Subject: Re: Bug#640344: simple-cdd fails to preseed passwords

From: Vagrant Cascadian <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 4 Sep 2011 12:45:54 -0700

On Sun, Sep 04, 2011 at 02:27:41PM +0200, Tom wrote:
> When trying to preseed a password with simple-cdd, eg passwd/root-password-crypted,
> simple-cdd fails with the following error message:
> 
> debconf: DbDriver "passwords" warning: could not open /var/cache/debconf/passwords.dat: Permission denied
> error: Cannot find a question for passwd/root-password-crypted
> 
> because the question for the existing template is in the inaccessible passwords.dat

simple-cdd uses "debconf-set-selections --checkonly" to check the preseed 
files, but as you've noticed, debconf questions in passwords.dat cannot be 
checked by non-root users.

to work around this, i'd recommend using --force-preseed, and just make sure 
the syntax of your preseeding files is valid. alternately you could run as 
root, but that's discouraged and would require the --force-root option.

live well,
  vagrant