package backuppc 3.1.0-4ubuntu1.1 failed to install/upgrade: subprocess post-installation script returned error exit status 1

[Ion Freeman]

Binary package hint: backuppc

Update manager tried to upgrade BackupPC and threw this error. I really don't know much else.

ProblemType: Package
Architecture: i386
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 9.04
ErrorMessage: subprocess post-installation script returned error exit status 1
Package: backuppc 3.1.0-4ubuntu1.1
PackageArchitecture: all
SourcePackage: backuppc
Title: package backuppc 3.1.0-4ubuntu1.1 failed to install/upgrade: subprocess post-installation script returned error exit status 1
Uname: Linux 2.6.28-15-generic i686

[takamori (dt02472)]

I think for me this occurred because the backup disk automount didn't work right, but I'm not sure. It would have been better if it prompted me to check for that and waited a bit rather than just going kaputz.

[Chuck Short (zulcss)]

Relevant error:
Setting up backuppc (3.1.0-4ubuntu1.1) ...

Your MPM seems to be threaded. Selecting cgid instead of cgi.

Module cgid already enabled

 * Starting backuppc...

2009-10-07 01:00:33 Can't create a test hardlink between a file in /var/lib/backuppc/pc and /var/lib/backuppc/cpool. Either these are different file systems, or this file system doesn't support hardlinks, or these directories don't exist, or there is a permissions problem, or the file system is out of inodes or full. Use df, df -i, and ls -ld to check each of these possibilities. Quitting...

invoke-rc.d: initscript backuppc, action "start" failed.

dpkg: error processing backuppc (--configure):

 subprocess post-installation script returned error exit status

Hi I was wondering if you were still having this problem.

Regards
chuck

[Ion Freeman (ionfreeman)]

Well, I am, but I know why. I created a symbolic link to my external hard drive, which I believe is formatted in FAT32 and does not support hard links.

I'd like the backups to be stored on the external hard drive, but I get this error every time I run apt-get or Synaptic. I haven't spent any time troubleshooting it yet.

--- On Thu, 10/15/09, Chuck Short <email address hidden> wrote:

> From: Chuck Short <email address hidden>
> Subject: [Bug 445154] Re: package backuppc 3.1.0-4ubuntu1.1 failed to install/upgrade: subprocess post-installation script returned error exit status 1
> To: <email address hidden>
> Date: Thursday, October 15, 2009, 10:09 AM
> Relevant error:
> Setting up backuppc (3.1.0-4ubuntu1.1) ...
>
> Your MPM seems to be threaded. Selecting cgid instead of
> cgi.
>
> Module cgid already enabled
>
> * Starting backuppc...
>
> 2009-10-07 01:00:33 Can't create a test hardlink between a
> file in
> /var/lib/backuppc/pc and /var/lib/backuppc/cpool.
> Either these are
> different file systems, or this file system doesn't support
> hardlinks,
> or these directories don't exist, or there is a permissions
> problem, or
> the file system is out of inodes or full.  Use df, df
> -i, and ls -ld to
> check each of these possibilities. Quitting...
>
> invoke-rc.d: initscript backuppc, action "start" failed.
>
> dpkg: error processing backuppc (--configure):
>
> subprocess post-installation script returned error exit
> status
>
> Hi I was wondering if you were still having this problem.
>
> Regards
> chuck
>
> ** Changed in: backuppc (Ubuntu)
>    Importance: Undecided => Low
>
> ** Changed in: backuppc (Ubuntu)
>        Status: New =>
> Incomplete
>
> --
> package backuppc 3.1.0-4ubuntu1.1 failed to
> install/upgrade: subprocess post-installation script
> returned error exit status 1
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/445154
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct
> subscriber
> of the bug.
>

[Chuck Short (zulcss)]

Thanks it should probably do a better check of which filesystem you are using and complain.

Regards
chuck

[takamori (dt02472)]

I also am using an external hard drive for backuppc, and have now verified that whether the mount worked properly or not is irrelevant to backuppc continuing to report errors on upgrade. I should note that I am using JFS on this drive, and that I am not experiencing any problems otherwise.

[takamori (dt02472)]

Some relevant details for my system, in case it helps:

dpkg.log:

2009-10-17 12:19:14 configure backuppc 3.1.0-4ubuntu1.1 3.1.0-4ubuntu1.1
2009-10-17 12:19:14 status half-configured backuppc 3.1.0-4ubuntu1.1
...
2009-10-17 12:19:26 configure backuppc 3.1.0-4ubuntu1.1 3.1.0-4ubuntu1.1
2009-10-17 12:19:26 status half-configured backuppc 3.1.0-4ubuntu1.1

and apt/term.log:

Selecting previously deselected package exuberant-ctags.
(Reading database ... 398778 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking exuberant-ctags (from .../exuberant-ctags_1%3a5.7-4_i386.deb) ...
Processing triggers for man-db ...
Setting up backuppc (3.1.0-4ubuntu1.1) ...
Module cgi already enabled
 * Starting backuppc...
2009-10-17 12:19:22 Can't create a test hardlink between a file in /var/lib/backuppc/pc and /var/lib/backuppc/cpool. Either these are different file systems, or this file system doesn't support hardlinks, or these directories don't exist, or there is a permissions problem, or the file system is out of inodes or full. Use df, df -i, and ls -ld to check each of these possibilities. Quitting...
invoke-rc.d: initscript backuppc, action "start" failed.
dpkg: error processing backuppc (--configure):
 subprocess post-installation script returned error exit status 1
Setting up exuberant-ctags (1:5.7-4) ...

