Re: Bug#192356: pcmcia-cs: Removing pcmcia-cs confuses mandb, resulting in error messages
On Fri, 9 May 2003, Colin Watson wrote:
> On Thu, May 08, 2003 at 09:16:46AM -0400, Brian Mays wrote:
>
> > > I've been plagued for a while with weekly email from mandb
> > > complaining about missing files. ...
> > >
> > > Today I discovered that if I *install* the pcmcia-cs package,
> > > these errors go away and mandb produces no output.
> > >
> > > As this system is a desktop and has no PCMCIA support, it
> > > doesn't seem to me that I ought to need the pcmcia-cs package.
> >
> > I fail to see how this is the fault of the pcmcia-cs package, since the
> > problem occurs when the package is *not* installed. It sounds like a
> > problem either with the install disks (which are incorrectly purging
> > pcmcia-cs from new systems) or man-db itself. (Another unlikely
> > possibility is that this is a problem with dpkg.)
I assumed it had something to do with the files manifest for
the package, causing it to not remove itself cleanly. This might
not be the case, of course.
> > I'll start by passing this off to man-db. If its maintainer determines
> > that this is not a problem with man-db, then he should probably pass this
> > bug report along to "boot-floppies".
>
> This is very unlikely to be a man-db bug - not impossible, but very
> unlikely. It's just the messenger, reporting a problem elsewhere: the
> files mentioned in the output are apparently dangling symlinks. I don't
> think you've successfully argued yet that pcmcia-cs must be out of the
> question, since boot-floppies first installs it and then leaves
> base-config to purge it later, so if pcmcia-cs failed to purge correctly
> then perhaps those links could have been left around. I've no idea what
> might have created symlinks like /usr/share/man/man4/wvlan_cs.4 in the
> first place, though - any ideas?
>
> Dave, have you any way to reproduce this problem, such as removing
> pcmcia-cs again?
Absolutely, this is entirely reproducible.
bash-2.05b# /etc/cron.weekly/man-db
mandb: can't open /usr/share/man/man4/wvlan_cs.4: No such file or directory
mandb: warning: /usr/share/man/man4/wvlan_cs.4: bad symlink or ROFF `.so' request
mandb: can't open /usr/share/man/man4/ray_cs.4: No such file or directory
mandb: warning: /usr/share/man/man4/ray_cs.4: bad symlink or ROFF `.so' request
mandb: can't open /usr/share/man/man4/airo.4: No such file or directory
mandb: warning: /usr/share/man/man4/airo.4: bad symlink or ROFF `.so' request
mandb: can't open /usr/share/man/man4/airo_cs.4: No such file or directory
mandb: warning: /usr/share/man/man4/airo_cs.4: bad symlink or ROFF `.so' request
bash-2.05b# apt-get install pcmcia-cs
Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree... Done
The following NEW packages will be installed:
pcmcia-cs
0 packages upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 433 not upgraded.
Need to get 0B/275kB of archives. After unpacking 887kB will be used.
Preconfiguring packages ...
Selecting previously deselected package pcmcia-cs.
(Reading database ...
dpkg: serious warning: files list file for package `realplayer' missing, assuming package has no files currently installed.
dpkg: serious warning: files list file for package `xv-doc' missing, assuming package has no files currently installed.
dpkg: serious warning: files list file for package `xv' missing, assuming package has no files currently installed.
dpkg: serious warning: files list file for package `acroread' missing, assuming package has no files currently installed.
dpkg: serious warning: files list file for package `bladeenc' missing, assuming package has no files currently installed.
80312 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking pcmcia-cs (from .../pcmcia-cs_3.2.2-1.1_i386.deb) ...
Setting up pcmcia-cs (3.2.2-1.1) ...
bash-2.05b# /etc/cron.weekly/man-db
(no output!)
bash-2.05b# apt-get remove pcmcia-cs
Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree... Done
The following packages will be REMOVED:
pcmcia-cs
0 packages upgraded, 0 newly installed, 1 to remove and 433 not upgraded.
