Package: nbd-client Version: 1:2.9.9-1 Severity: normal Somewhere during the installation process of nbd-client the maintainer scripts invoke "/etc/init.d/nbd-client stop", which not only shuts down all nbd clients known to the nbd-client package, but also all other nbd devices which were set up by other means (such as ad-hoc commands and/or initrd), whether such devices are currently in use or not.
In my problem case, the root filesystem is on a network block device, so installation of the nbd-client package proceeds no further than this point. A final amusing twist: after rebooting, the system comes back up, and 'dpkg --configure -a' simply brings it back down again. dpkg can't possibly remember that it has tried and failed to do this before, since its only persistent filesystem goes away before it can store this information anywhere. Note that the filesystem in question is actually md RAID1 of nbd devices. e.g. if you set up /dev/nbd11 and /dev/nbd21 on separate machines, then run 'mdadm --create --level=1 --raid-disks=2 /dev/md1 /dev/nbd[12]1' you will have a similar configuration. This issue may be specific to the use of an md-RAID1 system, or use of recent kernel versions, or some combination of these with NBD. 2.6.23 seems to have different definitions of "busy" devices relative to previous kernels; however, I still think tearing down NBD devices that are otherwise unknown to debconf or in any 'nbd-client' Debian package configuration file from nbd-client's init script is not a good idea. -- System Information: Debian Release: 4.0 APT prefers stable APT policy: (500, 'stable'), (189, 'testing'), (179, 'unstable') Architecture: i386 (i686) Kernel: Linux 2.6.23.12-zb5s (SMP w/1 CPU core) Locale: LANG=C, LC_CTYPE=C (charmap=ANSI_X3.4-1968) Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash Versions of packages nbd-client depends on: ii debconf [debconf-2.0] 1.5.11 Debian configuration management sy ii libc6 2.7-3 GNU C Library: Shared libraries nbd-client recommends no packages. -- debconf information: * nbd-client/host: nbd-client/no-auto-config: * nbd-client/port: * nbd-client/number: 0 * nbd-client/device: * nbd-client/type: raw -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]