[532] in athena10
Re: cluster-software install problem analysis
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (William Cattey)
Mon Sep 22 17:14:44 2008
In-Reply-To: <200809221747.m8MHlYiV012689@outgoing.mit.edu>
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From: William Cattey <wdc@MIT.EDU>
Date: Mon, 22 Sep 2008 17:13:50 -0400
To: ghudson@mit.edu
Thanks very much for the status update.
-wdc
On Sep 22, 2008, at 1:47 PM, ghudson@MIT.EDU wrote:
> Bill and Alex both ran into some pretty severe problems with the
> Athena 10 installer script when they selected "yes" to the cluster
> software package. I've temporarily disabled that option while I look
> into the failures.
>
> This is what I have been able to uncover so far:
>
> 1. The sun-java-* packages fail to install with the non-interactive
> front end, because they cannot present their license.
>
> 2. There is an odd error message during installation:
>
> dpkg: libzephyr3: dependency problems, but removing anyway as
> you request:
> libpurple0 depends on libzephyr3
>
> This is perplexing because libzephyr3-krb provides libzephyr3, so
> the dependency should not be broken.
>
> 3. In my test, but possible not Bill's and Alex's, a bunch of texlive
> packages failed to install with messages like:
>
> Setting up texlive-humanities-doc (2007.dfsg.1-1) ...
> update-updmap: cannot read /etc/texmf/updmap.d/00updmap.cfg
>
> Some latex packages failed for a different reason but I've lost the
> output file I was combing.
>
> 4. When all was said and done, only two debathena-* packages were
> installed, even though the debathena-* packages install just fine
> by themselves. Also, libpurple0 remained broken, suggesting that
> libzephyr3-krb wasn't successfully installed.
>
> My wild speculation to explain (2) and (4) is that aptitude decided to
> split up the dpkg operations into steps (the first of which was
> inconsistent with regard to libzephyr3 and libpurple0), and it gave up
> after one of the steps. I don't know. I am conducting an install
> test with two changes to the install script:
>
> 1. Install the main metapackage (e.g. debathena-workstation) by itself
> first, and then follow up separately with debathena-debian-dev and
> debathena-cluster-software if selected.
>
> 2. Use DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive for the main metapackage, but
> use DEBIAN_PRIORITY=critical for the other two metapackages if
> selected, so that those packages can ask critical questions such as
> the Java license.
>
> I'll see what this turns up. The tex package install issues are still
> a mystery, and I didn't necessarily find all of the problems in the
> output file I examined. (I didn't exercise perfect care in my last
> install test because I was getting sick and there was other
> troubleshooting going on at the same time.)
>
> The eventual cluster installer will have to deal with the Java package
> issue in another way. One option is to seed the debconf database to
> indicate that the license has already been accepted. The legal
> ramifications of such a workaround are fascinating, I'm sure, but in
> this case the installer of the machine's software and the user of that
> software are different, so there's not much point in asking the former
> to accept a license intended for the latter.
