[Bug 978502] [NEW] whoopsie.postinst crashes silently if /var/crash is missing

[Colin Watson]

Public bug reported:

In a fresh install, such as when building an image - e.g.
http://people.canonical.com/~ubuntu-archive/livefs-build-logs/precise
/ubuntu-zh_CN/20120410/livecd-20120410-i386.out - whoopsie may be
configured before apport or (hopefully!) before anything crashes, and in
that case it will fail to configure because /var/crash does not exist
yet.  Worse, it does so silently, with the only clue being:

  Setting up whoopsie (0.1.27) ...
  dpkg: error processing whoopsie (--configure):
   subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1

1) whoopsie.postinst should run 'mkdir -p -m 3777 /var/crash' before
operating on it.

2) '/dev/null 2>&1' should be removed from the first pair of chmod/chgrp
calls, the ones that may cause the postinst to fail.  I can understand
why you wouldn't want error output from the second pair, since you'll
get glob failures if there are no *.crash files in /var/crash/, but if
either 'chmod g+s /var/crash' or 'chgrp whoopsie /var/crash' emits any
output then it will almost certainly be a reason for exiting non-zero
and such error output should not be thrown away.

** Affects: whoopsie-daisy (Ubuntu)
     Importance: High
     Assignee: Evan Dandrea (ev)
         Status: New

** Affects: whoopsie-daisy (Ubuntu Precise)
     Importance: High
     Assignee: Evan Dandrea (ev)
         Status: New


** Tags: rls-p-tracking

** Changed in: whoopsie-daisy (Ubuntu)
   Importance: Undecided => High

** Tags added: rls-p-tracking

** Changed in: whoopsie-daisy (Ubuntu)
     Assignee: (unassigned) => Evan Dandrea (ev)

** Changed in: whoopsie-daisy (Ubuntu)
    Milestone: None => ubuntu-12.04

** Also affects: whoopsie-daisy (Ubuntu Precise)
   Importance: High
     Assignee: Evan Dandrea (ev)
       Status: New

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/978502

Title:
  whoopsie.postinst crashes silently if /var/crash is missing

Status in “whoopsie-daisy” package in Ubuntu:
  New
Status in “whoopsie-daisy” source package in Precise:
  New

Bug description:
  In a fresh install, such as when building an image - e.g.
  http://people.canonical.com/~ubuntu-archive/livefs-build-logs/precise
  /ubuntu-zh_CN/20120410/livecd-20120410-i386.out - whoopsie may be
  configured before apport or (hopefully!) before anything crashes, and
  in that case it will fail to configure because /var/crash does not
  exist yet.  Worse, it does so silently, with the only clue being:

    Setting up whoopsie (0.1.27) ...
    dpkg: error processing whoopsie (--configure):
     subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1

  1) whoopsie.postinst should run 'mkdir -p -m 3777 /var/crash' before
  operating on it.

  2) '/dev/null 2>&1' should be removed from the first pair of
  chmod/chgrp calls, the ones that may cause the postinst to fail.  I
  can understand why you wouldn't want error output from the second
  pair, since you'll get glob failures if there are no *.crash files in
  /var/crash/, but if either 'chmod g+s /var/crash' or 'chgrp whoopsie
  /var/crash' emits any output then it will almost certainly be a reason
  for exiting non-zero and such error output should not be thrown away.

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