Canonical announces new PPA management system for Ubuntu 23.10

Canonical, the company behind the popular Ubuntu operating system, has announced a new release of its software-properties package, version 0.99.37. This update brings a significant change to how Personal Package Archives (PPAs) are managed on Ubuntu systems.

In previous versions of Ubuntu, PPAs were managed through a traditional .list file located at /etc/apt/sources.list.d/, accompanied by a gpg keyring at /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d. However, starting with version 23.10, Canonical has introduced a new approach. PPAs are now added as deb822-formatted .sources files, where the keys are directly embedded into the file's Signed-By field.

According to Canonical, this new approach will enhance the security and reliability of managing PPAs on Ubuntu systems. By embedding the keys directly into the .sources file, users can be sure that the PPA they are adding is authentic and has not been tampered with. This will help prevent malicious packages from being installed on their systems.