Subject: base-config loops over the same questions
Date: Sun, 29 Feb 2004 15:54:02 +0200
Package: base-config
Version: 2.13
Severity: normal
after successfully installing and configuring the system with
base-config, instead of letting me login to the system, base-config
restarts and makes me answer the same questions all over.
Konstantinos
-- System Information:
Debian Release: testing/unstable
APT prefers testing
APT policy: (500, 'testing')
Architecture: i386 (i686)
Kernel: Linux 2.4.24
Locale: LANG=el_GR.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=el_GR.UTF-8
Versions of packages base-config depends on:
ii adduser 3.51 Add and remove users and groups
ii apt 0.5.22 Advanced front-end for dpkg
ii aptitude 0.2.14-3 curses-based apt frontend
ii bsdutils 1:2.12-3 Basic utilities from 4.4BSD-Lite
ii console-data 2002.12.04dbs-29 Keymaps, fonts, charset maps, fall
ii console-tools 1:0.2.3dbs-48 Linux console and font utilities
ii debconf 1.3.22 Debian configuration management sy
ii debianutils 2.6.2 Miscellaneous utilities specific t
ii gettext-base 0.14.1-1 GNU Internationalization utilities
ii passwd 1:4.0.3-17 Change and administer password and
-- debconf information excluded
Konstantinos Margaritis wrote:
> after successfully installing and configuring the system with
> base-config, instead of letting me login to the system, base-config
> restarts and makes me answer the same questions all over.
I can't reproduce this. What does your /etc/inittab look like?
Do you have an /etc/inittab.real?
/usr/lib/base-config/menu/finish is responsible for replacing the
inittab with one that does not use base-config. Add debugging commands
to that script.
--
see shy jo
Subject: Re: Bug#235444: base-config loops over the same questions
Date: Thu, 4 Mar 2004 02:29:52 +0200
On Sunday 29 February 2004 19:26, Joey Hess wrote:
> I can't reproduce this. What does your /etc/inittab look like?
> Do you have an /etc/inittab.real?
>
> /usr/lib/base-config/menu/finish is responsible for replacing the
> inittab with one that does not use base-config. Add debugging
> commands to that script.
Ok, I managed to duplicate the process. After the install I do the
following steps:
1) I did not add another apt source
2) I chose tasksel to select packages
3) I chose nothing in tasksel (just pushed finish)
In this part tasksel showed a bug, it lists only a few tasks
4) At some point the configuring of the packages fails:
Setting up perl (5.8.3-2)
grep: menu/.mnu: No such file or directory
Since the configuration fails, base-config restarts.
So there, I hope this helped :-)
for tasksel, I think that the tasks should be included by default,
regardless if the user adds another apt source.
For perl, I think I'll report a bug on it. Unless you know it's a
known issue...
Konstantinos
Konstantinos Margaritis wrote:
> Ok, I managed to duplicate the process. After the install I do the
> following steps:
>
> 1) I did not add another apt source
> 2) I chose tasksel to select packages
> 3) I chose nothing in tasksel (just pushed finish)
> In this part tasksel showed a bug, it lists only a few tasks
> 4) At some point the configuring of the packages fails:
>
> Setting up perl (5.8.3-2)
> grep: menu/.mnu: No such file or directory
>
> Since the configuration fails, base-config restarts.
>
> So there, I hope this helped :-)
> for tasksel, I think that the tasks should be included by default,
> regardless if the user adds another apt source.
> For perl, I think I'll report a bug on it. Unless you know it's a
> known issue...
Well the grep output is coming from part of base-config, but I can't
understand why that would happen. Are you using the debian-installer
netinst CD?
The tasksel thing is not a bug, tasksel is meant to show only available
tasks.
--
see shy jo
Subject: Re: Bug#235444: base-config loops over the same questions
Date: Thu, 4 Mar 2004 03:29:46 +0200
On Thursday 04 March 2004 03:16, Joey Hess wrote:
> Konstantinos Margaritis wrote:
> Well the grep output is coming from part of base-config, but I
> can't understand why that would happen. Are you using the
> debian-installer netinst CD?
