procps upgrades fail in a LXD container

[dann frazier]

[Impact]
procps cannot be upgraded - or even reinstalled - in an LXD container. This means we cannot deliver updates (like the pending fix for LP: #1637026 in xenial-proposed) w/o putting container users in a bad state that requires a container restart to resolve.

[Test Case]
$ lxc launch ubuntu:xenial procpstest
Creating procpstest
Starting procpstest
$ lxc exec procpstest -- /bin/bash
root@procpstest:~# apt --reinstall install procps
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 1 reinstalled, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 209 kB of archives.
After this operation, 0 B of additional disk space will be used.
Get:1 http://ports.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-ports xenial/main arm64 procps arm64 2:3.3.10-4ubuntu2 [209 kB]
Fetched 209 kB in 1s (113 kB/s)
(Reading database ... 25398 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack .../procps_2%3a3.3.10-4ubuntu2_arm64.deb ...
Unpacking procps (2:3.3.10-4ubuntu2) over (2:3.3.10-4ubuntu2) ...
Processing triggers for man-db (2.7.5-1) ...
Processing triggers for ureadahead (0.100.0-19) ...
Processing triggers for systemd (229-4ubuntu11) ...
Setting up procps (2:3.3.10-4ubuntu2) ...
update-rc.d: warning: start and stop actions are no longer supported; falling back to defaults
Job for systemd-sysctl.service failed because the control process exited with error code. See "systemctl status systemd-sysctl.service" and "journalctl -xe" for details.
invoke-rc.d: initscript procps, action "start" failed.
dpkg: error processing package procps (--configure):
 subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1
Errors were encountered while processing:
 procps
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)
root@procpstest:~#

[Regression Risk]
The proposed fix is to disable invoking the procps initscript on install/upgrade. This fix is already in yakkety, and I didn't find any bugs related to it in LP.

[dann frazier (dannf)]

Note that, though procps itself is patched to ignore errors when writing to /proc/sys, the problem here is that the initscript causes the systemd-sysctl service to get triggered, and that does not fail gracefully:

ubuntu@procps:~$ sudo /lib/systemd/systemd-sysctl
Couldn't write '1' to 'kernel/kptr_restrict', ignoring: Permission denied
Couldn't write '4 4 1 7' to 'kernel/printk', ignoring: Permission denied
Couldn't write '1' to 'kernel/yama/ptrace_scope', ignoring: Permission denied
Couldn't write '32768' to 'vm/mmap_min_addr', ignoring: Permission denied
Couldn't write '1' to 'fs/protected_hardlinks', ignoring: Permission denied
Couldn't write '1' to 'fs/protected_symlinks', ignoring: Permission denied
Couldn't write '176' to 'kernel/sysrq', ignoring: Permission denied
ubuntu@procps:~$ echo $?
1

[Martin Pitt (pitti)]

This seems fine to me. I just replied to https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/procps/+bug/1637026/comments/4 before realizing that this issue is tracked here.

[Brian Murray (brian-murray)]

Hello dann, or anyone else affected,

Accepted procps into xenial-proposed. The package will build now and be available at https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/procps/2:3.3.10-4ubuntu2.2 in a few hours, and then in the -proposed repository.

Please help us by testing this new package. See https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Testing/EnableProposed for documentation how to enable and use -proposed. Your feedback will aid us getting this update out to other Ubuntu users.

If this package fixes the bug for you, please add a comment to this bug, mentioning the version of the package you tested, and change the tag from verification-needed to verification-done. If it does not fix the bug for you, please add a comment stating that, and change the tag to verification-failed. In either case, details of your testing will help us make a better decision.

Further information regarding the verification process can be found at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/QATeam/PerformingSRUVerification . Thank you in advance!

