Install of kdump-tools fails

[Jens Elkner]

When installing Ubuntu xenial via netimage, installation fails because of an error, when configuring the kdump-tools. /var/log/syslog says:

...

May 2 22:15:17 in-target: Setting up grub2 (2.02~beta2-36ubuntu3.9) ...^M
May 2 22:15:17 in-target: Setting up lxc-common (2.0.7-0ubuntu1~16.04.2) ...^M
May 2 22:15:17 in-target: Running in chroot, ignoring request.^M
May 2 22:15:17 in-target: invoke-rc.d: policy-rc.d denied execution of reload.^M
May 2 22:15:17 in-target: Setting up grub-gfxpayload-lists (0.7) ...^M
May 2 22:15:17 in-target: Processing triggers for libc-bin (2.23-0ubuntu7) ...^M
May 2 22:15:17 in-target: Processing triggers for systemd (229-4ubuntu17) ...^M
May 2 22:15:17 in-target: Processing triggers for ureadahead (0.100.0-19) ...^M
May 2 22:15:17 in-target: Processing triggers for dbus (1.10.6-1ubuntu3.3) ...^M
May 2 22:15:17 in-target: Errors were encountered while processing:^M
May 2 22:15:17 in-target: kdump-tools^M
May 2 22:15:17 in-target: linux-crashdump^M
May 2 22:15:18 in-target: E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)
May 2 22:15:18 in-target: Setting up kdump-tools (1:1.5.9-5ubuntu0.4) ...
May 2 22:15:18 in-target: dpkg: error processing package kdump-tools (--configure):
May 2 22:15:18 in-target: subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1
May 2 22:15:18 in-target: dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of linux-crashdump:
May 2 22:15:18 in-target: linux-crashdump depends on kdump-tools; however:
May 2 22:15:18 in-target: Package kdump-tools is not configured yet.
May 2 22:15:18 in-target:
May 2 22:15:18 in-target: dpkg: error processing package linux-crashdump (--configure):
May 2 22:15:18 in-target: dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
May 2 22:15:18 in-target: Errors were encountered while processing:
May 2 22:15:18 in-target: kdump-tools
May 2 22:15:18 in-target: linux-crashdump
May 2 22:15:18 main-menu[616]: WARNING **: Configuring 'pkgsel' failed with error code 100
May 2 22:15:18 main-menu[616]: WARNING **: Menu item 'pkgsel' failed.

After this the 'Select and install software' dialog pops up and says, that 'Installation step failed'. If one presses '<Continue>', one gets bombed back into the 'Ubuntu installer main menu'.
Now you get into a loop, when choosing the 'Select and install software' item from the menu.

Installer image is 'Linux foo 4.4.0-62-generic #83-Ubuntu SMP Wed Jan 18 14:10:15 UTC 2017 x86_64 GNU/Linux'.

The only workaround found so far is:
    cp -p /target/var/lib/dpkg/info/kdump-tools.postinst \
        /target/var/lib/dpkg/info/kdump-tools.postinst.suck
    printf '#!/bin/sh\nexit 0\n' \
        >/target/var/lib/dpkg/info/kdump-tools.postinst

[Phillip Susi (psusi)]

Could you put a "set -x" at the start of the postinst file to see where it is failing?

[Jens Elkner (jelmd)]

~ # sed -i.orig -e '/^set/ a\set -x' /target/var/lib/dpkg/info/kdump-tools.postinst
~ # tail -f /var/log/syslog
May 5 12:11:29 in-target: linux-crashdump depends on kdump-tools; however:
May 5 12:11:29 in-target: Package kdump-tools is not configured yet.
May 5 12:11:29 in-target:
May 5 12:11:29 in-target: dpkg: error processing package linux-crashdump (--configure):
May 5 12:11:29 in-target: dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
May 5 12:11:29 in-target: Errors were encountered while processing:
May 5 12:11:29 in-target: kdump-tools
May 5 12:11:29 in-target: linux-crashdump
May 5 12:11:29 main-menu[422]: WARNING **: Configuring 'pkgsel' failed with error code 100
May 5 12:11:29 main-menu[422]: WARNING **: Menu item 'pkgsel' failed.

