package postgresql 8.3.7-0ubuntu8.04.1 failed to install/upgrade: dependency problems - leaving unconfigured

[BZB]

Binary package hint: postgresql-8.3

This occurs every time I try to install any package. I did install postgresql some time back, I think this is an upgrade due to automated security updates.

The closest existing bug I could find was #261980 but my error is:

Errors were encountered while processing:
 postgresql-8.3
 postgresql
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)
A package failed to install. Trying to recover:
Setting up postgresql-8.3 (8.3.7-0ubuntu8.04.1) ...
 * Starting PostgreSQL 8.3 database server
 * The PostgreSQL server failed to start. Please check the log output:
2009-05-01 17:08:12 BST FATAL: could not load server certificate file "server.crt": Permission denied
   ...fail!
invoke-rc.d: initscript postgresql-8.3, action "start" failed.
dpkg: error processing postgresql-8.3 (--configure):
 subprocess post-installation script returned error exit status 1
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of postgresql:
 postgresql depends on postgresql-8.3; however:
  Package postgresql-8.3 is not configured yet.
dpkg: error processing postgresql (--configure):
 dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
Errors were encountered while processing:
 postgresql-8.3
 postgresql

ProblemType: Package
Architecture: i386
Date: Fri May 1 17:04:57 2009
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 8.04
ErrorMessage: dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
NonfreeKernelModules: fglrx
Package: postgresql 8.3.7-0ubuntu8.04.1
PackageArchitecture: all
SourcePackage: postgresql-8.3
Title: package postgresql 8.3.7-0ubuntu8.04.1 failed to install/upgrade: dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
Uname: Linux 2.6.24-23-generic i686

[Leonel Nunez (leonelnunez)]

If you are not using PostgreSQL you can remove the package

[Martin Pitt (pitti)]

2009-05-01 17:08:12 BST FATAL: could not load server certificate file "server.crt": Permission denied

This looks like something is wrong with the snakeoil cert. What is the output of

  ls -ld /etc/ssl/private
  sudo ls -l /etc/ssl/private/

?

[BZB (ben+ubuntu-bangham)]

It seems the mail I sent in reply to Martin Pitt never arrived - and because I don't check launchpad terribly often I have only just noticed, sorry.

-------- Forwarded Message --------
From: Ben Zass-Bangham <email address hidden>
To: Bug 370422 <email address hidden>
Subject: Re: [Bug 370422] Re: package postgresql 8.3.7-0ubuntu8.04.1 failed to install/upgrade: dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
Date: Tue, 09 Jun 2009 19:44:11 +0100

On Tue, 2009-06-09 at 14:46 +0000, Martin Pitt wrote:
2009-05-01 17:08:12 BST FATAL: could not load server certificate file
> "server.crt": Permission denied
>
> This looks like something is wrong with the snakeoil cert. What is the
> output of
>
> ls -ld /etc/ssl/private
> sudo ls -l /etc/ssl/private/
>
> ?
>
>
In my haste, I misread that as "snakeoil cart"... it's been a long day today. Anyway:

ben@mail:~$ ls -ld /etc/ssl/private
drwx--x--- 2 root ssl-cert 4096 2008-11-05 21:57 /etc/ssl/private
ben@mail:~$ sudo ls -l /etc/ssl/private/
[sudo] password for ben:
total 4
-rw-r----- 1 root ssl-cert 887 2008-11-05 21:57 ssl-cert-snakeoil.key

Note that this output is following an uninstall of postgresql-8.3 . For completeness, I then attempted to reinstall postgresql-8.3 as I have finally got around to installing a whole bunch of updates since I filed this bug. However I received this error from Synaptic:

E: postgresql-8.3: subprocess post-installation script returned error exit status 1

Setting up postgresql-common (87) ...

Setting up postgresql-8.3 (8.3.7-0ubuntu8.04.1) ...
* Starting PostgreSQL 8.3 database server
* The PostgreSQL server failed to start. Please check the log output.
   ...fail!
invoke-rc.d: initscript postgresql-8.3, action "start" failed.
dpkg: error processing postgresql-8.3 (--configure):
subprocess post-installation script returned error exit status 1
Errors were encountered while processing:
postgresql-8.3
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)
A package failed to install. Trying to recover:
Setting up postgresql-8.3 (8.3.7-0ubuntu8.04.1) ...
* Starting PostgreSQL 8.3 database server
* The PostgreSQL server failed to start. Please check the log output:
2009-06-09 19:37:34 BST FATAL: could not load server certificate file "server.crt": Permission denied
   ...fail!
invoke-rc.d: initscript postgresql-8.3, action "start" failed.
dpkg: error processing postgresql-8.3 (--configure):
subprocess post-installation script returned error exit status 1

So it looks like the issue is still there.

Thanks for your attention on this,
Ben.

[Martin Pitt (pitti)]

I bet the "postgres" system user is not in the ssl-cert group any more for some reason. What's the output of

  id postgres

? If "ssl-cert" is not there, it's a duplicate of bug 382584, but really I don't have an idea what goes wrong there. When postgres is created, it is put into ssl-cert.

[Martin Pitt (pitti)]

Did you happen to use the GNOME users and groups tool a lot in the past? This has been known to cause breakage in the user/group database.

To fix it for you, please do "sudo adduser postgres ssl-cert".