Debian Bug report logs - #643659
Missing Depends: base-passwd

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Message #5 received at submit@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Goswin von Brederlow <goswin-v-b@web.de>

To: Debian Bug Tracking System <submit@bugs.debian.org>

Subject: Missing Depends: base-passwd

Date: Wed, 28 Sep 2011 13:56:47 +0200

Package: base-files
Version: 6.0squeeze2
Severity: normal

Hi,

I'm not sure what changed but today when I tried to create a chroot
cdebootstrap gave the following error:

....
O: Setting up base-files (6.0squeeze2) ...
P: Configuring package base-files
O: chown: invalid user: `root:root'
O: dpkg: error processing base-files (--configure):
O:  subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1
O: Setting up libc-bin (2.11.2-10) ...
P: Configuring package libc-bin
O: dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of bash:
O:  bash depends on base-files (>= 2.1.12); however:
O:   Package base-files is not configured yet.
O: dpkg: error processing bash (--configure):
O:  dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
....
O: Setting up base-passwd (3.5.22) ...
P: Configuring package base-passwd
....
O: Errors were encountered while processing:
O:  base-files
O:  bash
E: Internal error: install


As far as I can tell the problem is that there is no /etc/passwd until
base-passwd postinst runs and creates one. So until base-passwd is
configured you can't use symbolic names in chown.

It looks to me like base-files should have a Depends: base-passwd to
ensure the corect ordering when configuring. But I have no idea why
that shows up now all of a sudden.

MfG
	Goswin


-- System Information:
Debian Release: wheezy/sid
  APT prefers unstable
  APT policy: (500, 'unstable')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)

Kernel: Linux 3.0.0-1-amd64 (SMP w/2 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=C, LC_CTYPE=C (charmap=ANSI_X3.4-1968)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash

Versions of packages base-files depends on:
ii  gawk [awk]  1:3.1.8+dfsg-0.1
ii  mawk [awk]  1.3.3-15        

base-files recommends no packages.

base-files suggests no packages.

-- no debconf information

Message #10 received at 643659@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Santiago Vila <sanvila@unex.es>

To: Goswin von Brederlow <goswin-v-b@web.de>, 643659@bugs.debian.org, Bastian Blank <waldi@debian.org>

Cc: control@bugs.debian.org

Subject: Re: Bug#643659: Missing Depends: base-passwd

Date: Wed, 28 Sep 2011 15:50:16 +0200 (CEST)

reassign 643659 cdebootstrap
thanks

On Wed, 28 Sep 2011, Goswin von Brederlow wrote:

> Package: base-files
> Version: 6.0squeeze2
> Severity: normal
> 
> Hi,
> 
> I'm not sure what changed but today when I tried to create a chroot
> cdebootstrap gave the following error:
> 
> ....
> O: Setting up base-files (6.0squeeze2) ...
> P: Configuring package base-files
> O: chown: invalid user: `root:root'
> O: dpkg: error processing base-files (--configure):
> O:  subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1
> O: Setting up libc-bin (2.11.2-10) ...
> P: Configuring package libc-bin
> O: dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of bash:
> O:  bash depends on base-files (>= 2.1.12); however:
> O:   Package base-files is not configured yet.
> O: dpkg: error processing bash (--configure):
> O:  dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
> ....
> O: Setting up base-passwd (3.5.22) ...
> P: Configuring package base-passwd
> ....
> O: Errors were encountered while processing:
> O:  base-files
> O:  bash
> E: Internal error: install
> 
> 
> As far as I can tell the problem is that there is no /etc/passwd until
> base-passwd postinst runs and creates one. So until base-passwd is
> configured you can't use symbolic names in chown.

Of course I can, because base-passwd is "Essential: yes".
base-files, like any other package, is right to assume that every
essential package is ready to be used.

> It looks to me like base-files should have a Depends: base-passwd to
> ensure the corect ordering when configuring. But I have no idea why
> that shows up now all of a sudden.

No. This is not a problem base-files should try to solve. This is exactly
the type of problem that tools like cdebootstrap are supposed to solve,
i.e. breaking all the implicit circular dependencies, hence the reassign.

Message #19 received at 643659@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Goswin von Brederlow <goswin-v-b@web.de>

To: Santiago Vila <sanvila@unex.es>

Cc: Goswin von Brederlow <goswin-v-b@web.de>, 643659@bugs.debian.org, Bastian Blank <waldi@debian.org>, Colin Watson <cjwatson@debian.org>

Subject: Re: Bug#643659: Missing Depends: base-passwd

Date: Wed, 28 Sep 2011 17:13:50 +0200

Cc:ing the base-passwd Maintainer since his package is involved.

