[Pkg-libvirt-maintainers] Bug#859071: virtinst: fails if /usr/bin/file not installed, missing package dependency

[Dmitri Popov]

Package: virtinst
Version: 1:1.4.0-5
Severity: normal

Dear Maintainer,

virt-install returns an ERROR and Traceback when I run it with no /usr/bin/file
binary installed in the system:

# virt-install --connect=qemu:///system --name=lala4 --ram=1024 --vcpus=2 --disk size=16,path=/var/lib/libvirt/images/lala4.img,bus=virtio,cache=none --initrd-inject=preseed.cfg --initrd-inject=late.sh --initrd-inject=postinst.tar.gz --location http://mirrors.cat.pdx.edu/debian/dists/jessie/main/installer-amd64/ --os-type=linux --os-variant=debian8 --virt-type=kvm --controller usb,model=none --graphics none --noautoconsole --network bridge=br0,model=virtio --extra-args=auto=true hostname=lala4 domain=dp-net.com console=tty0 console=ttyS0,115200n8 serial

Starting install...
Retrieving file linux...
Retrieving file initrd.gz...
ERROR    Failed to file command for rhel4 initrd detection
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/share/virt-manager/virtinst/initrdinject.py", line 31, in _rhel4_initrd_inject
    stderr=subprocess.PIPE)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/subprocess.py", line 390, in __init__
    errread, errwrite)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/subprocess.py", line 1024, in _execute_child
    raise child_exception
OSError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory
Allocating 'lala4.img'
Creating domain...
...

Despite of displaying an error install continues anyway, but gets stuck later with
"Warning: Couldn't download package diffutils (ver 1:3.3-1+b1 arch amd64".

Honestly I do not understand the correlation between an error related to
missing /usr/bin/file and the fact install gets stuck: I did very limited testing,
normally virt-install with options similar to shown above works fine, but had
stuck 3 times of 3 attempts when I've tested it with no /usr/bin/file installed.

I've just deliberately removed /usr/bin/file to check if that affects the functionality
of virt-install, but do not know install process well enough to actually figure
out what makes it stuck.

Anyway, I guess virtinst package just missing dependency on file package.

My conspiracy theory is that dependency was overlooked because reportbug package
apparently depends on file package so set of debian users who see that bug and
set of debian users who report bugs are disjoint :) I'm kidding of course.

Also not sure why python2.7 below is reported as not installed, according to dpkg,
python and python2.7 is at 2.7.13-2  

-- System Information:
Debian Release: 9.0
  APT prefers testing
  APT policy: (500, 'testing')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)

Kernel: Linux 4.9.0-2-amd64 (SMP w/8 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=ANSI_X3.4-1968) (ignored: LC_ALL set to C)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash
Init: systemd (via /run/systemd/system)

Versions of packages virtinst depends on:
ii  gir1.2-libosinfo-1.0  1.0.0-2
ii  python-gi             3.22.0-2
ii  python-ipaddr         2.1.11-2
ii  python-libvirt        3.0.0-2
ii  python-libxml2        2.9.4+dfsg1-2.2
ii  python-requests       2.12.4-1
pn  python2.7:any         <none>
pn  python:any            <none>

Versions of packages virtinst recommends:
ii  qemu-utils   1:2.8+dfsg-3
pn  virt-viewer  <none>

virtinst suggests no packages.

-- no debconf information