initscripts: upgrade fails in chroot

[Martin-Éric Racine]

Setting up initscripts (2.88dsf-13.10ubuntu5) ...
mkdir: cannot create directory `/dev/shm': File exists
dpkg: error processing initscripts (--configure):
 subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1
Errors were encountered while processing:
 initscripts
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 12.04
Package: initscripts 2.88dsf-13.10ubuntu5
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.1.0-2.3-generic-pae 3.1.0
Uname: Linux 3.1.0-2-generic-pae i686
NonfreeKernelModules: hidp hid bnep rfcomm parport_pc ppdev lp parport dm_crypt arc4 binfmt_misc snd_hda_codec_idt joydev snd_hda_intel snd_hda_codec snd_hwdep dell_wmi sparse_keymap snd_pcm snd_seq_midi snd_rawmidi snd_seq_midi_event iwl4965 snd_seq pcmcia btusb iwl_legacy bluetooth snd_timer mac80211 snd_seq_device psmouse serio_raw yenta_socket pcmcia_rsrc snd pcmcia_core cfg80211 soundcore snd_page_alloc coretemp dell_laptop dcdbas i915 drm_kms_helper drm firewire_ohci sdhci_pci firewire_core sdhci crc_itu_t tg3 i2c_algo_bit wmi video
ApportVersion: 1.26-0ubuntu1
Architecture: i386
Date: Wed Nov 16 11:14:36 2011
SourcePackage: sysvinit
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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

[Peter Wright (p-wright)]

Also a problem for an LXC guest running Oneiric

root@lxcguest:~# apt-get dist-upgrade
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Calculating upgrade... Done
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
1 not fully installed or removed.
After this operation, 0 B of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]? y
Setting up initscripts (2.88dsf-13.10ubuntu4.1) ...
mkdir: cannot create directory `/dev/shm': File exists
dpkg: error processing initscripts (--configure):
 subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1
Errors were encountered while processing:
 initscripts
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

[Peter Wright (p-wright)]

There has been no update to this bug in over a month, this is preventing us from keeping our LXC guests up-to-date - are there any plans to fix this issue?

[Peter Wright (p-wright)]

A workaround which seems to work for LXC is to upgrade on the host (so /dev/shm on the host is a symlink to /run/shm) and then on the guest mkdir /run/shm. The upgrade process then proceeds without error:

Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
1 not fully installed or removed.
After this operation, 0 B of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]? y
Setting up initscripts (2.88dsf-13.10ubuntu4.1) ...

[Serge Hallyn (serge-hallyn)]

This may get fixed by the fix to bug 997978.

However I'm hesitant to mark this a dup of that, since the more generic problem of upgrading in a chroot will have cases where the chroot is in a shape where we cannot do the right thing.

But I'm going to mark it as such anyway, because while there are cases where we can't guess what to do with /dev/shm, the fix should stop the warning, which I guess is the real bug here.

[Serge Hallyn (serge-hallyn)]

Sorry, I meant bug 974584.