[dann frazier (dannf)]

root@procpstest:~# apt install procps -y
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following packages will be upgraded:
  procps
1 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 46 not upgraded.
Need to get 208 kB of archives.
After this operation, 0 B of additional disk space will be used.
Get:1 http://ports.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-ports xenial-proposed/main arm64 procps arm64 2:3.3.10-4ubuntu2.2 [208 kB]
Fetched 208 kB in 0s (301 kB/s)
(Reading database ... 29622 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack .../procps_2%3a3.3.10-4ubuntu2.2_arm64.deb ...
Unpacking procps (2:3.3.10-4ubuntu2.2) over (2:3.3.10-4ubuntu2) ...
Processing triggers for man-db (2.7.5-1) ...
Processing triggers for ureadahead (0.100.0-19) ...
Processing triggers for systemd (229-4ubuntu11) ...
Setting up procps (2:3.3.10-4ubuntu2.2) ...
update-rc.d: warning: start and stop actions are no longer supported; falling back to defaults
root@procpstest:~#

[Lars Bo Rasmussen (lbr1988)]

root@vps137255:~# apt-get install procps/xenial-proposed
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Selected version '2:3.3.10-4ubuntu2.2' (Ubuntu:16.04/xenial-proposed [amd64]) for 'procps'
The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:
  initramfs-tools-core libapt-inst1.5 linux-base
Use 'apt autoremove' to remove them.
The following packages will be upgraded:
  procps
1 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
4 not fully installed or removed.
Need to get 222 kB of archives.
After this operation, 0 B of additional disk space will be used.
Get:1 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial-proposed/main amd64 procps amd64 2:3.3.10-4ubuntu2.2 [222 kB]
Fetched 222 kB in 0s (2,235 kB/s)
debconf: delaying package configuration, since apt-utils is not installed
(Reading database ... 21894 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack .../procps_2%3a3.3.10-4ubuntu2.2_amd64.deb ...
Unpacking procps (2:3.3.10-4ubuntu2.2) over (2:3.3.10-4ubuntu2) ...
Processing triggers for systemd (229-4ubuntu12) ...
Processing triggers for man-db (2.7.5-1) ...
Setting up procps (2:3.3.10-4ubuntu2.2) ...
update-rc.d: warning: start and stop actions are no longer supported; falling back to defaults
Setting up udev (229-4ubuntu12) ...
Installing new version of config file /etc/init.d/udev ...
Installing new version of config file /etc/init/udevmonitor.conf ...
addgroup: The group `input' already exists as a system group. Exiting.
Removing obsolete conffile /etc/init.d/udev-finish ...
Removing obsolete conffile /etc/init/udev-finish.conf ...
Removing obsolete conffile /etc/init/udev-fallback-graphics.conf ...
Removing obsolete conffile /etc/init.d/lvm2 ...
Setting up initramfs-tools-core (0.122ubuntu8.5) ...
Installing new version of config file /etc/initramfs-tools/initramfs.conf ...
Setting up openssh-server (1:7.2p2-4ubuntu2.1) ...
Installing new version of config file /etc/network/if-up.d/openssh-server ...
Processing triggers for systemd (229-4ubuntu12) ...

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package procps - 2:3.3.10-4ubuntu2.2

---------------
procps (2:3.3.10-4ubuntu2.2) xenial; urgency=medium

  * Don't start procps on install. This avoids errors on upgrade
    within a container. Backported from yakkety. (LP: #1637300)

procps (2:3.3.10-4ubuntu2.1) xenial; urgency=medium

  * Fix parsing of negative PIDs. (LP: #1637026)

 -- dann frazier <email address hidden> Wed, 26 Oct 2016 18:21:16 -0600

[Martin Pitt (pitti)]

The verification of the Stable Release Update for procps has completed successfully and the package has now been released to -updates. Subsequently, the Ubuntu Stable Release Updates Team is being unsubscribed and will not receive messages about this bug report. In the event that you encounter a regression using the package from -updates please report a new bug using ubuntu-bug and tag the bug report regression-update so we can easily find any regressions.