[Bug 1962225] Re: preinst check that kernel revision < 255 now does more harm than good

Tue May 3 08:43:25 UTC 2022

Verified on an AL2 instance:

root at 19bea50a89e2:/# uname -r 
4.14.275-207.503.amzn2.x86_64
root at 19bea50a89e2:/# apt install --reinstall libc6=2.31-0ubuntu9.7
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 1 reinstalled, 0 to remove and 1 not upgraded.
Need to get 2714 kB of archives.
After this operation, 0 B of additional disk space will be used.
Get:1 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal-updates/main amd64 libc6 amd64 2.31-0ubuntu9.7 [2714 kB]
Fetched 2714 kB in 0s (16.7 MB/s)
debconf: delaying package configuration, since apt-utils is not installed
(Reading database ... 4127 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack .../libc6_2.31-0ubuntu9.7_amd64.deb ...
debconf: unable to initialize frontend: Dialog
debconf: (No usable dialog-like program is installed, so the dialog based frontend cannot be used. at /usr/share/perl5/Debconf/FrontEnd/Dialog.pm li
ne 76.)
debconf: falling back to frontend: Readline
debconf: unable to initialize frontend: Readline
debconf: (Can't locate Term/ReadLine.pm in @INC (you may need to install the Term::ReadLine module) (@INC contains: /etc/perl /usr/local/lib/x86_64-
linux-gnu/perl/5.30.0 /usr/local/share/perl/5.30.0 /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/perl5/5.30 /usr/share/perl5 /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/perl/5.30 /usr/sh
are/perl/5.30 /usr/local/lib/site_perl /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/perl-base) at /usr/share/perl5/Debconf/FrontEnd/Readline.pm line 7.)
debconf: falling back to frontend: Teletype
ERROR: Your kernel version indicates a revision number
of 255 or greater.  Glibc has a number of built in
assumptions that this revision number is less than 255.
If you\'ve built your own kernel, please make sure that any
custom version numbers are appended to the upstream
kernel number with a dash or some other delimiter.

dpkg: error processing archive /var/cache/apt/archives/libc6_2.31-0ubuntu9.7_amd64.deb (--unpack):
 new libc6:amd64 package pre-installation script subprocess returned error exit status 1
Errors were encountered while processing:
 /var/cache/apt/archives/libc6_2.31-0ubuntu9.7_amd64.deb
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)
root at 19bea50a89e2:/# apt install libc-bin/focal-proposed libc6/focal-proposed 
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
Selected version '2.31-0ubuntu9.9' (Ubuntu:20.04/focal-proposed [amd64]) for 'libc-bin'
Selected version '2.31-0ubuntu9.9' (Ubuntu:20.04/focal-proposed [amd64]) for 'libc6'
Suggested packages:
  manpages glibc-doc locales
The following packages will be upgraded:
  libc-bin libc6
2 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 6 not upgraded.
Need to get 3356 kB of archives.
After this operation, 7168 B of additional disk space will be used.
Get:1 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal-proposed/main amd64 libc6 amd64 2.31-0ubuntu9.9 [2722 kB]
Get:2 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal-proposed/main amd64 libc-bin amd64 2.31-0ubuntu9.9 [633 kB]
Fetched 3356 kB in 0s (18.6 MB/s)  
debconf: delaying package configuration, since apt-utils is not installed
(Reading database ... 4981 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack .../libc6_2.31-0ubuntu9.9_amd64.deb ...
debconf: unable to initialize frontend: Dialog
debconf: (No usable dialog-like program is installed, so the dialog based frontend cannot be used. at /usr/share/perl5/Debconf/FrontEnd/Dialog.pm li
ne 76.)
debconf: falling back to frontend: Readline
debconf: unable to initialize frontend: Readline
debconf: (Can't locate Term/ReadLine.pm in @INC (you may need to install the Term::ReadLine module) (@INC contains: /etc/perl /usr/local/lib/x86_64-
linux-gnu/perl/5.30.0 /usr/local/share/perl/5.30.0 /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/perl5/5.30 /usr/share/perl5 /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/perl/5.30 /usr/sh
are/perl/5.30 /usr/local/lib/site_perl /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/perl-base) at /usr/share/perl5/Debconf/FrontEnd/Readline.pm line 7.)
debconf: falling back to frontend: Teletype
Unpacking libc6:amd64 (2.31-0ubuntu9.9) over (2.31-0ubuntu9.7) ...
Setting up libc6:amd64 (2.31-0ubuntu9.9) ...
debconf: unable to initialize frontend: Dialog
debconf: (No usable dialog-like program is installed, so the dialog based frontend cannot be used. at /usr/share/perl5/Debconf/FrontEnd/Dialog.pm li
ne 76.)
debconf: falling back to frontend: Readline
debconf: unable to initialize frontend: Readline
debconf: (Can't locate Term/ReadLine.pm in @INC (you may need to install the Term::ReadLine module) (@INC contains: /etc/perl /usr/local/lib/x86_64-
linux-gnu/perl/5.30.0 /usr/local/share/perl/5.30.0 /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/perl5/5.30 /usr/share/perl5 /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/perl/5.30 /usr/sh
are/perl/5.30 /usr/local/lib/site_perl /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/perl-base) at /usr/share/perl5/Debconf/FrontEnd/Readline.pm line 7.)
debconf: falling back to frontend: Teletype
(Reading database ... 4981 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack .../libc-bin_2.31-0ubuntu9.9_amd64.deb ...
Unpacking libc-bin (2.31-0ubuntu9.9) over (2.31-0ubuntu9.7) ...
Setting up libc-bin (2.31-0ubuntu9.9) ...
root at 19bea50a89e2:/# exit

** Tags removed: verification-needed verification-needed-focal
** Tags added: verification-done-focal

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1962225

Title:
  preinst check that kernel revision < 255 now does more harm than good

Status in glibc package in Ubuntu:
  Fix Released
Status in glibc source package in Bionic:
  Confirmed
Status in glibc source package in Focal:
  Fix Committed

Bug description:
  [impact]
  Amazon Linux 2 currently has a kernel with version 4.14.262-200.489.amzn2.x86_64. This causes complaints from libc6's preinst that asserts that the "revision" part of the kernel version is less than 255.

  The significance of the check is much less than it used to be when the
  major part of the kernel version was stuck at 2, so we should follow
  Debian and just drop it.

  [test case]
  Boot an Amazon Linux 2 instance. Install docker. Run an ubuntu container of the series being tested. Run "apt-get update && apt-get install --reinstall libc6" and look for error messages / failures.

  [regression potential]
  It's possible that some binaries run using the "uname26" personality will fail -- but they will already fail with the glibc as currently installed, there's no value in preventing an upgrade.

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