ifupdown should not hard-depend upon 'mountkernfs' and 'urandom'

[Paul Sladen]

'/etc/init.d/networking' for 'ifupdown' starts with:

  # Required-Start: mountkernfs $local_fs urandom

it would appear that 'mountkernfs' and 'urandom' are not hard-dependencies, and their presence prevents successful installation in virtual machines in some circumstances. This was reported by Neal Gompa/<Pharaoh_Atem> on #ubuntu-devel whilst working on support for Suse Open Build System (OBS) to build Xenial packages:

  http://changelogs.ubuntu.com/changelogs/pool/main/i/ifupdown/ifupdown_0.8.10ubuntu1/changelog

Full and snipped output logs are at:

  http://paste.fedoraproject.org/358318/61266534/
  https://paste.fedoraproject.org/358315/66065146/

in particular:

  [ 530s] [239/256] installing ifupdown-0.8.10ubuntu1
  [ 530s] Creating /etc/network/interfaces.
  [ 531s] insserv: Service mountkernfs has to be enabled to start service networking
  [ 531s] insserv: Service urandom has to be enabled to start service networking
  [ 531s] insserv: exiting now!
  [ 531s] update-rc.d: error: insserv rejected the script header
  [ 531s] dpkg: error processing package ifupdown (--install):
  [ 531s] subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1

The reporter tested that commenting out 'mountkernfs' and 'urandom' allowed the ifupdown '/etc/init.d/networking' init-script to successfully complete.

Ideally a hard-dependency should not be declared if it is not actually a hard-dependency, and introduces a regression by preventing successfully installation in circumstances that are reported to have worked previously for installing earlier Debian/Ubuntu versions on OBS.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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

[Neal Gompa (ngompa13)]

Hey all,

I'm the one who discovered the problem. As indicated in my LP profile, I can be reached on Freenode as "Conan_Kudo", "Pharaoh_Atem", or "Son_Goku".

[Neal Gompa (ngompa13)]

Err, because LP is awesome and I can't edit my own comment, I'm primarily available through Pharaoh_Atem (my workstation) or Son_Goku (my laptop). Alternatively, I can be reached by email.

[Ubuntu Foundations Team Bug Bot (crichton)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. It seems that your bug report is not filed about a specific source package though, rather it is just filed against Ubuntu in general. It is important that bug reports be filed about source packages so that people interested in the package can find the bugs about it. You can find some hints about determining what package your bug might be about at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/FindRightPackage. You might also ask for help in the #ubuntu-bugs irc channel on Freenode.

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[Neal Gompa (ngompa13)]

This is no longer a problem on the Open Build Service, as we're now ignoring the ifupdown dependency from upstart. Thus, Ubuntu 16.04 LTS build environments now work, as seen by this example[1].

[1]: https://build.opensuse.org/package/live_build_log/home:Pharaoh_Atem:u1604_stuff/php-libvirt/xUbuntu_16.04/x86_64

[Paul Sladen (sladen)]

Neal: do you have eg. an OBS commit log/changeset we can link this to?

[Neal Gompa (ngompa13)]

Paul: Unfortunately not, but you can see how the configuration is set up on build.opensuse.org[1]. Details about the prjconf format is available on the openSUSE Wiki[2].

[1]: https://build.opensuse.org/project/prjconf/Ubuntu:16.04
[2]: https://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Build_Service_prjconf

[Paul Sladen (sladen)]

So, guessing, was this the diff that was applied:

--- Ubuntu-16.04.txt.orig 2016-04-22 14:24:12.163974719 +0200
+++ Ubuntu-16.04.txt 2016-04-22 14:23:51.095974821 +0200
@@ -88,2 +88,3 @@

+Ignore: upstart:ifupdown
 Ignore: aaa_base:aaa_skel,suse-release,logrotate,ash,mingetty,distribution-release

[Neal Gompa (ngompa13)]

Yes. Actually, it might be more useful to diff between 15.10[1] and 16.04[2]. That lets you see all the differences that were required to get it working.

[1]: https://build.opensuse.org/project/prjconf/Ubuntu:15.10
[2]: https://build.opensuse.org/project/prjconf/Ubuntu:16.04

[Paul Sladen (sladen)]

Alternative solution implemented via Open Build Service 'Ubuntu:16.04' configuration update.