Santiago Vila <sanvila@unex.es> writes:

> reassign 643659 cdebootstrap
> thanks
>
> On Wed, 28 Sep 2011, Goswin von Brederlow wrote:
>
>> Package: base-files
>> Version: 6.0squeeze2
>> Severity: normal
>> 
>> Hi,
>> 
>> I'm not sure what changed but today when I tried to create a chroot
>> cdebootstrap gave the following error:
>> 
>> ....
>> O: Setting up base-files (6.0squeeze2) ...
>> P: Configuring package base-files
>> O: chown: invalid user: `root:root'
>> O: dpkg: error processing base-files (--configure):
>> O:  subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1
>> O: Setting up libc-bin (2.11.2-10) ...
>> P: Configuring package libc-bin
>> O: dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of bash:
>> O:  bash depends on base-files (>= 2.1.12); however:
>> O:   Package base-files is not configured yet.
>> O: dpkg: error processing bash (--configure):
>> O:  dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
>> ....
>> O: Setting up base-passwd (3.5.22) ...
>> P: Configuring package base-passwd
>> ....
>> O: Errors were encountered while processing:
>> O:  base-files
>> O:  bash
>> E: Internal error: install
>> 
>> 
>> As far as I can tell the problem is that there is no /etc/passwd until
>> base-passwd postinst runs and creates one. So until base-passwd is
>> configured you can't use symbolic names in chown.
>
> Of course I can, because base-passwd is "Essential: yes".
> base-files, like any other package, is right to assume that every
> essential package is ready to be used.

If you assume the creating /etc/passwd and /etc/group is the core
functionality of base-passwd then it fails policy 3.8:

| Since dpkg will not prevent upgrading of other packages while an
| essential package is in an unconfigured state, all essential packages
| must supply all of their core functionality even when *unconfigured*. If
| the package cannot satisfy this requirement it must not be tagged as
| essential, and any packages depending on this package must instead
| have explicit dependency fields as appropriate.

Base-passwd does not provide an /etc/passwd and /etc/group while
unconfigured.

And I don't see how it could. It can not ship an /etc/passwd and
/etc/group file because that would break on upgrades.

So lets look at it this way: Providing /etc/passwd and /etc/group is not
a core functionality of base-passwd but an extra feature only available
after the package has been configured. In that case you need to depend
on the package before using this extra feature as it is not covered by
the package being Essential: yes.

This would be a trivial one line fix.

>> It looks to me like base-files should have a Depends: base-passwd to
>> ensure the corect ordering when configuring. But I have no idea why
>> that shows up now all of a sudden.
>
> No. This is not a problem base-files should try to solve. This is exactly
> the type of problem that tools like cdebootstrap are supposed to solve,
> i.e. breaking all the implicit circular dependencies, hence the reassign.

I disagree. The configure order of packages is something the package
should declare and that should not have to be duplicated in every
bootstrap tool out there even if the order is only relevant for the
initial install.

MfG
        Goswin

Message #24 received at 643659@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Colin Watson <cjwatson@debian.org>

To: Goswin von Brederlow <goswin-v-b@web.de>

Cc: Santiago Vila <sanvila@unex.es>, 643659@bugs.debian.org, Bastian Blank <waldi@debian.org>

Subject: Re: Bug#643659: Missing Depends: base-passwd

Date: Wed, 28 Sep 2011 17:18:44 +0100

On Wed, Sep 28, 2011 at 05:13:50PM +0200, Goswin von Brederlow wrote:
> Cc:ing the base-passwd Maintainer since his package is involved.

Thanks.

> Santiago Vila <sanvila@unex.es> writes:
> > Of course I can, because base-passwd is "Essential: yes".
> > base-files, like any other package, is right to assume that every
> > essential package is ready to be used.
> 
> If you assume the creating /etc/passwd and /etc/group is the core
> functionality of base-passwd then it fails policy 3.8:
> 
> | Since dpkg will not prevent upgrading of other packages while an
> | essential package is in an unconfigured state, all essential packages
> | must supply all of their core functionality even when *unconfigured*. If
> | the package cannot satisfy this requirement it must not be tagged as
> | essential, and any packages depending on this package must instead
> | have explicit dependency fields as appropriate.
> 
> Base-passwd does not provide an /etc/passwd and /etc/group while
> unconfigured.
> 
> And I don't see how it could. It can not ship an /etc/passwd and
> /etc/group file because that would break on upgrades.
> 
> So lets look at it this way: Providing /etc/passwd and /etc/group is not
> a core functionality of base-passwd but an extra feature only available
> after the package has been configured. In that case you need to depend
> on the package before using this extra feature as it is not covered by
> the package being Essential: yes.

