Why 3CX limits Debian functionality by replacing original packages repositories?

[prinf]

Hello,

I've just installed 3CX on my AWS account following instructions on this page: https://www.3cx.com/docs/cloud-pbx-amazon-aws/
During installation, I've noticed that the content of /etc/apt/sources.list was rewritten during 3CX setup process.
Originally content of the file was:

deb http://cdn-aws.deb.debian.org/debian buster main
deb-src http://cdn-aws.deb.debian.org/debian buster main
deb http://security.debian.org/debian-security buster/updates main
deb-src http://security.debian.org/debian-security buster/updates main
deb http://cdn-aws.deb.debian.org/debian buster-updates main
deb-src http://cdn-aws.deb.debian.org/debian buster-updates main
deb http://cdn-aws.deb.debian.org/debian buster-backports main
deb-src http://cdn-aws.deb.debian.org/debian buster-backports main

But after 3CX setup content of the file is:

deb [arch=amd64 by-hash=yes signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/3cx-archive-keyring.gpg] http://repo.3cx.com/debian/1803 buster main

deb [arch=amd64 by-hash=yes signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/3cx-archive-keyring.gpg] http://repo.3cx.com/debian-security/1803 buster main

If the original repository would be replaced by a mirrored 3CX hosted packages repository then no problems. But so far it looks like the new repository has a limited amount of packages available and you can't install a lot of tools you might need one day for whatever reason. For example:

root@ip-xxx-xx-x-xxx:/etc/apt# apt install telnet
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Package telnet 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 'telnet' has no installation candidate

Also, it looks like packages updates in the 3CX repository are delayed compared to original repositories. apt update & apt upgrade gave me noting with 3CX repositories when 'tzdata' package was updated with original repositories. That could make Debian with 3CX installed to be as not secure as everyone is used to.

So the question is it something that 3CX plans to leave to work like it is now and described above? Having Debian without original repositories and timely updates makes a feeling that it's not a Debian anymore... might be 3CX is moving in a way to make its own OS based on Debian?

 

[VasilisV_3CX]

Hi @prinf,

This was discussed here: https://www.3cx.com/community/threads/no-sources-after-upgrade-to-debian-10.88485/

Note there is a link to the original post in the post above.