; i<=retries; i++)); do

        if [ "$i" -gt 1 ]; then
            echo "Retrying in $delaySecs seconds..."
            sleep $delaySecs
        fi

        echo "Executing command (try $i of $retries): $cmd..."

        set +e  # Disable exit on error while using timeout command
        timeout --foreground --signal SIGKILL ${timeoutSecs}s $cmd
        exitCode=$?
        set -e  # Re-enable exit on error

        if [ $exitCode -eq 124 ]; then
            echo -e "\r"
            echo "Command timed out after $timeoutSecs seconds"
        elif [ $exitCode -eq 137 ]; then
            echo -e "\r"
            echo "Command killed by SIGKILL when timed out after $timeoutSecs seconds"
        elif [ $exitCode -eq 0 ]; then
            echo "Command succeeded"
            success=1
            break
        else
            echo -e "\r"
            echo "Failed: command failed with exit code: $exitCode"
            exit 1
        fi  

    done    
 
    if [ "$success" -eq 0 ]; then
        echo "Failed: exceeded $retries attempts to execute command: $cmd"
        exit 1
    fi
}