Cannot apt-get install, can't authenticate package [closed]

Question

I'm at my wit's end trying to figure this out all night... searched google, stack, ubuntu, and raspberrypi forum a whole bunch, but just can't fix it.

What I'm really trying to do is sudo apt-get install vsftpd, but I'm getting the following error:

WARNING: The following packages cannot be authenticated!
  vsftpd
Install these packages without verification? [y/N] n

Well, I know I should first do a sudo apt-get update, but I ran into a bunch of NO_PUBKEY errors. I dug into that a bit and eventually updated my keys based on this page:

$ lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Raspbian
Description:    Raspbian GNU/Linux 9.11 (stretch)
Release:        9.11
Codename:       stretch
$ wget --quiet --output-document - https://ftp-master.debian.org/keys/archive-key-9.asc | sudo apt-key add -
OK
$ wget --quiet --output-document - https://ftp-master.debian.org/keys/archive-key-9-security.asc | sudo apt-key add -
OK

I checked my apt-key list seemed fine. Running sudo apt-get update now gives me a different message:

$ sudo apt-get update
Ign:1 http://ftp.ca.debian.org/debian stretch InRelease
Get:2 http://ftp.ca.debian.org/debian stretch Release [118 kB]
Get:3 http://ftp.ca.debian.org/debian stretch Release.gpg [2,410 B]
Hit:4 http://archive.raspberrypi.org/debian stretch InRelease
Hit:5 http://raspbian.raspberrypi.org/raspbian stretch InRelease
Hit:6 http://ftp.ca.debian.org/debian stretch/main armhf Packages
Ign:6 http://ftp.ca.debian.org/debian stretch/main armhf Packages
Hit:7 http://ftp.ca.debian.org/debian stretch/main Translation-en
Ign:7 http://ftp.ca.debian.org/debian stretch/main Translation-en
Hit:6 http://ftp.ca.debian.org/debian stretch/main armhf Packages
Ign:6 http://ftp.ca.debian.org/debian stretch/main armhf Packages
Hit:7 http://ftp.ca.debian.org/debian stretch/main Translation-en
Ign:7 http://ftp.ca.debian.org/debian stretch/main Translation-en
Ign:6 http://ftp.ca.debian.org/debian stretch/main armhf Packages
Err:7 http://ftp.ca.debian.org/debian stretch/main Translation-en
  BZ2_bzread: /var/lib/apt/lists/partial/ftp.ca.debian.org_debian_dists_stretch_main_i18n_Translation-en.bz2 Read error (-5: DATA_ERROR_MAGIC)
Ign:6 http://ftp.ca.debian.org/debian stretch/main armhf Packages
Fetched 120 kB in 5s (21.0 kB/s)
Reading package lists... Done
E: Failed to fetch http://ftp.ca.debian.org/debian/dists/stretch/main/i18n/Translation-en  BZ2_bzread: /var/lib/apt/lists/partial/ftp.ca.debian.org_debian_dists_stretch_main_i18n_Translation-en.bz2 Read error (-5: DATA_ERROR_MAGIC)
E: Some index files failed to download. They have been ignored, or old ones used instead.

So nothing seems to happen. I tried sudo apt-get install vsftpd again:

WARNING: The following packages cannot be authenticated!
  vsftpd
Install these packages without verification? [y/N] n
E: Some packages could not be authenticated

Same error. This error is not only happening for this package, it's for a ton of other as well when I do sudo apt-get dist-upgrade:

WARNING: The following packages cannot be authenticated!
  debianutils bash libc6 libdb5.3 libpcre3 libselinux1 cron exim4-base
  # ... truncated about 30 lines of packages #
  python3-smbus usb-modeswitch
Install these packages without verification? [y/N] n
E: Some packages could not be authenticated

I checked the apt-cache policy vsftpd as well, seems right!

$ apt-cache policy vsftpd
vsftpd:
  Installed: (none)
  Candidate: 3.0.3-8+b1
  Version table:
     3.0.3-8+b1 500
        500 http://ftp.ca.debian.org/debian stretch/main armhf Packages
     3.0.3-8 500
        500 http://raspbian.raspberrypi.org/raspbian stretch/main armhf Packages

I did this for quite a few others as well, they're all from the correct repo.
I tried rebooting, same result.
I checked my internet connection, it's pinging fine.

$ ping raspbian.raspberrypi.org
PING mirrordirector.raspbian.org (93.93.128.193) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from 93.93.128.193 (93.93.128.193): icmp_seq=1 ttl=49 time=113 ms
64 bytes from 93.93.128.193 (93.93.128.193): icmp_seq=2 ttl=49 time=113 ms
64 bytes from 93.93.128.193 (93.93.128.193): icmp_seq=3 ttl=49 time=116 ms

I know that I can ultimately just allow installing without authentication. But that makes no sense if I have to do it for every single package that's shown as unauthenticated. Surely there's something I could do to update pub keys/auth to remove this annoying blocker?

I really hope I am just an idiot overlooking something obvious to you gurus. Please help this lost sheep...

Answer 1

FIXED! Reference link: https://github.com/MichaIng/DietPi/issues/2497

Turns out as my console showed, one of the partial file was corrupted so I removed the lists folder as shown in the reference link:

sudo rm -r /var/lib/apt/lists/*

After removing all the files and partial folder, I did another sudo apt-get update and this time everything updated correctly.

Afterwards I was able to sudo apt-get install vsftpd without any authentication prompt.

All this headache because one one corrupted boi... Linux is a formidable beast.