Perhaps we should adjust the wording of policy here.  The key part of
the requirement is that the core functionality should continue working
during upgrade while the package is unconfigured, i.e. while a new
version is being unpacked.  I've always understood it to be acceptable
that the Essential package may have to have been configured *once*; this
is a much less intrusive requirement.  As another piece of precedent,
base-files provides several things I consider to be Essential
functionality (/etc/profile, /etc/nsswitch.conf, various directories,
and so on) which it only creates the first time it's configured.  I have
never heard anyone seriously suggest that a package needs to depend on
base-files if it uses NSS facilities.

Once base-passwd has been configured once, then its core functionality
continues to be available during future upgrades, even while base-passwd
is temporarily unconfigured.  That's the important point.

> This would be a trivial one line fix.

To many, many packages.

> I disagree. The configure order of packages is something the package
> should declare and that should not have to be duplicated in every
> bootstrap tool out there even if the order is only relevant for the
> initial install.

There are a handful of bootstrap tools at best, and thousands of
packages that care about the 'root' user existing.  I can't accept any
analysis producing the solution that every package that does 'chown
root:root filename' in its postinst should have to depend on
base-passwd, and I think a different analysis is indicated.

-- 
Colin Watson                                       [cjwatson@debian.org]

Message #29 received at 643659@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Santiago Vila <sanvila@unex.es>

To: Goswin von Brederlow <goswin-v-b@web.de>

Cc: 643659@bugs.debian.org, Bastian Blank <waldi@debian.org>, Colin Watson <cjwatson@debian.org>

Subject: Re: Bug#643659: Missing Depends: base-passwd

Date: Wed, 28 Sep 2011 19:54:03 +0200

El 28/09/11 17:13, Goswin von Brederlow escribió:
> I disagree. The configure order of packages is something the package
> should declare and that should not have to be duplicated in every
> bootstrap tool out there even if the order is only relevant for the
> initial install.

There is no such thing as "proper configure order" when dealing with 
bootstrapping.

Every package in the "Essential: yes" set may depend on any other 
package in the same set, so such set is expected to have a lot of 
circular dependencies. Making circular dependencies explicit does not 
make them less circular, so it would not be an improvement at all to 
make them explicit.

We take for granted that a package which is "Essential: yes"
"will always work". If a package which is "Essential: yes" does not work 
when it has not been configured for the first time, then it follows that 
the meaning of "Essential: yes" should include the fact that it has been 
configured at least once in the past, as Colin Watson has pointed out.

Message #34 received at 643659@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Goswin von Brederlow <goswin-v-b@web.de>

To: Colin Watson <cjwatson@debian.org>

Cc: Goswin von Brederlow <goswin-v-b@web.de>, Santiago Vila <sanvila@unex.es>, 643659@bugs.debian.org, Bastian Blank <waldi@debian.org>

Subject: Re: Bug#643659: Missing Depends: base-passwd

Date: Wed, 05 Oct 2011 12:04:36 +0200

Colin Watson <cjwatson@debian.org> writes:

> On Wed, Sep 28, 2011 at 05:13:50PM +0200, Goswin von Brederlow wrote:
>> Cc:ing the base-passwd Maintainer since his package is involved.
>
> Thanks.
>
>> Santiago Vila <sanvila@unex.es> writes:
>> > Of course I can, because base-passwd is "Essential: yes".
>> > base-files, like any other package, is right to assume that every
>> > essential package is ready to be used.
>> 
>> If you assume the creating /etc/passwd and /etc/group is the core
>> functionality of base-passwd then it fails policy 3.8:
>> 
>> | Since dpkg will not prevent upgrading of other packages while an
>> | essential package is in an unconfigured state, all essential packages
>> | must supply all of their core functionality even when *unconfigured*. If
>> | the package cannot satisfy this requirement it must not be tagged as
>> | essential, and any packages depending on this package must instead
>> | have explicit dependency fields as appropriate.
>> 
>> Base-passwd does not provide an /etc/passwd and /etc/group while
>> unconfigured.
>> 
>> And I don't see how it could. It can not ship an /etc/passwd and
>> /etc/group file because that would break on upgrades.
>> 
>> So lets look at it this way: Providing /etc/passwd and /etc/group is not
>> a core functionality of base-passwd but an extra feature only available
>> after the package has been configured. In that case you need to depend
>> on the package before using this extra feature as it is not covered by
>> the package being Essential: yes.
>
> Perhaps we should adjust the wording of policy here.  The key part of
> the requirement is that the core functionality should continue working
> during upgrade while the package is unconfigured, i.e. while a new
> version is being unpacked.  I've always understood it to be acceptable
> that the Essential package may have to have been configured *once*; this
> is a much less intrusive requirement.  As another piece of precedent,

