Ubuntu
postfix package

  1. Bug #1311385
  2. Comment #4

Comment 4 for bug 1311385

Revision history for this message
Randy Skretka (rskret) wrote :

@ Basak: Thank you very much for your fast response.
per: Robie Basak: "This looks like a local configuration problem, rather than a bug in Ubuntu."

Postfix is a highly configurable program. There is nearly never an unconfigured installation of postfix. The installer must then be able to success with most if not all legitimate (ie. working and error free) existing configurations.

My postfix package was (before the bug report) and still is operating error free - until an update to or reconfiguration of postfix is initiated. Today such an event once again occured.

$ sudo apt-get autoremove
.. ,, ..
The following packages will be REMOVED:
  db5.1-util libtcl8.5 python-central tcl8.5
.. ,, ..
Processing triggers for libc-bin (2.19-0ubuntu6) ...
Setting up postfix (2.11.0-1) ...
.. ,, ..
Running newaliases
postalias: fatal: open /etc/postfix/aliases/: Not a directory
dpkg: error processing package postfix (--configure):
 subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1
.. ,, ..

The original bug report was on the occasion of the distribution upgrade - ubuntu 13.10 > 14.04
Today [Sun Apr 27 13:52:19 2014] the bug repeated during the event as reported above - following a run of "sudo apt-get autoremove". In both cases, /var/log/mail.err was written to with lines such as these:
Apr 27 11:39:08 Leno-TS130 postfix/postalias[12079]: fatal: open /etc/postfix/aliases/: Not a directory

As the log has it, /etc/postfix/aliases is not a directory. No. But it is a file. /etc/postfix/main.cf had the lines:
alias_maps = hash:/etc/postfix/aliases/
alias_database = hash:/etc/postfix/aliases/

I edited the lines and remove the trailing "/" and voila, I ran "sudo apt-get autoremove" again and postfix was successfully reconfigured (in the apt-get dpkg sense, not postfix main.cf etc).
$ dpkg -s postfix
.. ,, ..
Status: install ok installed
.. ,, ..

@Robie Basak: You were correct. The postfix main.cf file included a reference to a regular file appended with a "/" which caused the installer and/or package manager scripts to look only for a directory.