Ubuntu
console-setup package

console-setup hangs under chroot debootstrap with a console login on ttyX

Bug #413415 reported by William Pitcock
38
This bug affects 9 people
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
console-setup (Ubuntu)
Confirmed
Undecided
Unassigned
Nominated for Karmic by William Pitcock

Bug Description

Binary package hint: console-setup

When debootstraping a Ubuntu chroot using debootstrap the console-setup postconfigure invokes the console-setup init-script.

When the console-setup initscript is invoked while there is a console login on one of the system ttys, it hangs forever trying to write to that tty.

When there is no console login, the behaviour is as expected. I do not know if this bug exists in Debian, however, because console-setup is not part of the base system there.

This is a critical issue because it makes debootstrap behave incorrectly on servers with people logged in on the console...

Revision history for this message
Colin Watson (cjwatson) wrote :

I'm planning to remove console-setup from our base system, which might fix this.

Revision history for this message
tavasti (tavasti) wrote :

Apparently same problem arises also with installing system with network console (console over ssh)
At least for me 'Configuring console-setup...' doesn't end.

Revision history for this message
tavasti (tavasti) wrote :

Looks like this affects network install if there is shell activated in actual console.

Revision history for this message
Erica Windisch (ewindisch) wrote :

To note, I've been experiencing this since at least Feisty... this (or a related issue) would additionally trigger crashes under certain circumstances. The only solution I've had has been to remove console-setup from the base system, which prevents installing non-base packages, such as openssh, until one runs 'apt-get -f install'. This clearly breaks many scripts...

To improve my workaround, I'm intending to try a 2-stage install...

Revision history for this message
Loïc Minier (lool) wrote :

As a workaround, if you don't need these packages, you can pass --exclude console-setup,kbd,ubuntu-minimal to debootstrap.

Changed in console-setup (Ubuntu):
status: New → Confirmed
Revision history for this message
Abdulrahman Dimashki (idimsh) wrote :

I have used the next workaround in Lucid -> Lucid setup:

If you already have the following process in process list:
/bin/sh /bin/setupcon --force --save
kill it from the host

or, -on the target- before installing console-setup package, install 'kbd', then

On the target:
cd /bin/
mv fgconsole fgconsole.bak
cat > fgconsole.new << EOF
> #!/bin/bash
>
> echo "intentional error" >&2
> exit 1
> EOF
 chmod +x fgconsole.new
ln -s fgconsole.new fgconsole

this will make any invocation of /bin/fgconsole to fail, which will cause the postinstall script of console-setup to invoke 'setupcon' with '--save-only' parameter instead of '--save --force'

now install 'console-setup'
apt-get install console-setup

This will continue the post script if you have killed 'setupcon' previously.

After the installation, restore /bin/fgconsole.

Revision history for this message
Steffen Hemer (s-hemer) wrote :

Just ran across this bug because of a console-setup upgrade on a chroot-ed Xenial (installed via debootstrap, exported via nfs for PXE boot, upgrades always installed via chroot-ing on server). Whole upgrade process hangs at "Preconfiguring packages ...".
Set "console-setup console-setup-linux keyboard-configuration" on hold for now.

Revision history for this message
Steffen Hemer (s-hemer) wrote :

I have to add: the newest update for Bionic (1.178ubuntu2.9) runs through smoothly, nearly not recognized it.

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