[Bug 1372051] Re: ntp postinst user/group add commands are not idempotent

[Niklas Ögren]

Ryan,

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

no at 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 at trillian:~$ grep ntp /etc/group
ntp:x:1004:
no at 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 at trillian:~$ which addgroup
/usr/sbin/addgroup
no at trillian:~$ addgroup --version
adduser version 3.113+nmu3ubuntu3

Adds a user or group to the system.
  
Copyright (C) 1997, 1998, 1999 Guy Maor <maor at debian.org>
Copyright (C) 1995 Ian Murdock <imurdock at gnu.ai.mit.edu>,
                   Ted Hajek <tedhajek at boombox.micro.umn.edu>

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 at trillian:~$ dpkg -S /usr/sbin/addgroup 
adduser: /usr/sbin/addgroup
no at 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 <1372051 at bugs.launchpad.net> 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 at ubuntu:~$ cat /etc/issue
> Ubuntu 12.04.5 LTS \n \l
> 
> ubuntu at 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 at ubuntu:~$ grep ntp /etc/group
> ntp:x:112:
> ubuntu at 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

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Title:
  ntp postinst user/group add commands are not idempotent

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