Indeed. And I think that was the thought behind the policy.

> base-files provides several things I consider to be Essential
> functionality (/etc/profile, /etc/nsswitch.conf, various directories,
> and so on) which it only creates the first time it's configured.  I have
> never heard anyone seriously suggest that a package needs to depend on
> base-files if it uses NSS facilities.

Do any essential packages make use of NSS facilities in their postinst?

> Once base-passwd has been configured once, then its core functionality
> continues to be available during future upgrades, even while base-passwd
> is temporarily unconfigured.  That's the important point.
>
>> This would be a trivial one line fix.
>
> To many, many packages.

/var/lib/dpkg/info$
grep chown *.postinst -l | while read F; do basename $F .postinst; done
| xargs apt-cache show | grep-dctrl -F Essential yes -s Package -n |
uniq

base-files
----------
  #chown root:staff $1 2> /dev/null || true
    chown root:$3 /$1
  chown root:utmp /var/log/wtmp /var/log/btmp /var/log/lastlog
chown root:utmp /var/run/utmp
  chown root:root /var/lib/dpkg
  chown root:root /var/lib/dpkg/status
  chown root:root /usr/share/info/dir

dpkg
----
    chown root:root $logfile 2>/dev/null || chown 0:0 $logfile

login
-----
                chown root:root /var/log/faillog

>> I disagree. The configure order of packages is something the package
>> should declare and that should not have to be duplicated in every
>> bootstrap tool out there even if the order is only relevant for the
>> initial install.
>
> There are a handful of bootstrap tools at best, and thousands of
> packages that care about the 'root' user existing.  I can't accept any
> analysis producing the solution that every package that does 'chown
> root:root filename' in its postinst should have to depend on
> base-passwd, and I think a different analysis is indicated.
>
> -- 
> Colin Watson                                       [cjwatson@debian.org]

I think it is safe to say that essential packages have to be configured
before the rest by any bootstraping tool. That seriously reduces the set
of packages this is relevant to. Of those paclages only 3 packages (see
above) do use chown and dpkg already works around passwd not being there
and login can do the same. But that wouldn't be feasable for base-files
since it uses a number of different groups.

So all we are talking about is 2 packages of which only on would need
the Depends.

MfG
        Goswin

Message #39 received at 643659@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Goswin von Brederlow <goswin-v-b@web.de>

To: Santiago Vila <sanvila@unex.es>

Cc: Goswin von Brederlow <goswin-v-b@web.de>, 643659@bugs.debian.org, Bastian Blank <waldi@debian.org>, Colin Watson <cjwatson@debian.org>

Subject: Re: Bug#643659: Missing Depends: base-passwd

Date: Wed, 05 Oct 2011 12:12:41 +0200

Santiago Vila <sanvila@unex.es> writes:

> El 28/09/11 17:13, Goswin von Brederlow escribió:
>> I disagree. The configure order of packages is something the package
>> should declare and that should not have to be duplicated in every
>> bootstrap tool out there even if the order is only relevant for the
>> initial install.
>
> There is no such thing as "proper configure order" when dealing with
> bootstrapping.
>
> Every package in the "Essential: yes" set may depend on any other
> package in the same set, so such set is expected to have a lot of
> circular dependencies. Making circular dependencies explicit does not
> make them less circular, so it would not be an improvement at all to
> make them explicit.

There is nothing circular going on. base-passwd (postinst) does not
depend on base-files (being configured). This would be a simple straight
forward dependency from a one package to another.

