LTSP client installation fails due to failure in ltsp-update-kernels

[Christoph Ziehr]

I have a server with Ubuntu 8.04 where I run LTSP which I upgraded this weekend to Ubuntu 10.04 and then to Ubuntu 12.04 (all 32 bit). Before the upgrade everthing worked fine.

After the upgrade, the clients weren't able to boot into Ubuntu, so I tried to rebuild the client. I removed the directory /opt/ltsp and then started

ltsp-build-client

This fails everytime while this output is given (in this case with the command "LC_ALL=C ltsp-build-client --debug"):

DEBUG: Loading plugin: finalization: /usr/share/ltsp/plugins/ltsp-build-client/Ubuntu/030-loopback
DEBUG: Loading plugin: finalization: /usr/share/ltsp/plugins/ltsp-build-client/common/030-update-sshkeys
DEBUG: Loading plugin: finalization: /usr/share/ltsp/plugins/ltsp-build-client/Ubuntu/035-apt-get-upgrade
DEBUG: Loading plugin: finalization: /usr/share/ltsp/plugins/ltsp-build-client/Ubuntu/035-copy-timezone
DEBUG: Loading plugin: finalization: /usr/share/ltsp/plugins/ltsp-build-client/Ubuntu/035-default-modules
DEBUG: Loading plugin: finalization: /usr/share/ltsp/plugins/ltsp-build-client/Ubuntu/035-install-debs
DEBUG: Loading plugin: finalization: /usr/share/ltsp/plugins/ltsp-build-client/common/035-update-kernels
Updating /var/lib/tftpboot directories for chroot: /opt/ltsp/i386
Updating /srv/tftp directories for chroot: /opt/ltsp/i386
error: LTSP client installation ended abnormally

I have "apt-get purge" and reinstalled the package and its dependencies, but this helped not. I also installed the package "ltsp-server-standalone_5.4.2-2_all.deb" manually instead of the one which is delivered with Ubuntu 12.04.

I have no clue what to do else to get the LTSP work again on my server.

[Christoph Ziehr (christoph-pkbfd)]

I purged ltsp and switched to x2go after I was not able to find the error. But thank you for the 5 years in which ltsp worked very well. ;-)

[Wim Muskee (wimmuskee)]

Thanks for sticking with LTSP all these years. If you ever decide to come back, to better help fix this problem, we'll need the full ltsp-build-client --debug output.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for LTSP because there has been no activity for 60 days.]

[Travis Bean (tlbean)]

I get the exact same error on Ubuntu Server 12.04 LTS:

DEBUG: Loading plugin: finalization: /usr/share/ltsp/plugins/ltsp-build-client/Ubuntu/030-loopback
DEBUG: Loading plugin: finalization: /usr/share/ltsp/plugins/ltsp-build-client/common/030-update-sshkeys
DEBUG: Loading plugin: finalization: /usr/share/ltsp/plugins/ltsp-build-client/Ubuntu/035-apt-get-upgrade
DEBUG: Loading plugin: finalization: /usr/share/ltsp/plugins/ltsp-build-client/Ubuntu/035-copy-timezone
DEBUG: Loading plugin: finalization: /usr/share/ltsp/plugins/ltsp-build-client/Ubuntu/035-default-modules
DEBUG: Loading plugin: finalization: /usr/share/ltsp/plugins/ltsp-build-client/Ubuntu/035-install-debs
DEBUG: Loading plugin: finalization: /usr/share/ltsp/plugins/ltsp-build-client/common/035-update-kernels
Updating /var/lib/tftpboot directories for chroot: /opt/ltsp/i386
Updating /srv/tftp directories for chroot: /opt/ltsp/i386
error: LTSP client installation ended abnormally

Ltsp-build-client fails when it runs the 035-update-kernels plugin and calls /usr/sbin/ltsp-update-kernels to update the TFTP directories.

It took me forever to find a workaround. I experimented with ltsp-update-kernels by inserting "echo test", echo "test1", echo "test2", etc. at various points in this script to see exactly where it is failing. I finally figured out through trial and error that simply typing "echo" at the end of the file will allow ltsp-update-kernels to process successfully..

I attached a patch to fix this problem.

[Vagrant Cascadian (vagrantc)]

The patch no longer applies, as ltsp-update-kernels was significantly rewritten, and only probably hid the real problem anyways by always ending with "exit 0".

Is the issue reproducible in recent versions? What are the situations that lead it to being triggered, as it isn't triggered in all builds?

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for LTSP because there has been no activity for 60 days.]