aptitude getting stuck

[Fortier,Vincent [Montreal]]

> -----Message d'origine-----
> De : linux-fai-bounces at uni-koeln.de 
> [mailto:linux-fai-bounces at uni-koeln.de] De la part de Rudy Gevaert
> Envoyé : 25 novembre 2009 10:08
> À : linux-fai at uni-koeln.de
> Objet : aptitude getting stuck
> 
> Below is merely some 'interesting' information:
> 
> we have a fai server running sarge and fai 3.2.8.  It is 
> being used and is exporting a Etch 32 nfsroot.
> We have support for installations of Etch 32 and 64 bit, and 
> Lenny 32 and 64bit.
> 
> Previously, on occasion the FAI installations of Lenny 64bit 
> with FAI would stop after the last package was downloaded!  
> Then aptitude would just wait, and wait.  And nothing would 
> happen.  We are ofcourse using a LENNY 64 bit base image for 
> that.  And last week it stopped functioning totally.
> 
> I set up a new FAI server (3.3.2+experimental4) and tried the 
> installation (by default it took are lenny 64bit image) and 
> it showed the strange problem.
> 
> However when I removed our own base image and used the 
> default base.tgz it worked.
> 
> If I put base.tgz onto the old server and use that one, my 
> installations work too.
> 
> So there must be an issue somewhere, but I don't know how.

I had similar problems when:
1- I was having twice the same channel in my apt configuration
2- there is a bug in fai that, if you are using your own local channels through the /etc/apt/sources.list.d/* directory with no sources.list file at all, fai will regenerate one automatically based, I presume, on the FAI_DEBOOTSTRAP info from the make-fai-nfsroot.conf ... Thus creating the same problem as #1 since it is most probably already referred in one of your local configuraiton under sources.list.d

I had created a quick and dirty hack for that fai empty sources.list ... Maybie someday this will get fixed properly because this is really dirty... I have not found where a default sources.list is being created when creating the nfsroot but this below solves that:

--- subroutines-linux   2008-09-04 08:31:52.000000000 -0400
+++ subroutines-linux.NEW       2008-09-04 08:31:25.000000000 -0400
@@ -236,6 +236,10 @@ EOF
     # during normal installation, we need sources.list from /etc/apt
     [ $do_init_tasks -eq 1 ] && FAI_ETC_DIR=/etc
     [ -d $FAI_ETC_DIR/apt ] && cp -r $FAI_ETC_DIR/apt/* $FAI_ROOT/etc/apt/
+    # If there are sources.list.d/*.list files then remove the
+    # fai-created default sources.list in order to avoid conflicts
+    [ "`ls -1 $FAI_ROOT/etc/apt/sources.list.d/*.list 2>/dev/null`" ] \
+         && rm -f $FAI_ROOT/etc/apt/sources.list
 }
 # - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
 task_updatebase() {

> 
> Anyway, I have my old FAI server working again, and have a 
> new one too.  Now it is time to migrate...
> 
> Rudy
> 
> 
> 
> 
> --
> -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- 
> -- -- -- --
> Rudy Gevaert          Rudy.Gevaert at UGent.be          tel:+32 
> 9 264 4734
> Directie ICT, afd. Infrastructuur  Direction ICT, Infrastructure dept.
> Groep Systemen                     Systems group
> Universiteit Gent                  Ghent University
> Krijgslaan 281, gebouw S9, 9000 Gent, Belgie               
> www.UGent.be
> -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- 
> -- -- -- --
> 
> 
>