Could not install / Could not start service

[Laurent Declercq]

Latest version of the courier-authdaemon package as provided in Ubuntu Xenial repository cannot be installed due to the following bug:

The 'courier' user/group in the /usr/lib/tmpfiles.d/courier-authdaemon.conf file doesn't exists. It should be replaced by the 'daemon' user/group.

Once I've edited the file manually for changing the user/group and run apt-get install -f, the package was successfully installed.

INFO:

root@xenial:~# lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description: Ubuntu Xenial Xerus (development branch)
Release: 16.04
Codename: xenial

root@xenial:~# aptitude show courier-authdaemon
Paquet : courier-authdaemon
État: installé
Automatiquement installé: oui
Version : 0.66.4-2
Priorité : optionnel
Section : universe/mail
Responsable : Ubuntu Developers <email address hidden>
Architecture : amd64
Taille décompressée : 39,9 k
Dépend: courier-authlib (>= 0.66.4), lsb-base (>= 3.0-10)
Est en conflit: courier-authdaemon:i386
Description : Démon d'authentification pour Courier
 Ce paquet contient le démon d'authentification pour les applications Courier.
Site : http://www.courier-mta.org/

[Laurent Declercq (l-declercq)]

@ Ondřej Surý

Loving when you push changes without any test... You should be killed.

courier-authlib (0.66.4-2) unstable; urgency=medium

  * Convert the d/copyright into machine-readable file and add license for
    authldaplib.c
  * Use invoke-rc.d to restart authdaemon on mysql and postgresql fresh
    installation
  * Add courier-authdaemon systemd files (service and tmpfile)

 -- Ondřej Surý <email address hidden> Sat, 02 Jan 2016 17:29:17 +0100

[Laurent Declercq (l-declercq)]

More details:

#############################################################
root@xenial:/usr/local/src/imscp# LANG=C aptitude install courier-authdaemon
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  courier-authdaemon
0 packages upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 0 B/5756 B of archives. After unpacking 39.9 kB will be used.
Selecting previously unselected package courier-authdaemon.
(Reading database ... 101286 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack .../courier-authdaemon_0.66.4-2_amd64.deb ...
Unpacking courier-authdaemon (0.66.4-2) ...
Processing triggers for systemd (228-5ubuntu3) ...
Processing triggers for ureadahead (0.100.0-19) ...
Setting up courier-authdaemon (0.66.4-2) ...
[/usr/lib/tmpfiles.d/courier-authdaemon.conf:2] Unknown user 'courier'.
Job for courier-authdaemon.service failed because the control process exited with error code. See "systemctl status courier-authdaemon.service" and "journalctl -xe" for details.
invoke-rc.d: initscript courier-authdaemon, action "start" failed.
dpkg: error processing package courier-authdaemon (--configure):
 subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1
Processing triggers for systemd (228-5ubuntu3) ...
Processing triggers for ureadahead (0.100.0-19) ...
Errors were encountered while processing:
 courier-authdaemon
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)
Failed to perform requested operation on package. Trying to recover:
Setting up courier-authdaemon (0.66.4-2) ...
[/usr/lib/tmpfiles.d/courier-authdaemon.conf:2] Unknown user 'courier'.
Job for courier-authdaemon.service failed because the control process exited with error code. See "systemctl status courier-authdaemon.service" and "journalctl -xe" for details.
invoke-rc.d: initscript courier-authdaemon, action "start" failed.
dpkg: error processing package courier-authdaemon (--configure):
 subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1
Errors were encountered while processing:
 courier-authdaemon
#############################################################

As you can see, installation failed. This is due to the wrong user/group put in the /usr/lib/tmpfiles.d/courier-authdaemon.conf:

#############################################################
root@xenial:/usr/local/src/imscp# cat /usr/lib/tmpfiles.d/courier-authdaemon.conf
#Type Path Mode UID GID Age Argument
    d /var/run/courier/authdaemon 0755 courier courier - -
#############################################################

Changing it to daemon user/group solve the problem:

#############################################################
root@xenial:/usr/local/src/imscp# nano /usr/lib/tmpfiles.d/courier-authdaemon.conf
root@xenial:/usr/local/src/imscp# cat /usr/lib/tmpfiles.d/courier-authdaemon.conf
#Type Path Mode UID GID Age Argument
    d /var/run/courier/authdaemon 0755 daemon daemon - -
root@xenial:/usr/local/src/imscp# apt-get install -f
Lecture des listes de paquets... Fait
Construction de l'arbre des dépendances
Lecture des informations d'état... Fait
0 mis à jour,...

[Laurent Declercq (l-declercq)]

Seem fixed by:

courier-authlib (0.66.4-3) unstable; urgency=medium

  * Check and create courier user in authdaemon package in case
    courier-base is not installed first (LP#1542174)

 -- Ondřej Surý <email address hidden> Fri, 05 Feb 2016 09:58:26 +0100

But a question still remains there:

Why create the 'courier' user while the 'daemon' user has been used for years... Really strange.