May 5 12:13:15 main-menu[422]: INFO: Modifying debconf priority limit from 'critical' to 'high'
May 5 12:13:15 debconf: Setting debconf/priority to high
May 5 12:13:15 main-menu[422]: INFO: Falling back to the package description for brltty-udeb
May 5 12:13:20 main-menu[422]: INFO: Falling back to the package description for brltty-udeb
May 5 12:13:20 main-menu[422]: INFO: Menu item 'pkgsel' selected
May 5 12:13:21 in-target: Reading package lists...
May 5 12:13:21 in-target:
May 5 12:13:21 in-target: Building dependency tree...
May 5 12:13:21 in-target:
May 5 12:13:21 in-target: Reading state information...
May 5 12:13:21 in-target:
May 5 12:13:21 in-target: tasksel is already the newest version (3.34ubuntu3).
May 5 12:13:21 in-target: 0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
May 5 12:13:21 in-target: 2 not fully installed or removed.
May 5 12:13:21 in-target: After this operation, 0 B of additional disk space will be used.
May 5 12:13:21 in-target: Setting up kdump-tools (1:1.5.9-5ubuntu0.4) ...^M
May 5 12:13:21 in-target: + uname -r^M
May 5 12:13:21 in-target: + /etc/kernel/postinst.d/kdump-tools 4.4.0-62-generic^M
May 5 12:13:21 in-target: dpkg: error processing package kdump-tools (--configure):^M
May 5 12:13:21 in-target: subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1^M
May 5 12:13:21 in-target: No apport report written because the error message indicates its a followup error from a previous failure.
May 5 12:13:21 in-target: dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of linux-crashdump:^M
May 5 12:13:21 in-target: linux-crashdump depends on kdump-tools; however:^M
May 5 12:13:21 in-target: Package kdump-tools is not configured yet.^M
May 5 12:13:21 in-target: ^M
May 5 12:13:21 in-target: dpkg: error processing package linux-crashdump (--configure):^M
May 5 12:13:21 in-target: dependency problems - leaving unconfigured^M
May 5 12:13:21 in-target: Errors were encountered while processing:^M
May 5 12:13:21 in-target: kdump-tools^M
May 5 12:13:21 in-target: linux-crashdump^M
May 5 12:13:22 in-target: E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)
May 5 12:13:22 in-target: Setting up kdump-tools (1:1.5.9-5ubuntu0.4) ...
May 5 12:13:22 in-target: + uname -r
May 5 12:13:22 in-target: + /etc/kernel/postinst.d/kdump-tools 4.4.0-62-generic
May 5 12:13:22 in-target: dpkg: error processi...

[Louis Bouchard (louis)]

Hello,

I am surprised by a few things : first of all, linux-crashdump, hence kdump-tools, is not installed by default on a server install. So you must have added that step somehow.

I have just installed Xenial using the mini.iso network install and kdump-tool is not installed after completion. I installed it without any issue, rebooted and the functionality works as expected.

Now your output shows that it is the kernel's post-install trigger that fails, so this is where you should but the -x (add it to the sh -e shebang at the top of the script). Then you can run the following & paste the output here :

/etc/kernel/postinst.d/kdump-tools $(uname -r)

FYI, this script is responsible for building the smaller initrd used by kdump when rebooting after a crash.

...Louis

[Jens Elkner (jelmd)]

Seems, that this package gets included via preseed:

tasksel tasksel/first multiselect minimal
d-i pkgsel/include string grub2 linux-crashdump openssh-server tcsh ksh gawk vim sysstat lxc debootstrap libcap-ng-utils acpid at bc ethtool libxslt1.1 lxc-templates patch uidmap xz-utils acl iptables ulogd2 ntp nfs-common autofs ldap-utils gdisk zfsutils-linux zfs-initramfs dmidecode

Anyway, IMHO it doesn't matter what kind of install - it should not fail to install.

