Nasty mess installing sendmail

[Ric Moore]

On 09/28/2011 12:16 AM, Harry Putnam wrote:
> Do to unbridled personal bungling, I've created a nasty mess while
> installing sendmail.
>
> I inadvertantly deleted /etc/init.d/sendmail.  Well I thought I'd just
> reinstall sendmail to re-aquire that file.
>
> So uninstalled sendmail... with aptitude but it uninstalled a few
> other parts of the tools tool.
>
> There appear to be several packages involved.
> p   sendmail
> i   sendmail-base
> C   sendmail-bin
> i   sendmail-cf
>
> As you see I now have some installed and some not.  The rub comes with
> sendmail-bin which is the package that contains /etc/init.d/sendmail
>
> Any attempt to uninstall it tells me it is not installed, any attempt
> to install it ends with an error that appears to happend due to that
> missing file, or the fact that sendmail-bin cannot be --configured.
>
> I've tried any number of ways to sneak up on it, but aptitude won't
> let me.  Or more acurately I don't know how to use aptitude well
> enough to resolve the problem.
>
> I tried apt-get with the --force-yes flag, in the hopes of forcing the
> install but it didn't work... showed the same dpkg error.
>
> ,----
> | /etc/mail/aliases: 4 aliases, longest 10 bytes, 66 bytes total
> | invoke-rc.d: unknown initscript, /etc/init.d/sendmail not found.
> | dpkg: error processing sendmail-bin (--configure):
> |
> |  subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit
> |  status 100
> |
> | Errors were encountered while processing:
> |  sendmail-bin
> | E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)
> `----
>
> So, can anyone recommend some method to get past this, and get the
> pkgs fully installed?


Purging them all and re-installing would probably be the quickest way. Ric



-- 
My father, Victor Moore (Vic) used to say:
"There are two Great Sins in the world...
..the Sin of Ignorance, and the Sin of Stupidity.
Only the former may be overcome." R.I.P. Dad.
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