dpkg-statoverride should not consider unknown group a "syntax error"

[Bela Lubkin]

Binary package hint: dpkg

Removal of package gnokii-cli 0.6.28.dfsg-1 left /var/lib/dpkg/statoverride in a corrupted state (LP#537025, debbugs #563317):

   $ grep gnokii /var/lib/dpkg/statoverride
   root gnokii 4750 /usr/sbin/mgnokiidev

   $ ls -l /usr/sbin/mgnokiidev
   ls: cannot access /usr/sbin/mgnokiidev: No such file or directory

   $ grep gnokii /etc/group

   $ dpkg-statoverride --remove /usr/sbin/mgnokiidev
   dpkg-statoverrides: unrecoverable fatal error, aborting:
    syntax error: unknown group 'gnokii' in statoverride file

   $ dpkg-statoverride --list
   dpkg-statoverrides: unrecoverable fatal error, aborting:
    syntax error: unknown group 'gnokii' in statoverride file

The "corrupted state" here is that the statoverride file mentions a group which no longer exists. (The same issue occurs with a nonexistent user, as see in LP#161798

Problems with this:

1. Parsing of /var/lib/dpkg/statoverride should not require the users & groups to exist. Those are separately maintained databases; also, couldn't statoverride be referring to a file which may or may not exist and whose user/group identity might be maintained dynamically?

2. This is not a "syntax error" but an "unexpected value".

3. The error should not be fatal for --list.

4. The error should definitely not be fatal for an attempt to --remove the very entry which is being complained about!

5. Trivial: the message should not be prefixed with "dpkg-statoverrideS", which is neither the name of the utility nor of the data file.

To reproduce without the help of a defective package:

   # sudo sh -c 'echo "foo bar 1234 /etc/baz" >> /var/lib/dpkg/statoverride'
   # dpkg-statoverride --list

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.04
Package: dpkg 1.15.5.6ubuntu4
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.32-22.36-generic 2.6.32.11+drm33.2
Uname: Linux 2.6.32-22-generic i686
Architecture: i386
Date: Sun Jun 13 22:30:20 2010
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 10.04 "Lucid Lynx" - Alpha i386 (20091209)
ProcEnviron:
 PATH=(custom, user)
 LANG=C
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: dpkg

[Victor Vargas (kamus)]

Thank you for your bug report. This bug has been reported to the developers of the software. You can track it and make comments at: http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=592764

[Victor Vargas (kamus)]

This is a message extracted from Debian Tracker:

Just checked the patch, and it's not good, it does not preserve the
user/group names when writting the database back, which would be a
regression. It's also non-fatal for all ensure_statoverrides()
callers, which is not what we want.

I've code which should be doing the correct thing, it needs some
polishing though, but will be included in a next upload being either
1.15.8.5 or 1.15.9.

thanks,
guillem

[Paul Crawford (psc-sat)]

Today I found I can't install the updates on my 10.04 system and the error given was:

dpkg: unrecoverable fatal error, aborting:
 syntax error: unknown group 'root' in statoverride file

But this is not included in the /var/log/* files and you can't copy & paste from the update manager!

The contents of my file are:

root mlocate 2755 /usr/bin/mlocate
root root 4755 /sbin/unix_chkpwd
hplip root 755 /var/run/hplip

I have seen a thread about hplib and a similar error message (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=186487) from 2006 but why is it still happening 4 years later!?

The suggestion there is to remove by the command:

dpkg-statoverride --remove /var/run/hplip

But guess what? It gives the same error message:

dpkg-statoverrides: unrecoverable fatal error, aborting:
 syntax error: unknown group 'root' in statoverride file

This is a serious error as it is preventing security related updates from being installed, and the average user should simply NOT have this sort of thing to deal with.

[mikey (abc-mikey)]

I've just had this bug on Ubuntu 11.04. It stopped me from adding or removing packages because it couldn't find a group 'cdemu' which is carzy. I added the group using 'addgroup cdemu' and ran 'apt-get purge cdemu-client' deleted the group with 'delgroup cdemu' and was still stuck because it hadn't purged the reference to the cdemu group. So I found the name of the associated file 'vim /var/lib/dpkg/statoverride' in my case it was '/usr/bin/cdemud' and got rid of it with 'dpkg-statoverride --remove /usr/bin/cdemud'.

[dino99 (9d9)]

That version is no more supported