> We take for granted that a package which is "Essential: yes"
> "will always work". If a package which is "Essential: yes" does not
> work when it has not been configured for the first time, then it
> follows that the meaning of "Essential: yes" should include the fact
> that it has been configured at least once in the past, as Colin Watson
> has pointed out.

Clarifying that might be a good idea, BUT:

How does that solve the problem that base-files fails to configure if it
is done before base-passwd?

MfG
        Goswin

Message #44 received at 643659@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Santiago Vila <sanvila@unex.es>

To: Goswin von Brederlow <goswin-v-b@web.de>

Cc: Colin Watson <cjwatson@debian.org>, 643659@bugs.debian.org, Bastian Blank <waldi@debian.org>

Subject: Re: Bug#643659: Missing Depends: base-passwd

Date: Wed, 5 Oct 2011 12:34:25 +0200 (CEST)

On Wed, 5 Oct 2011, Goswin von Brederlow wrote:

> I think it is safe to say that essential packages have to be configured
> before the rest by any bootstraping tool.

The job of any bootstrapping tools is precisely to configure the
essential packages.

By creating the essential flag, we have all agreed that we will not
use the Depends field on any package which is Essential: yes.

This means that the knowledge about which package should be configured
first is left as a task for bootstrapping tools.

I understand that you want to see this issue fixed, but you are
looking for the wrong solution, which is to ignore completely the
definition of essential flag.

Instead, I would try to see why this used to work in the past and why
it does no longer work. Lack of a dependency which policy says we
should not make explicit does not count as a "cause", and it's
therefore the wrong fix.

Message #49 received at 643659@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Goswin von Brederlow <goswin-v-b@web.de>

To: Santiago Vila <sanvila@unex.es>

Cc: Goswin von Brederlow <goswin-v-b@web.de>, Colin Watson <cjwatson@debian.org>, 643659@bugs.debian.org, Bastian Blank <waldi@debian.org>

Subject: Re: Bug#643659: Missing Depends: base-passwd

Date: Wed, 05 Oct 2011 13:29:41 +0200

Santiago Vila <sanvila@unex.es> writes:

> On Wed, 5 Oct 2011, Goswin von Brederlow wrote:
>
>> I think it is safe to say that essential packages have to be configured
>> before the rest by any bootstraping tool.
>
> The job of any bootstrapping tools is precisely to configure the
> essential packages.
>
> By creating the essential flag, we have all agreed that we will not
> use the Depends field on any package which is Essential: yes.
>
> This means that the knowledge about which package should be configured
> first is left as a task for bootstrapping tools.

And my stance remains that that is not something that should be
duplicated in every bootstraping tool but belongs with the packages
metadata.

So since you are so opposed to misusing Depends for this special case
would you be more open to introducing a new field Bootstrap-Depends or
Bootstrap-After or something?

There is another package that would be using this but only on Ubuntu. On
newer Ubuntu initramfs-tools became pseudo-essential and has to be
configured after [mg]awk. When initramfs-tools became pseudo-essential
the bootstraping tools broke and needed patching.

> I understand that you want to see this issue fixed, but you are
> looking for the wrong solution, which is to ignore completely the
> definition of essential flag.
>
> Instead, I would try to see why this used to work in the past and why
> it does no longer work. Lack of a dependency which policy says we
> should not make explicit does not count as a "cause", and it's
> therefore the wrong fix.

Why it worked in the past? Blind luck. There is nothing in the package
metadata to give the right order and, Bastian correct me, nothing in
cdebootstrap to prefer one order over the other. And debootstrap I think
just configures all (unconfigured) packages up to 10 times and if
something then still fails it gives an error. But I might be wrong
there, been a long while since I used debootstrap.

MfG
        Goswin

Message #54 received at 643659@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: roma1390 <roma1390@gmail.com>

To: 643659@bugs.debian.org

Subject: Custom made installations

Date: Fri, 25 Nov 2011 09:58:24 +0200

Hello,

I'm remastering netinstall CD for my own purpose, but after some time decided 
to upgrade some packages on CD from official mirrors. An facing that same 
problem when installer starts install packages on /target.

Is there any solution or temporary workaround for this problem?

Message #59 received at 643659-done@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Bastian Blank <waldi@debian.org>

To: 643659-done@bugs.debian.org

Subject: fixed

Date: Sat, 5 Sep 2015 17:38:41 +0200

Version: 0.6.0

The bug was fixed by forcing installation of base-passwd.
-- 
To live is always desirable.
		-- Eleen the Capellan, "Friday's Child", stardate 3498.9

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