wrong file permissions on /var/log/apt-cacher-ng abort package installation

[Barry Warsaw]

Up-to-date xenial, `apt-get install apt-cacher-ng` produces:

Preparing to unpack .../apt-cacher-ng_0.8.6-1_amd64.deb ...
Unpacking apt-cacher-ng (0.8.6-1) ...
Processing triggers for doc-base (0.10.6) ...
Processing 1 added doc-base file...
Processing triggers for man-db (2.7.4-1) ...
Processing triggers for systemd (227-2ubuntu1) ...
Processing triggers for ureadahead (0.100.0-19) ...
Setting up apt-cacher-ng (0.8.6-1) ...
Job for apt-cacher-ng.service failed because the control process exited with error code. See "systemctl status apt-cacher-ng.service" and "journalctl -xe" for details.
invoke-rc.d: initscript apt-cacher-ng, action "start" failed.
dpkg: error processing package apt-cacher-ng (--configure):
 subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1
Errors were encountered while processing:
 apt-cacher-ng

Output of `systemctl status apt-cacher-ng.service`:

● apt-cacher-ng.service
   Loaded: masked (/dev/null)
   Active: failed (Result: start-limit) since Tue 2015-11-03 10:17:36 CST; 6min ago
 Main PID: 4356 (code=exited, status=1/FAILURE)

Nov 03 10:17:36 anarchist systemd[1]: Failed to start Apt-Cacher NG software download proxy.
Nov 03 10:17:36 anarchist systemd[1]: apt-cacher-ng.service: Unit entered failed state.
Nov 03 10:17:36 anarchist systemd[1]: apt-cacher-ng.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
Nov 03 10:17:36 anarchist systemd[1]: apt-cacher-ng.service: Service hold-off time over, scheduling restart.
Nov 03 10:17:36 anarchist systemd[1]: Stopped Apt-Cacher NG software download proxy.
Nov 03 10:17:36 anarchist systemd[1]: apt-cacher-ng.service: Start request repeated too quickly.
Nov 03 10:17:36 anarchist systemd[1]: Failed to start Apt-Cacher NG software download proxy.
Nov 03 10:17:36 anarchist systemd[1]: apt-cacher-ng.service: Unit entered failed state.
Nov 03 10:17:36 anarchist systemd[1]: apt-cacher-ng.service: Failed with result 'start-limit'.
Nov 03 10:17:47 anarchist systemd[1]: Stopped Apt-Cacher NG software download proxy.

Excerpt from `journalctl -xe`:

Nov 03 10:25:26 anarchist systemd[1]: Starting Apt-Cacher NG software download proxy...
-- Subject: Unit apt-cacher-ng.service has begun start-up
-- Defined-By: systemd
-- Support: http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/systemd-devel
--
-- Unit apt-cacher-ng.service has begun starting up.
Nov 03 10:25:26 anarchist apt-cacher-ng[6889]: WARNING: No configuration was read from file:backends_debvol
Nov 03 10:25:26 anarchist apt-cacher-ng[6889]: WARNING: No configuration was read from file:sfnet_mirrors
Nov 03 10:25:26 anarchist apt-cacher-ng[6889]: Problem creating log files. Check permissions of the log directory, /var/log/apt-cacher-ng
Nov 03 10:25:26 anarchist systemd[1]: apt-cacher-ng.service: Main process exited, code=exited, status=1/FAILURE
Nov 03 10:25:26 anarchist systemd[1]: Failed to start Apt-Cacher NG software download proxy.
-- Subject: Unit apt-cacher-ng.service has failed
-- Defined-By: systemd
-- Support: http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/systemd-devel
--
-- Unit apt-cacher-ng.service has failed.
--
-- The result is failed.
Nov 03 10:25:26 anarchist systemd[1]: apt-cacher-ng.service: Unit entered failed state.
Nov 03 10:25:26 anarchist systemd[1]: apt-cacher-ng.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
Nov 03 10:25:26 anarchist systemd[1]: apt-cacher-ng.service: Service hold-off time over, scheduling restart.
Nov 03 10:25:26 anarchist systemd[1]: Stopped Apt-Cacher NG software download proxy.
-- Subject: Unit apt-cacher-ng.service has finished shutting down
-- Defined-By: systemd
-- Support: http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/systemd-devel
--
-- Unit apt-cacher-ng.service has finished shutting down.
Nov 03 10:25:26 anarchist systemd[1]: apt-cacher-ng.service: Start request repeated too quickly.
Nov 03 10:25:26 anarchist systemd[1]: Failed to start Apt-Cacher NG software download proxy.
-- Subject: Unit apt-cacher-ng.service has failed
-- Defined-By: systemd
-- Support: http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/systemd-devel
--
-- Unit apt-cacher-ng.service has failed.
--
-- The result is failed.
Nov 03 10:25:26 anarchist systemd[1]: apt-cacher-ng.service: Unit entered failed state.
Nov 03 10:25:26 anarchist systemd[1]: apt-cacher-ng.service: Failed with result 'start-limit'.

