Package: debootstrap
Version: 1.0.141
Severity: wishlist
Hi,
While preparing a Linux Install Party, I tried to setup a DVD composed of the
official trixie DVD-1 but also all packages in trixie-update and trixie-security
since the release.
I did it just before the 13.1 release, I worked great. Security and update
packages were added on the DVD of the 13.0 release and no network download was
required during the LIP (the network was a bootleneck where I was).
I used the same scripts a few days ago, with the official trixie 13.1 and
adding again trixie-update and trixie-security packages. But, this time, it
failed during the installation of the base system with the following error:
I: Unpacking the base system...
W: Failure trying to run: chroot "/target" dpkg --force-overwrite
--force-confold --skip-same-version --install
W: See /target/debootstrap/debootstrap.log for details
And, in the log:
[...]
dpkg: error: --install needs at least one package archive file argument
Type dpkg --help for help about installing and deinstalling packages [*];
Use 'apt' or 'aptitude' for user-friendly package management;
Type dpkg -Dhelp for a list of dpkg debug flag values;
Type dpkg --force-help for a list of forcing options;
Type dpkg-deb --help for help about manipulating *.deb files;
Options marked [*] produce a lot of output - pipe it through 'less' or 'more' !
I found it very strange. I tried to manually divert "dpkg" in the target
replacing it by a script that just returns if the last argument was
'--install' (else it called the real dpkg), but the installer was in fact in a
loop on this call.
As my scripts to update the DVD were working a few days ago, I tried
to identify the problem. And, indeed, I found the problem: my scripts
were just concatenating the main/binary-amd64/Packages file of the DVD
and the main/binary-amd64/Packages file of trixie-update (that I got
with reprepro). By doing so, the upgraded packages are present several
times (with different versions) in the Packages file. Removing the
previous *systemd* entries, keeping only the ones from trixie-update
solved the problem.
This evening, I looked more in details in the debootstrap code.
I think that the root of the problem is that, in the
"Unpacking the base system...", in the while loop:
- get_next_predep calls "dpkg --predep-package" that, in this case,
returns the stanza for libsystemd-shared=257.8-1~deb13u2 (the version
from trixie-update)
- but "debfor libsystemd-shared" returns
/var/cache/apt/archives/libsystemd-shared_257.8-1~deb13u1_amd64.deb
i.e. the package for libsystemd-shared=257.8-1~deb13u1a (the version
from trixie 13.1). And indeed, /target/debootstrap/debpaths only
contains this path for libsystemd-shared
- so, at the next loop, get_next_predep still get the stanza for
libsystemd-shared=257.8-1~deb13u2, but the predep computation removes
libsystemd-shared from the list (as libsystemd-shared is now in
$done_predeps), and "in_target dpkg [...] --install" is called with an empty
$predep, leading to the failure.
Now that I've found the root of this issue, I'm not sure it needs a fix. It
would be perfectly reasonable for debootstrap to require a Packages file
without several versions of a package, at least for packages installed with
a manual dependency computation (when apt is used latter, there are no problem
anymore with duplicate package entries with different versions). If you think
so, feel free to close this bug. Nevertheless, this bug can give an
explaination why this message sometimes occurs during the installation. I found
it on some webpages but only as a problem without any explaination (why this
message occurs and how to avoid this situation)
Regards,
Vincent
PS: I successfully reproduced the problem by running the installer binaries in
a chroot. However, when trying to run the same scripts without the chroot
(setting DEBOOTSTRAP_DIR to point to the same scripts), I observe that
libsystemd-shared=257.8-1~deb13u2 is directly installed. So, with multiple
versions, the choosen version probably depends on more factors that I
identified.
-- System Information:
Debian Release: forky/sid
APT prefers stable-updates
APT policy: (500, 'stable-updates'), (500, 'stable-security'), (500,
'oldstable-updates'), (500, 'oldstable-security'), (500, 'unstable'), (500,
'testing'), (500, 'stable'), (500, 'oldstable'), (1, 'experimental')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)
Foreign Architectures: i386, armel
Kernel: Linux 6.12.41+deb13-amd64 (SMP w/4 CPU threads; PREEMPT)
Kernel taint flags: TAINT_OOT_MODULE
Locale: LANG=fr_FR.utf8, LC_CTYPE=fr_FR.utf8 (charmap=UTF-8), LANGUAGE not set
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /usr/bin/dash
Init: systemd (via /run/systemd/system)
Versions of packages debootstrap depends on:
ii distro-info 1.14
ii wget 1.25.0-2
Versions of packages debootstrap recommends:
ii arch-test 0.22-1
ii debian-archive-keyring 2025.1
ii gpgv 2.4.8-3
ii mount 2.41.1-1
ii sqv 1.3.0-3
Versions of packages debootstrap suggests:
ii binutils 2.45-4
pn squid-deb-proxy-client <none>
pn ubuntu-archive-keyring <none>
ii xz-utils 5.8.1-1
ii zstd 1.5.7+dfsg-1
-- no debconf information
