fixrtc hook requires e2fsprogs package, but that is not a dependency

[Byte Commander]

Package "initramfs-tools-core" provides "/usr/share/initramfs-tools/hooks/fixrtc" which runs during the update or regeneration of the initramfs and requires the file "/sbin/dumpe2fs" (available from "e2fsprogs") to be present, otherwise it fails and aborts the whole process, leading e.g. to an inconsistent package system.

The problem/cause seems to be that "initramfs-tools-core" package has no direct or indirect hard dependency on "e2fsprogs".

I believe either the package dependency should be added, or the fixrtc hook script should be rewritten so that it just outputs a warning instead of aborting with a failure if missing "dumpe2fs" is not a critical problem.

This issue seems to affect at least Ubuntu 16.04 and 18.04. It has been brought to my attention at https://askubuntu.com/q/1148791/367990

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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

[Brian Murray (brian-murray)]

Duplicate bug 1813469 shows e2fsprogs being removed when 'apt --fix-broken install' was run.

[Brian Murray (brian-murray)]

While it is correct that the fixrtc requires e2fsprogrs given that e2fsprogs is in the minimal install task I'm setting this to Low.

[Helmut Grohne (helmutg)]

This bug breaks migration of debvm into noble:

https://autopkgtest.ubuntu.com/results/autopkgtest-noble/noble/amd64/d/debvm/20231126_114257_c885f@/log.gz

[Benjamin Drung (bdrung)]

e2fsprogs has priority required:

```
$ dpkg -s e2fsprogs | grep "^Package\|^Version\|^Priority"
Package: e2fsprogs
Priority: required
Version: 1.47.0-2ubuntu1
```

So letting initramfs-tools-core depend on it seems like the correct approach to me.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package initramfs-tools - 0.142ubuntu18

---------------
initramfs-tools (0.142ubuntu18) noble; urgency=medium

  * Let initramfs-tools-core depend on e2fsprogs because fixrtc hook uses
    /sbin/dumpe2fs (LP: #1831747)

 -- Benjamin Drung <email address hidden> Fri, 08 Dec 2023 00:15:22 +0100