Yes, even the latest 20040303 sid netinst from gluck. The last one I
tried (20040301) also showed this behaviour (come to think of it,
pretty much all the last ones...).
Hm, I am not really knowledgeable of base-config's inernals, but this
seems to be called in lib/prep-menu. Well, apparently the for loop
includes some empty value, perhaps the grep part should be replaced
by a simple
test $i || grep $i ...
> The tasksel thing is not a bug, tasksel is meant to show only
> available tasks.
Ah, I see.
Konstantinos
Konstantinos Margaritis wrote:
> Yes, even the latest 20040303 sid netinst from gluck. The last one I
> tried (20040301) also showed this behaviour (come to think of it,
> pretty much all the last ones...).
I just tried, and I cannot reproduce it.
> Hm, I am not really knowledgeable of base-config's inernals, but this
> seems to be called in lib/prep-menu. Well, apparently the for loop
> includes some empty value, perhaps the grep part should be replaced
> by a simple
>
> test $i || grep $i ...
Do you have evidence that it is in pre-menu, and not in base-config or
show-menu, which include similar greps?
Reproducing it with a set -x script and sending me the
/var/log/base-config.log would probably be the best thing to do. You'd
have to edit the script(s) from inside d-i before the reboot though.
--
see shy jo
Subject: Re: Bug#235444: base-config loops over the same questions
Date: Thu, 4 Mar 2004 06:40:04 +0100
On Thursday 04 March 2004 02:43, Joey Hess wrote:
>
> I just tried, and I cannot reproduce it.
>
The first time I did my installation, I had the same problem (using
sarge-i386-netinst.iso (02-Mar-2004) from http://gluck.debian.org/cdimage/
testing/daily/i386/current/).
Don't know if I can reproduce it but here is roughly what happenend.
- I made a mistake installing grub, so broke of installation to do it again.
- After breaking off, was first asked to select PRIORITY for debconf, selected
MEDIUM.
- Reinstalled grub, finished installation and reboot.
- After reboot I was presented the menu for base-config and went through all
options manually.
- When configuring apt-sources, I added CD-ROM, selected http source, and
manually edited sources to exclude default http source and include local http
package repository.
- I choose not to select any packages. If I remember correctly, only
popularity-contest was installed.
After that I got into the same loop. When I choose 'Finish configuring the
base system', I would see the 'configuring ...' status message, but after
that the menu would be shown again.
Hope this helps. I can try to reproduce if you like.
FJP
That was helpful. It seems this problem is probably limited to the el_GR
utf-8 locale. In the log file I see it grep for the menu item for
configuring the MTA, and somehow it fails to find the greek translation
in the menu mapping file. It could be some 8-bit cleanness issue
corrupting the string as it goes around in base-config.
I am not able to reproduce it locally. I'll try on a fresh install.
Failing anything else, we could probably remove the translation of that
menu item, but I'd like to track down the real bug.
--
see shy jo
Attaching the second log file.
----- Forwarded message from Konstantinos Margaritis <[email protected]> -----
From: Konstantinos Margaritis <[email protected]>
Date: Fri, 5 Mar 2004 17:41:37 +0200
To: Joey Hess <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: Bug#235444: base-config loops over the same questions
User-Agent: KMail/1.5.4
On Thursday 04 March 2004 03:43, you wrote:
> Konstantinos Margaritis wrote:
> > Yes, even the latest 20040303 sid netinst from gluck. The last
> > one I tried (20040301) also showed this behaviour (come to think
> > of it, pretty much all the last ones...).
>
> I just tried, and I cannot reproduce it.
>
> > Hm, I am not really knowledgeable of base-config's inernals, but
> > this seems to be called in lib/prep-menu. Well, apparently the
> > for loop includes some empty value, perhaps the grep part should
> > be replaced by a simple
> >
> > test $i || grep $i ...
>
> Do you have evidence that it is in pre-menu, and not in base-config
> or show-menu, which include similar greps?
Hm, no, I missed the other files when I was greping :-)
> Reproducing it with a set -x script and sending me the
> /var/log/base-config.log would probably be the best thing to do.
> You'd have to edit the script(s) from inside d-i before the reboot
> though.
