[Pkg-mailman-hackers] Bug#614218: mailman: Upgrade fails if /var/lock/mailman does not exist (e.g. due to /var/lock being tmpfs)

[Axel Beckert]

retitle 614218 mailman: Aborted without showing the debconf question mailman/queue_files_present on upgrade to 1:2.1.11-11+lenny2
kthxbye

Axel Beckert wrote:
> > Upgrading to the recent security update failed since lock files
> > couldn't be create in /var/lock/mailman since that directory didn't
> > exist. Creating it solved the issue.
> 
> It didn't. In fact, /var/lock/mailman always has been removed after
> the failed upgrade. It just wasn't obvious from the output that
> ...lenny1 was installed again.
> 
> I currently trying to find the real source of the failing
> upgrade. Will let you know as soon as I managed to upgrade to
> ...lenny2

It were remaining shunt and bad files in /var/lib/mailman/qfiles. But
for some reason I never saw anything from debconf about that:

With set -x in 1:2.1.11-11+lenny1's maintainer scripts, I got the
following output:

# aptitude safe-upgrade
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
Reading extended state information      
Initializing package states... Done
The following packages will be upgraded:
  mailman 
1 packages upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 0B/9530kB of archives. After unpacking 0B will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n/?] y
Writing extended state information... Done
Preconfiguring packages ...
Looking for enabled languages (this may take some time) ... done.
(Reading database ... 73006 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to replace mailman 1:2.1.11-11+lenny1 (using .../mailman_1%3a2.1.11-11+lenny2_amd64.deb) ...
+ '[' upgrade = failed-upgrade ']'
+ which update-python-modules
+ update-python-modules -c mailman.dirs
+ '[' -x /etc/init.d/mailman ']'
++ which invoke-rc.d
+ '[' -x /usr/sbin/invoke-rc.d ']'
+ invoke-rc.d mailman stop
Stopping Mailman master qrunner: mailmanctl.
dpkg: error processing /var/cache/apt/archives/mailman_1%3a2.1.11-11+lenny2_amd64.deb (--unpack):
 subprocess pre-installation script returned error exit status 1
+ . /usr/share/debconf/confmodule
++ '[' '!' '' ']'
++ PERL_DL_NONLAZY=1
++ export PERL_DL_NONLAZY
++ '[' '' ']'
++ exec /usr/share/debconf/frontend /var/lib/dpkg/info/mailman.postinst abort-upgrade 1:2.1.11-11+lenny2
[...]

debconf priority was initially set to critical, but setting it to low
with "debconf-get-selections | fgrep priority | sed -e
's/critical/low/' | debconf-set-selections" didn't change anything...

Following the instructions found in the debconf templates helped.

		Regards, Axel
-- 
 ,''`.  |  Axel Beckert <abe at debian.org>, http://people.debian.org/~abe/
: :' :  |  Debian Developer, ftp.ch.debian.org Admin
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