Comment 7 for bug 1888572

Xenial verification

Test (a)

Current base-files and curl installed (no ubuntu-server out-of-the-box on xenial lxd images):
ii base-files 9.4ubuntu4.12 amd64 Debian base system miscellaneous files
ii curl 7.47.0-1ubuntu2.16 amd64 command line tool for transferring data with URL syntax

motd-news runs:
ubuntu@xenial-motd-news-wget:~$ sudo /etc/update-motd.d/50-motd-news --force

 * Are you ready for Kubernetes 1.19? It's nearly here! Try RC3 with
   sudo snap install microk8s --channel=1.19/candidate --classic

   https://microk8s.io/ has docs and details.

Remove curl, and it exits immediatelly:
ubuntu@xenial-motd-news-wget:~$ dpkg -l curl | grep curl
un curl <none> <none> (no description available)

ubuntu@xenial-motd-news-wget:~$ sudo /etc/update-motd.d/50-motd-news --force
ubuntu@xenial-motd-news-wget:~$ echo $?
0

With base-files and motd-news-config from xenial-proposed:
base-files:
  Installed: 9.4ubuntu4.13
  Candidate: 9.4ubuntu4.13
  Version table:
 *** 9.4ubuntu4.13 500
        500 http://br.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial-proposed/main amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
(...)
motd-news-config:
  Installed: 9.4ubuntu4.13
  Candidate: 9.4ubuntu4.13
  Version table:
 *** 9.4ubuntu4.13 500
        500 http://br.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial-proposed/main amd64 Packages

Still with curl removed:
ubuntu@xenial-motd-news-wget:~$ dpkg -l curl | grep curl
un curl <none> <none> (no description available)

motd-news works again:
ubuntu@xenial-motd-news-wget:~$ sudo /etc/update-motd.d/50-motd-news --force

 * Are you ready for Kubernetes 1.19? It's nearly here! Try RC3 with
   sudo snap install microk8s --channel=1.19/candidate --classic

   https://microk8s.io/ has docs and details.
ubuntu@xenial-motd-news-wget:~$ echo $?
0

Test (b)
Verify motd-news per cloud remains working.

b1) aws
ubuntu@xenial-motd-news-wget:~$ cloud-id
aws
ubuntu@xenial-motd-news-wget:~$ sudo /etc/update-motd.d/50-motd-news --force

 * Are you ready for Kubernetes 1.19? It's nearly here! Try RC3 with
   sudo snap install microk8s --channel=1.19/candidate --classic

   https://microk8s.io/ has docs and details.
ubuntu@xenial-motd-news-wget:~$ sudo sh -x /etc/update-motd.d/50-motd-news --force 2>&1 | grep -wE 'wget .*cloud_id/[a-z]+'
+ wget --timeout 60 -U wget/1.17.1-1ubuntu1.5 Ubuntu/16.04.7/LTS GNU/Linux/5.4.0-42-generic/x86_64 Intel(R)/Core(TM)/i7-7600U/CPU/@/2.80GHz cloud_id/aws -O- --content-on-error https://motd.ubuntu.com

b2) gce
ubuntu@xenial-motd-news-wget:~$ cloud-id
gce
ubuntu@xenial-motd-news-wget:~$ sudo /etc/update-motd.d/50-motd-news --force

 * Are you ready for Kubernetes 1.19? It's nearly here! Try RC3 with
   sudo snap install microk8s --channel=1.19/candidate --classic

   https://microk8s.io/ has docs and details.
ubuntu@xenial-motd-news-wget:~$ sudo sh -x /etc/update-motd.d/50-motd-news --force 2>&1 | grep -wE 'wget .*cloud_id/[a-z]+'
+ wget --timeout 60 -U wget/1.17.1-1ubuntu1.5 Ubuntu/16.04.7/LTS GNU/Linux/5.4.0-42-generic/x86_64 Intel(R)/Core(TM)/i7-7600U/CPU/@/2.80GHz cloud_id/gce -O- --content-on-error https://motd.ubuntu.com

b3) azure
ubuntu@xenial-motd-news-wget:~$ cloud-id
azure
ubuntu@xenial-motd-news-wget:~$ sudo /etc/update-motd.d/50-motd-news --force

 * Are you ready for Kubernetes 1.19? It's nearly here! Try RC3 with
   sudo snap install microk8s --channel=1.19/candidate --classic

   https://microk8s.io/ has docs and details.
ubuntu@xenial-motd-news-wget:~$ sudo sh -x /etc/update-motd.d/50-motd-news --force 2>&1 | grep -wE 'wget .*cloud_id/[a-z]+'
+ wget --timeout 60 -U wget/1.17.1-1ubuntu1.5 Ubuntu/16.04.7/LTS GNU/Linux/5.4.0-42-generic/x86_64 Intel(R)/Core(TM)/i7-7600U/CPU/@/2.80GHz cloud_id/azure -O- --content-on-error https://motd.ubuntu.com

Xenial verification succeeded.