Ok, here it is. 2 points: I ran the setup phase twice (I had to edit
the scripts, add the set -x line and reboot). I removed the lines
from the first run, but the problem remained the second time as well.
I send both log files.
I hope this helps.
Konstantinos
----- End forwarded message -----
--
see shy jo
I can reproduce this bug doing an install in greek. Moreover, I can
reproduce it with the teletype debconf frontend, so it's not a problem
with whiptail. It seems that this one menu item for MTA configuration
must be mangled somehow in debconf, and so debconf returns something
base-config is unable to deal with. What's mangling it, I don't know --
it could be perl's unicode handling or something like that.
--
see shy jo
Subject: Re: Bug#235444: base-config loops over the same questions
Date: Sat, 27 Mar 2004 22:18:18 +0200
On Friday 05 March 2004 21:20, Joey Hess wrote:
> I can reproduce this bug doing an install in greek. Moreover, I can
> reproduce it with the teletype debconf frontend, so it's not a
> problem with whiptail. It seems that this one menu item for MTA
> configuration must be mangled somehow in debconf, and so debconf
> returns something base-config is unable to deal with. What's
> mangling it, I don't know -- it could be perl's unicode handling or
> something like that.
Hi Joey,
It seems that this bug continues to appear. I was really busy the
last weeks and could not do any debian work at all. Which menu item
did you mean?
This one: "Configure the Mail Transfer Agent"?
If it may help, I just found out that the greek translation had a
colon at the end (how that got in there I don't remember), but I
removed it just now. If I find time I'll make a package and test it
on my vmware test system.
Konstantinos
Konstantinos Margaritis wrote:
> It seems that this bug continues to appear. I was really busy the
> last weeks and could not do any debian work at all. Which menu item
> did you mean?
> This one: "Configure the Mail Transfer Agent"?
> If it may help, I just found out that the greek translation had a
> colon at the end (how that got in there I don't remember), but I
> removed it just now. If I find time I'll make a package and test it
> on my vmware test system.
Yes, it was the MTA config item. I don't see the significance of a
colon, it's just another character.
--
see shy jo
Subject: Re: Bug#235444: base-config loops over the same questions
Date: Sun, 28 Mar 2004 12:35:51 +0200
On Saturday 27 March 2004 22:31, Joey Hess wrote:
> Yes, it was the MTA config item. I don't see the significance of a
> colon, it's just another character.
Found it!!! I used MTA in parenthesis to explain the greek translation
like that:
"text (MTA)"
Apparently perl didn't like that and it caused problems parsing.
It works ok now, you may close the bug.
Regards
Konstantinos
Konstantinos Margaritis wrote:
> On Saturday 27 March 2004 22:31, Joey Hess wrote:
> > Yes, it was the MTA config item. I don't see the significance of a
> > colon, it's just another character.
>
> Found it!!! I used MTA in parenthesis to explain the greek translation
> like that:
> "text (MTA)"
> Apparently perl didn't like that and it caused problems parsing.
>
> It works ok now, you may close the bug.
I don't understand how that could be significant either. What did you
see?
--
see shy jo
Subject: Re: Bug#235444: base-config loops over the same questions
Date: Sun, 28 Mar 2004 18:42:34 +0300
On Sunday 28 March 2004 18:37, Joey Hess wrote:
> I don't understand how that could be significant either. What did
> you see?
It loaded the exim4 debconf screen (which it didn't before) and it
allowed me to complete the installation. There was no loop.
Konstantinos
Konstantinos Margaritis wrote:
> On Sunday 28 March 2004 18:37, Joey Hess wrote:
> > I don't understand how that could be significant either. What did
> > you see?
>
> It loaded the exim4 debconf screen (which it didn't before) and it
> allowed me to complete the installation. There was no loop.
I'm looking for any clues you found while tracking this down, to find
out what the real problem with the "(MTA)" was.
If I put "(MTA)" at the end of the English template, it seems to work
ok.
--
see shy jo
Debbugs is free software and licensed under the terms of the GNU General
Public License version 2. The current version can be obtained
from https://bugs.debian.org/debbugs-source/.