BTW: The image used is http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/xenial/main/installer-amd64/current/images/netboot/netboot.tar.gz

I've already added the 'set -x' as shown above. The 1st line of the output shows, how it has been done (because there is no vi[m] available in the install environment), and the remaining lines show the output after resuming the install (I guess, the installer redirects everything to /var/log/syslog, otherwise I wonder, where else the output gets captured.). Anyway, I can see two lines prefixed with a '+', so I guess, that 'set -x' does what it should, but there is simply not more than this.

IIUC, it does not hurt, if it fails - can be done later/on demand as well. So why not append a '|| true' or remove it completely from postinstall ?

[Phillip Susi (psusi)]

It looks like the failure is actually in /etc/kernel/postinst.d/kdump-tools. Can you add a set -x there and try again?

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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

[bendikro (bendikro)]

The problem is this command in /etc/kernel/postinst.d/kdump-tools exiting with 1:

$ mkinitramfs -d /var/lib/kdump/initramfs-tools -o /var/lib/kdump/initrd.img-4.4.0-81-generic.new 4.4.0-81-generic
mkinitramfs: failed to determine device for /
mkinitramfs: workaround is MODULES=most, check:
grep -r MODULES /etc/initramfs-tools/

Error please report bug on initramfs-tools
Include the output of 'mount' and 'cat /proc/mounts'
$
$
$ mount
sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
proc on /proc type proc (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
udev on /dev type devtmpfs (rw,nosuid,relatime,size=31981968k,nr_inodes=7995492,mode=755)
devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,nosuid,noexec,relatime,gid=5,mode=620,ptmxmode=000)
tmpfs on /run type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,noexec,relatime,size=6401460k,mode=755)
rpool/ROOT/ubuntu on / type zfs (rw,relatime,xattr,noacl)
securityfs on /sys/kernel/security type securityfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
tmpfs on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev)
tmpfs on /run/lock type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,size=5120k)
tmpfs on /sys/fs/cgroup type tmpfs (rw,mode=755)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/systemd type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,xattr,release_agent=/lib/systemd/systemd-cgroups-agent,name=systemd)
pstore on /sys/fs/pstore type pstore (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
efivarfs on /sys/firmware/efi/efivars type efivarfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/pids type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,pids,release_agent=/run/cgmanager/agents/cgm-release-agent.pids)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/net_cls,net_prio type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,net_cls,net_prio)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/cpuset type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,cpuset,clone_children)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/blkio type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,blkio)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/perf_event type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,perf_event,release_agent=/run/cgmanager/agents/cgm-release-agent.perf_event)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/memory type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,memory)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/hugetlb type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,hugetlb,release_agent=/run/cgmanager/agents/cgm-release-agent.hugetlb)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/freezer type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,freezer)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/cpu,cpuacct type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,cpu,cpuacct)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/devices type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,devices)
systemd-1 on /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc type autofs (rw,relatime,fd=30,pgrp=1,timeout=0,minproto=5,maxproto=5,direct)
mqueue on /dev/mqueue type mqueue (rw,relatime)
debugfs on /sys/kernel/debug type debugfs (rw,relatime)
tracefs on /sys/kernel/debug/tracing type tracefs (rw,relatime)
hugetlbfs on /dev/hugepages type hugetlbfs (rw,relatime)
fusectl on /sys/fs/fuse/connections type fusectl (rw,relatime)
/dev/nvme0n1p1 on /boot/efi type vfat (rw,relatime,fmask=0077,dmask=0077,codepage=437,iocharset=iso8859-1,shortname=mixed,errors=remount-ro)
rpool/home on /home type zfs (rw,nosuid,noatime,xattr,posixacl)
rpool/home/root on /root type zfs (rw,nosuid,noatime,xattr,posixacl)
rpool/...

[bendikro (bendikro)]

May be related to https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/initramfs-tools/+bug/1661629

[bendikro (bendikro)]

Still an issue on Bionic

[Matt LaPlante (cybrmatt)]

Confirmed issue on Bionic. Also confirmed the suggested patch in 1661629 #3 fixed the install for me.

[Thadeu Lima de Souza Cascardo (cascardo)]

Adding initramfs-tools and nominating for bionic.