Processing triggers for menu ...
Errors were encountered while processing:
 backuppc

$ df -i /var/lib/backuppc/pc
Filesystem Inodes IUsed IFree IUse% Mounted on
/dev/sda3 14934016 955930 13978086 7% /
$ df -i /var/lib/backuppc/cpool
Filesystem Inodes IUsed IFree IUse% Mounted on
/dev/sda3 14934016 955930 13978086 7% /
$ df /var/lib/backuppc/pc
Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda3 237044416 213036224 12061860 95% /
$ df /var/lib/backuppc/cpool
Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda3 237044416 213036224 12061860 95% /

Relevant mounts (note that /dev/sdc1 is my external drive, and /dev/sda3 is my main disk):
/dev/sda3 on / type ext3 (rw,relatime,errors=remount-ro)
/dev/sdc1 on /media/backup type jfs (rw)

[takamori (dt02472)]

Ok, so I spent a little time hacking on this (I tried to downgrade, added some log statements to BackupPC so I could see what was really going on) and realize what happened in my case.
1) mount failed for some reason. Probably before the update occurred.
2) backuppc auto-created /var/lib/backuppc. Possibly during the update.
3) backuppc failed to create a test hard link in the resulting directory on startup.

Resolved by:
1) modifying /etc/backuppc/config.pl to have TopDir point to my drive (probably not absolutely necessary, but it will be helpful to me for future ref to diagnose this).
2) re-creating the softlink between /var/lib/backuppc and the drive. Necessary in my situation because it will still try to create a log directory and fail (and maybe this is an issue of me configuring this wrong, but that's probably off topic).

After fixing my config as above, the problem went away. Yay. :) I guess my issue was in fact unrelated to Ion's problem, and I hope I didn't distract. Wish I could delete the post with all those long log entries.

[Mark - Syminet (mark-syminet)]

It might be appropriate here to also note that backuppc now *requires* hardlinks from it's
archive to /var/lib/backuppc/cpool in order for pooling to work (the main reason for using
backuppc). Previous versions of backuppc did not check if the creation of these hardlinks
was successful, thus people could create per-machine symlinks in /var/lib/backuppc/pc
which pointed to another filesystem, and it would "just work" (at the expense of those not
pooling, thus wasting a LOT of disk space). Recent versions do check to make sure
pooling is working, and if symlinks have been used as described above, the machines
symlinked to other filesystems will not backup, and start throwing the same error message
as in this bug.

You can use an external disk and/or different filesystem, but everything needs to live
under /var/lib/backuppc. If growing full is a concern, then you'll want to migrate everything
to a larger disk, or use a filesystem like LVM that will allow you to grow it into multiple
disks (but can be risky) or move to a RAID setup that can provide both the ability to
grow and redundancy.

In short, don't use symlinks anywhere under /var/lib/backuppc unless they point to
something on the same filesystem.

[Mark - Syminet (mark-syminet)]

and ugh... sorry for the bad formatting. :-)

[3vi1 (launchpad-net-eternaldusk)]

I found the real problem:

During the install, all of the directories are being created as owned by root:root. Changing them to be owned by the backuppc ID eliminates the failure:

 * Starting backuppc... 2010-08-22 13:59:58 Can't create a test hardlink between a file in /var/lib/backuppc/pc and /var/lib/backuppc/cpool. Either these are different file systems, or this file system doesn't support hardlinks, or these directories don't exist, or there is a permissions problem, or the file system is out of inodes or full. Use df, df -i, and ls -ld to check each of these possibilities. Quitting...
invoke-rc.d: initscript backuppc, action "start" failed.
dpkg: error processing backuppc (--configure):
 subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1
Processing triggers for menu ...
Errors were encountered while processing:
 backuppc
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)
evil@pluto:~$ ll /var/lib/backuppc
total 32
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 2009-12-18 09:51 cpool
drwx------ 2 root root 16384 2010-08-22 13:24 lost+found
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 2009-12-18 09:51 pc
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 2009-12-18 09:51 pool
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 2009-12-18 09:51 trash
evil@pluto:~$ sudo chown -R backuppc:backuppc /var/lib/backuppc
evil@pluto:~$ sudo apt-get -f install
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, 0B of additional disk space will be used.
Setting up backuppc (3.1.0-9ubuntu1) ...
Module auth_basic already enabled
Module authz_groupfile already enabled
Module authn_file already enabled
Module authz_user already enabled
Module cgi already enabled
 * Starting backuppc... [ OK ]

Processing triggers for menu ...
evil@pluto:~$