Does Aptly support arch variants? (such as amd64v3)

[FelicianoTech]

Hey folks!

So architecture variants have been around for a bit now. Go itself added support for amd64 variants in the Go v1.17 release. Yesterday, Ubuntu has announced that they will be adding support in their repositories for the first time.

This got me thinking, does Aptly have support for this? Or maybe, does Aptly even need to support this or is this simply built into the .debs themselves?

[neolynx]

Hi @FelicianoTech !

I don't think aptly enforces architectures anywhere, but until there is a repo to test (and see how ubuntu supports this) it is difficult to say, but I am rather positive... :)

[Zohman]

+1

Ubuntu's intended behavior for architecture variants seems to be that the system remains amd64, while amd64v3 is used only as an optimized variant when available, with fallback to normal amd64 packages.

However, when using an Aptly-published mirror containing both amd64 and amd64v3, APT appears to use only the amd64v3
package index and does not fall back to amd64.

On the same host, with the same APT::Architecture-Variants "amd64v3"; configuration, and using the official Ubuntu source list it is working correctly.

My Aptly mirror/publish includes those architectures:
Architectures: amd64, amd64v3, i386, source

To me the issue seems related to how Aptly publishes/represents repositories with architecture variants, please advice.

Thanks,
Zohman.

[neolynx]

I think aptly lacks support for architecture variants, at least there is no mention of them. We would need to implement this feature I guess, I'll be happy to review some PRs !

[neolynx]

@Zohman could you please share how you created that mirror ?

[Zohman]

Sure, here is my BKM with some more info:

$ aptly mirror create -ignore-signatures -architectures="amd64,amd64v3,i386" -with-sources -with-udebs resolute http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu resolute
$ aptly mirror create -ignore-signatures -architectures="amd64,amd64v3,i386" -with-sources -with-udebs resolute-updates http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu resolute-updates
$ aptly mirror create -ignore-signatures -architectures="amd64,amd64v3,i386" -with-sources -with-udebs resolute-security http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu resolute-security


$ aptly mirror list -raw | xargs aptly mirror update -ignore-signatures


$ SDATE=$(date +%H%M%d%m%y)


$ aptly snapshot create resolute-${SDATE} from mirror resolute
$ aptly snapshot create resolute-updates-${SDATE} from mirror resolute-updates
$ aptly snapshot create resolute-security-${SDATE} from mirror resolute-security


$ aptly -skip-contents -gpg-key=HPC publish snapshot -architectures="amd64,amd64v3,i386,source" resolute-${SDATE} filesystem:publish:ubuntu
$ aptly -skip-contents -gpg-key=HPC publish snapshot -architectures="amd64,amd64v3,i386,source" resolute-updates-${SDATE} filesystem:publish:ubuntu
$ aptly -skip-contents -gpg-key=HPC publish snapshot -architectures="amd64,amd64v3,i386,source" resolute-security-${SDATE} filesystem:publish:ubuntu


$ aptly mirror list
List of mirrors:
 * [resolute-security]: http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ resolute-security [src] [udeb]
 * [resolute-updates]: http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ resolute-updates [src] [udeb]
 * [resolute]: http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ resolute [src] [udeb]
 
 
$ aptly mirror show resolute
Name: resolute
Archive Root URL: http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/
Distribution: resolute
Components: main, restricted, universe, multiverse
Architectures: amd64, amd64v3, i386
Download Sources: yes
Download .udebs: yes
Filter: !Name (raynes-fs-clojure), !Name (impacket), !Name (packeth), !Name (libspng), !Name (safeclib), !Name (libowasp-antisamy-java), !Name (gsocket), !Name (meritous), !Name (vips), !Name (armci-mpi), !Name (librecad), !Name (node-typescript), !Name (glymur), !Name (dfvfs), !Name (node-tar-stream)
Filter With Deps: no
Last update: 2026-04-26 12:03:18 UTC
Number of packages: 121729

Information from release file:
Acquire-By-Hash: yes
Architectures: amd64 amd64v3 arm64 armhf i386 ppc64el riscv64 s390x
Codename: resolute
Components: main restricted universe multiverse
Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2026 17:07:15 UTC
Description:  Ubuntu Resolute 26.04

Label: Ubuntu
Origin: Ubuntu
Suite: resolute
Version: 26.04


$ aptly snapshot list
 * [resolute-1505260426]: Snapshot from mirror [resolute]: http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ resolute [src] [udeb]
 * [resolute-security-1505260426]: Snapshot from mirror [resolute-security]: http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ resolute-security [src] [udeb]
 * [resolute-updates-1505260426]: Snapshot from mirror [resolute-updates]: http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ resolute-updates [src] [udeb]


$ aptly snapshot show resolute-1505260426
Name: resolute-1505260426
Created At: 2026-04-26 12:05:52 UTC
Description: Snapshot from mirror [resolute]: http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ resolute [src] [udeb]
Number of packages: 121729
Sources:
  resolute [repo]


$ aptly publish list
  * filesystem:publish:hpc/resolute-hpc [amd64, amd64v3, i386] publishes {main: [resolute-hpc]: hpc debian-based internal repository for Ubuntu 26.04 (resolute)}
  * filesystem:publish:ubuntu/resolute (origin: Ubuntu, label: Ubuntu, suite: resolute, codename: resolute) [amd64, amd64v3, i386, source] publishes {main: [resolute-1505260426]: Snapshot from mirror [resolute]: http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ resolute [src] [udeb]}
  * filesystem:publish:ubuntu/resolute-security (origin: Ubuntu, label: Ubuntu, suite: resolute-security, codename: resolute) [amd64, amd64v3, i386, source] publishes {main: [resolute-security-1505260426]: Snapshot from mirror [resolute-security]: http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ resolute-security [src] [udeb]}
  * filesystem:publish:ubuntu/resolute-updates (origin: Ubuntu, label: Ubuntu, suite: resolute-updates, codename: resolute) [amd64, amd64v3, i386, source] publishes {main: [resolute-updates-1505260426]: Snapshot from mirror [resolute-updates]: http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ resolute-updates [src] [udeb]}