tango-common does not create /var/lib/tango

[Jan Kotanski]

Dear Package Maintainers,

It turns out that the tango-common package does not create a user 'tango' and its home directory (/var/lib/tango) when a user 'tango' already exists.
This happends without any notification. Since a name of tango directory is hard-coded and used in other packages like tango-db it results silence faulty installation of the tango-common package and errors in other packages.

Below I append an example of tango-db installation printout. In that case before tango-common package installation I created 'tango' user of tango 'group' without home directory. Installing tango-db I get an error:

cp: cannot create regular file `/var/lib/tango/.my.cnf': No such file or directory

Bests,
Jan

$ sudo apt-get install tango-db
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:
  gir1.2-ubuntuoneui-3.0 libubuntuoneui-3.0-1
Use 'apt-get autoremove' to remove them.
The following extra packages will be installed:
  libtango-tools
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  libtango-tools tango-db
0 upgraded, 2 newly installed, 0 to remove and 2 not upgraded.
Need to get 213 kB of archives.
After this operation, 768 kB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]? y
Get:1 http://de.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise/universe libtango-tools amd64 7.2.6+dfsg-4build2 [26.1 kB]
Get:2 http://de.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise/universe tango-db amd64 7.2.6+dfsg-4build2 [187 kB]
Fetched 213 kB in 0s (2,204 kB/s)
Selecting previously unselected package libtango-tools.
(Reading database ... 188948 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking libtango-tools (from .../libtango-tools_7.2.6+dfsg-4build2_amd64.deb) ...
Selecting previously unselected package tango-db.
Unpacking tango-db (from .../tango-db_7.2.6+dfsg-4build2_amd64.deb) ...
Processing triggers for ureadahead ...
Setting up libtango-tools (7.2.6+dfsg-4build2) ...
Setting up tango-db (7.2.6+dfsg-4build2) ...
dbconfig-common: writing config to /etc/dbconfig-common/tango-db.conf

Creating config file /etc/dbconfig-common/tango-db.conf with new version

Creating config file /var/lib/tango/.my.cnf with new version
cp: cannot create regular file `/var/lib/tango/.my.cnf': No such file or directory
chown: cannot access `/var/lib/tango/.my.cnf': No such file or directory
chmod: cannot access `/var/lib/tango/.my.cnf': No such file or directory
granting access to database tango for tango@localhost: success.
verifying access for tango@localhost: success.
creating database tango: success.
verifying database tango exists: success.
populating database via sql... done.
dbconfig-common: flushing administrative password

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 12.04
Package: tango-common 7.2.6+dfsg-4build2
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.8.0-29.42~precise1-generic 3.8.13.5
Uname: Linux 3.8.0-29-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.0.1-0ubuntu17.6
Architecture: amd64
Date: Wed Jan 15 10:44:27 2014
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 12.04.3 LTS "Precise Pangolin" - Release amd64 (20130820.1)
MarkForUpload: True
PackageArchitecture: all
ProcEnviron:
 TERM=xterm
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: tango
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)