Comment 8 for bug 1372051

Ryan,

no@trillian:~$ cat /etc/issue
Ubuntu 14.04.2 LTS \n \l

no@trillian:~$ dpkg --list | grep ntp
ii ntp 1:4.2.6.p5+dfsg-3ubuntu2.14.04.3 amd64 Network Time Protocol daemon and utility programs
ii ntpdate 1:4.2.6.p5+dfsg-3ubuntu2.14.04.3 amd64 client for setting system time from NTP servers
no@trillian:~$ grep ntp /etc/group
ntp:x:1004:
no@trillian:~$ sudo addgroup --system --quiet ntp; echo $?
1

I have run this on the 12.04 system as well, most likely, during that upgrade. But I also saw this issue when updating my 14.04 system, when there was a security patch on ntp. (Using apt-get upgrade)

no@trillian:~$ which addgroup
/usr/sbin/addgroup
no@trillian:~$ addgroup --version
adduser version 3.113+nmu3ubuntu3

Adds a user or group to the system.

Copyright (C) 1997, 1998, 1999 Guy Maor <email address hidden>
Copyright (C) 1995 Ian Murdock <email address hidden>,
                   Ted Hajek <email address hidden>

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at
your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but
WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU
General Public License, /usr/share/common-licenses/GPL, for more details.
no@trillian:~$ dpkg -S /usr/sbin/addgroup
adduser: /usr/sbin/addgroup
no@trillian:~$ dpkg -l adduser
Desired=Unknown/Install/Remove/Purge/Hold
| Status=Not/Inst/Conf-files/Unpacked/halF-conf/Half-inst/trig-aWait/Trig-pend
|/ Err?=(none)/Reinst-required (Status,Err: uppercase=bad)
||/ Name Version Architecture Description
+++-====================================-=======================-=======================-==============================================================================
ii adduser 3.113+nmu3ubuntu3 all add and remove users and groups

/n

> On 04 Aug 2015, at 23:09, Ryan Harper <email address hidden> wrote:
>
> This command:
>
> addgroup --system --quiet ntp
>
> is idempotent on default precise systems, so it's not quite clear why it
> fails on your system. Maybe it's possible to do some debugging on
> running that command.
>
> ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ cat /etc/issue
> Ubuntu 12.04.5 LTS \n \l
>
> ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ dpkg --list | grep ntp
> ii ntp 1:4.2.6.p3+dfsg-1ubuntu3.4 Network Time Protocol daemon and utility programs
> ii ntpdate 1:4.2.6.p3+dfsg-1ubuntu3.4 client for setting system time from NTP servers
> ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ grep ntp /etc/group
> ntp:x:112:
> ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo addgroup --system --quiet ntp; echo $?
> 0
>
> --
> You received this bug notification because you are subscribed to the bug
> report.
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1372051
>
> Title:
> ntp postinst user/group add commands are not idempotent
>
> Status in ntp package in Ubuntu:
> Incomplete
>
> Bug description:
> At do release upgrade from 12.04.05 to 14.04.01, the ntp package failed:
> Errors were encountered while processing:
> ntp
> Error in function:
>
>
> A fatal error occurred
>
> Please report this as a bug and include the files
> /var/log/dist-upgrade/main.log and /var/log/dist-upgrade/apt.log in
> your report. The upgrade has aborted.
> Your original sources.list was saved in
> /etc/apt/sources.list.distUpgrade.
>
> SystemError: E:Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)
>
>
> Could not install the upgrades
>
> The upgrade has aborted. Your system could be in an unusable state. A
> recovery will run now (dpkg --configure -a).
>
> Please report this bug in a browser at
> http://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ubuntu-release-upgrader/+filebug
> and attach the files in /var/log/dist-upgrade/ to the bug report.
> installArchives() failed
>
> Setting up ntp (1:4.2.6.p5+dfsg-3ubuntu2) ...
> dpkg: error processing package ntp (--configure):
> subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1
> Errors were encountered while processing:
> ntp
>
> Upgrade complete
>
> The upgrade has completed but there were errors during the upgrade
> process.
>
>
> In /var/lib/dpkg/info/ntp.postinst the add group / adduser commands fail due to already existing group / user.
> Appended “ || /bin/true” to those lines, and “dpkg —configure ntp” succeeded.
>
> To manage notifications about this bug go to:
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ntp/+bug/1372051/+subscriptions