"Failed to get unit file state for run-vmblockx2dfuse.mount: No such file or directory" during open-vm-tools-desktop postinstall in Ubuntu 16.10

[林博仁(Buo-ren, Lin)]

The following error messages appear during postinst of open-vm-tools-desktop in Ubuntu 16.10:

```
Created symlink /etc/systemd/system/multi-user.target.wants/run-vmblock\x2dfuse.mount → /lib/systemd/system/run-vmblock\x2dfuse.mount.
Failed to get unit file state for run-vmblockx2dfuse.mount: No such file or directory
run-vmblock\x2dfuse.mount is a disabled or a static unit, not starting it.
```

According to the postinst script:

```
# Automatically added by dh_systemd_enable
# This will only remove masks created by d-s-h on package removal.
deb-systemd-helper unmask run-vmblock\\x2dfuse.mount >/dev/null || true

# was-enabled defaults to true, so new installations run enable.
if deb-systemd-helper --quiet was-enabled run-vmblock\\x2dfuse.mount; then
        # Enables the unit on first installation, creates new
        # symlinks on upgrades if the unit file has changed.
        deb-systemd-helper enable run-vmblock\\x2dfuse.mount >/dev/null || true
else
        # Update the statefile to add new symlinks (if any), which need to be
        # cleaned up on purge. Also remove old symlinks.
        deb-systemd-helper update-state run-vmblock\\x2dfuse.mount >/dev/null || true
fi
```

It seems that the deb-systemd-helper script unable to properly process filepaths containing a slash. View the problem in a different angle it is suspicious for /etc/systemd/system/multi-user.target.wants/run-vmblock\x2dfuse.mount file to have a slash in a filename in the first place, which looks like a escape character for hyphen-minus(0x2d), isn't the file should be named run-vmblock-fuse.mount instead?

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 16.10
Package: open-vm-tools-desktop 2:10.0.7-3227872-5ubuntu1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 4.8.0-26.28-generic 4.8.0
Uname: Linux 4.8.0-26-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.20.3-0ubuntu8
Architecture: amd64
CurrentDesktop: Unity
Date: Fri Nov 4 20:15:14 2016
SourcePackage: open-vm-tools
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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

[Oliver Kurth (okurth-1)]

Is there an update on this bug? We are hiting this issue frequently when testing open-vm-tools-desktop (version 2:10.1.10-2) with Ubuntu 17.10.

The root cause for this issue is escaping. run-vmblock\x2dfuse.mount is used in multiple places in the prerm, postrm and postinst scripts, and in most cases insufficiently escaped. Two backslashes are needed:

vmware@vmware-virtual-machine:~$ cat test.sh
#!/bin/sh

echo systemctl start run-vmblockx2dfuse.mount
systemctl start run-vmblockx2dfuse.mount

echo systemctl start run-vmblock\x2dfuse.mount
systemctl start run-vmblock\x2dfuse.mount

echo systemctl start run-vmblock\\x2dfuse.mount
systemctl start run-vmblock\\x2dfuse.mount

vmware@vmware-virtual-machine:~$ sudo ./test.sh
systemctl start run-vmblockx2dfuse.mount
Failed to start run-vmblockx2dfuse.mount: Unit run-vmblockx2dfuse.mount not found.
systemctl start run-vmblockx2dfuse.mount
Failed to start run-vmblockx2dfuse.mount: Unit run-vmblockx2dfuse.mount not found.
systemctl start run-vmblock\x2dfuse.mount
vmware@vmware-virtual-machine:~$

To elaborate on the previous comment why there is \x2d in the filename - this is a requirement for systemd. The mount point is /run/vmblock-fuse (with a plain '-'), but dashes in the mount file name will be converted to '/'. Hence we need to protect the dash by escaping it.

I am confused by the postinst script snippet copied in the bug description - it's not what I have - note that thee are only single backslashes:

#!/bin/sh
set -e

# load the fuse module just in case its missing
if ! lsmod | grep -qE '^fuse\s+'; then
    modprobe fuse || true
fi

# Automatically added by dh_systemd_enable/10.7.2ubuntu2
# This will only remove masks created by d-s-h on package removal.
deb-systemd-helper unmask run-vmblock\x2dfuse.mount >/dev/null || true

# was-enabled defaults to true, so new installations run enable.
if deb-systemd-helper --quiet was-enabled run-vmblock\x2dfuse.mount; then
        # Enables the unit on first installation, creates new
        # symlinks on upgrades if the unit file has changed.
        deb-systemd-helper enable run-vmblock\x2dfuse.mount >/dev/null || true
else
        # Update the statefile to add new symlinks (if any), which need to be
        # cleaned up on purge. Also remove old symlinks.
        deb-systemd-helper update-state run-vmblock\x2dfuse.mount >/dev/null || true
fi
# End automatically added section
# Automatically added by dh_installinit/10.7.2ubuntu2
if [ "$1" = "configure" ] || [ "$1" = "abort-upgrade" ]; then
        # In case this system is running systemd, we need to ensure that all
        # necessary tmpfiles (if any) are created before starting.
        if [ -d /run/systemd/system ] ; then
                systemd-tmpfiles --create /usr/lib/tmpfiles.d/open-vm-tools-desktop.conf >/dev/null || true
        fi
fi
# End automatically added section
# Automatically added by dh_systemd_start/10.7.2ubuntu2
if [ -d /run/systemd/system ]; then
        systemctl --system daemon-reload >/dev/null || true
        deb-systemd-invoke start run-vmblock\x2dfuse.mount >/dev/null || true
fi
# End automatically added section

[vmware-gos-Yuhua (yhzou)]

No update for a long time. Does anybody pay attention to this issue ?