[ale] In DEB/APT Hell Again

[JD]

On 05/24/2011 10:49 PM, Pat Regan wrote:
> On Tue, 24 May 2011 20:57:46 -0400
> JD <jdp at algoloma.com> wrote:
> 
>> If I understand your question - there isn't any more output.
>> It stops there.  I just re-ran it again and copy/pasted the entire
>> output below.
> 
> I've never had this happen before.  I assume this is the same machine
> that ran out of inodes?
> 
> Check the tail end of /var/log/dpkg.log, see if there's any hints there.
> 

No. Different machine.  First thing I checked was space and inodes. ;)
34% and 17% for each.

The dpkg.log file (good idea) has this towards the end:
============================================
2011-04-02 05:48:29 status unpacked slapd 2.4.9-0ubuntu0.8.04.5
2011-04-02 05:48:29 status unpacked slapd 2.4.9-0ubuntu0.8.04.5
2011-04-02 05:48:29 status unpacked slapd 2.4.9-0ubuntu0.8.04.5
2011-04-02 05:48:29 status unpacked slapd 2.4.9-0ubuntu0.8.04.5
2011-04-02 05:48:29 status unpacked slapd 2.4.9-0ubuntu0.8.04.5
2011-04-02 05:48:29 status unpacked slapd 2.4.9-0ubuntu0.8.04.5
2011-04-02 05:48:29 status unpacked slapd 2.4.9-0ubuntu0.8.04.5
2011-04-02 05:48:29 status unpacked slapd 2.4.9-0ubuntu0.8.04.5
2011-04-02 05:48:29 status unpacked slapd 2.4.9-0ubuntu0.8.04.5
2011-04-02 05:48:29 status unpacked slapd 2.4.9-0ubuntu0.8.04.5
2011-04-02 05:48:29 status unpacked slapd 2.4.9-0ubuntu0.8.04.5
2011-04-02 05:48:29 status unpacked slapd 2.4.9-0ubuntu0.8.04.5
2011-04-02 05:48:29 status unpacked slapd 2.4.9-0ubuntu0.8.04.5
2011-04-02 05:48:29 status half-configured slapd 2.4.9-0ubuntu0.8.04.5
2011-04-02 05:48:30 status installed slapd 2.4.9-0ubuntu0.8.04.5
2011-04-02 05:48:30 trigproc libc6 2.7-10ubuntu8 2.7-10ubuntu8
2011-04-02 05:48:30 status half-configured libc6 2.7-10ubuntu8
2011-04-02 05:48:30 status installed libc6 2.7-10ubuntu8
2011-04-09 04:13:17 startup archives unpack
2011-04-09 04:13:18 upgrade tzdata 2011d~repack-0ubuntu0.8.04
2011e~repack-0ubuntu0.8.04
2011-04-09 04:13:18 status half-configured tzdata 2011d~repack-0ubuntu0.8.04
2011-04-09 04:13:18 status unpacked tzdata 2011d~repack-0ubuntu0.8.04
2011-04-09 04:13:18 status half-installed tzdata 2011d~repack-0ubuntu0.8.04
2011-04-09 04:13:19 status half-installed tzdata 2011d~repack-0ubuntu0.8.04
2011-04-09 04:13:19 status unpacked tzdata 2011e~repack-0ubuntu0.8.04
2011-04-09 04:13:19 status unpacked tzdata 2011e~repack-0ubuntu0.8.04
2011-04-09 04:13:19 startup packages configure
2011-04-09 04:13:19 configure tzdata 2011e~repack-0ubuntu0.8.04
2011e~repack-0ubuntu0.8.04
2011-04-09 04:13:19 status unpacked tzdata 2011e~repack-0ubuntu0.8.04
2011-04-09 04:13:19 status half-configured tzdata 2011e~repack-0ubuntu0.8.04
2011-04-09 04:13:20 status installed tzdata 2011e~repack-0ubuntu0.8.04
2011-04-09 04:13:20 startup archives unpack
2011-04-09 04:13:20 upgrade linux-libc-dev 2.6.24-28.86 2.6.24-29.88
2011-04-09 04:13:20 status half-configured linux-libc-dev 2.6.24-28.86
2011-04-09 04:13:20 status unpacked linux-libc-dev 2.6.24-28.86
2011-04-09 04:13:20 status half-installed linux-libc-dev 2.6.24-28.86
2011-04-09 04:13:20 status half-installed linux-libc-dev 2.6.24-28.86
2011-04-09 04:13:20 status unpacked linux-libc-dev 2.6.24-29.88
2011-04-09 04:13:20 status unpacked linux-libc-dev 2.6.24-29.88
2011-04-09 04:13:21 startup packages configure
2011-04-09 04:13:21 configure linux-libc-dev 2.6.24-29.88 2.6.24-29.88
2011-04-09 04:13:21 status unpacked linux-libc-dev 2.6.24-29.88
2011-04-09 04:13:21 status half-configured linux-libc-dev 2.6.24-29.88
2011-04-09 04:13:21 status installed linux-libc-dev 2.6.24-29.88
================================
That is the end of that file. It has just under 10K lines showing every
weekly upgrade performed since installation:
---
2008-10-24 14:11:26 startup archives install
---

JimK suggested using strace - isn't that a Solaris thing?  Anyway, it
isn't installed on this machine and ... well, with the pkg manager
hosed, it won't install.

Using 'aptitude' in -vvv mode, an issue inside the /var/lib/dpkg/status
was found ... seems that an automatic postfix upgrade over a month ago
trashed the file in the middle with garbage.  I removed the garbage and
filled in the corrupted parts for the packages that I could (made a
backup of the file first). Then forced a reinstall of the corrupted
stanzas/packages in the log file.  This caused all sorts of "dpkg:
serious warning: files list file for package xyz ...."  Perhaps for 100
packages, but at the process completed.

Now I'm getting a dpgk error (1) which is much better. I need to do some
research on this new issue before bothering you nice folks.

Thanks for the pointers.

I'll try to install strace, nope.  Still need to clean up a few issues.