And finally:

% ls -ld /var/log/apt-cacher-ng/
drwxr-sr-x 2 usermetrics systemd-journal 4096 Aug 29 2014 /var/log/apt-cacher-ng//

Seems like g+w'ing that directory doesn't help.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 16.04
Package: apt-cacher-ng (not installed)
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 4.2.0-16.19-generic 4.2.3
Uname: Linux 4.2.0-16-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.19.2-0ubuntu1
Architecture: amd64
CurrentDesktop: Unity
Date: Tue Nov 3 10:20:49 2015
EcryptfsInUse: Yes
InstallationDate: Installed on 2013-12-06 (696 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 13.10 "Saucy Salamander" - Release amd64 (20131016.1)
SourcePackage: apt-cacher-ng
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)
modified.conffile..etc.apt.cacher.ng.acng.conf: [modified]
modified.conffile..etc.apt.cacher.ng.security.conf: [inaccessible: [Errno 13] Permission denied: '/etc/apt-cacher-ng/security.conf']
mtime.conffile..etc.apt.cacher.ng.acng.conf: 2015-11-03T10:11:20.553179

[Barry Warsaw (barry)]

Fixing the user and group ownership fixes the problem:

% ls -ld /var/log/apt-cacher-ng/
drwxr-sr-x 2 apt-cacher-ng apt-cacher-ng 4096 Nov 3 10:40 /var/log/apt-cacher-ng//

So why did it use usermetrics:systemd-journal ??

apt-cacher-ng has never been installed on this box before.

[Eduard Bloch (edi-gmx)]

I have no idea.

What's the UID of that user? Maybe something messed up with your passwd file?
The permission change is forcibly applied, I don't see why it could break, and even if, that would be root:root, not some weirduser:weirdgroup.

  # be sure about that even if the user messed it up
   for x in "$CDIR" $LDIR ; do
      if [ ! -d "$x" ]; then
         install -d -g $NAME -o $NAME -m2755 "$x"
      fi
   done

[Barry Warsaw (barry)]

On Nov 03, 2015, at 05:41 PM, Eduard Bloch wrote:

>I have no idea.

Yeah, I was sitting next to pitti and he was also perplexed! (He also wasn't
able to reproduce it.)

>What's the UID of that user? Maybe something messed up with your passwd file?

Nope, passwd looks okay. I can't see anything weird about that user. Very
strange, but I guess if nobody else reports it, it's just gremlins doing their
dirty work on my machine.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[d9ping (d9ping)]

I had this issue too upon installing, starting and restarting apt-cacher-ng.
I found that i had a apparmor profile for apt-cacher-ng that was in enforce mode this was causing the installing, starting and restarting issues of apt-cacher-ng.
(I'm not sure if the apparmor profile is provided by apt-cacher-ng. )
But is resolved the issues of apt-cacher-ng by running:
sudo aa-complain usr.sbin.apt-cacher-ng

[Ken Sharp (kennybobs)]

Unbelievably this is still an issue over two years later.

Works find in Bionic and Cosmic.

[Rolf Leggewie (r0lf)]

There's reports of this in focal, too, now. See dupes of this ticket. It's still not clear how this comes about.