Need to get 0B of archives. After unpacking 887kB will be freed.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n]
(Reading database ...
dpkg: serious warning: files list file for package `realplayer' missing, assuming package has no files currently installed.
dpkg: serious warning: files list file for package `xv-doc' missing, assuming package has no files currently installed.
dpkg: serious warning: files list file for package `xv' missing, assuming package has no files currently installed.
dpkg: serious warning: files list file for package `acroread' missing, assuming package has no files currently installed.
dpkg: serious warning: files list file for package `bladeenc' missing, assuming package has no files currently installed.
80382 files and directories currently installed.)
Removing pcmcia-cs ...
dpkg - warning: while removing pcmcia-cs, directory `/etc/pcmcia/cis' not empty so not removed.
dpkg - warning: while removing pcmcia-cs, directory `/etc/pcmcia' not empty so not removed.
depmod: *** Unresolved symbols in /lib/modules/2.4.19/kernel/drivers/i2c/i2c-hydra.o
depmod: *** Unresolved symbols in /lib/modules/2.4.19/kernel/drivers/i2c/i2c-i810.o
depmod: *** Unresolved symbols in /lib/modules/2.4.19/kernel/drivers/i2c/i2c-savage4.o
depmod: *** Unresolved symbols in /lib/modules/2.4.19/kernel/drivers/i2c/i2c-via.o
depmod: *** Unresolved symbols in /lib/modules/2.4.19/kernel/drivers/i2c/i2c-voodoo3.o
depmod: *** Unresolved symbols in /lib/modules/2.4.19/kernel/drivers/i2c/i2c-hydra.o
depmod: *** Unresolved symbols in /lib/modules/2.4.19/kernel/drivers/i2c/i2c-i810.o
depmod: *** Unresolved symbols in /lib/modules/2.4.19/kernel/drivers/i2c/i2c-savage4.o
depmod: *** Unresolved symbols in /lib/modules/2.4.19/kernel/drivers/i2c/i2c-via.o
depmod: *** Unresolved symbols in /lib/modules/2.4.19/kernel/drivers/i2c/i2c-voodoo3.o
bash-2.05b# /etc/cron.weekly/man-db
mandb: can't open /usr/share/man/man4/wvlan_cs.4: No such file or directory
mandb: warning: /usr/share/man/man4/wvlan_cs.4: bad symlink or ROFF `.so' request
mandb: can't open /usr/share/man/man4/ray_cs.4: No such file or directory
mandb: warning: /usr/share/man/man4/ray_cs.4: bad symlink or ROFF `.so' request
mandb: can't open /usr/share/man/man4/airo.4: No such file or directory
mandb: warning: /usr/share/man/man4/airo.4: bad symlink or ROFF `.so' request
mandb: can't open /usr/share/man/man4/airo_cs.4: No such file or directory
mandb: warning: /usr/share/man/man4/airo_cs.4: bad symlink or ROFF `.so' request
bash-2.05b# cd /usr/share/man/man4
bash-2.05b# ls -l wvlan_cs.4 ray_cs.4 airo.4 airo_cs.4
-rw-r----- 1 root root 6074 Dec 19 2001 airo.4
-rw-r----- 1 root root 699 Dec 19 2001 airo_cs.4
-rw-r----- 1 root root 3411 Dec 19 2001 ray_cs.4
-rw-r----- 1 root root 7715 Dec 19 2001 wvlan_cs.4
bash-2.05b#
So they exist (pcmcia-cs installed or not,) aren't symlinks of
any sort, have the same odd permissions (nothing else in this
directory is 640, but 644,) and only cause mandb to complain
when pcmcia-cs isn't installed. I haven't found any symlinks
that point to them (or try to.) None of /usr, share, man, man4
are anything but regular directories.
Changing their permissions to 644 also shuts up mandb, though
I don't see why, as their 640 permissions are the same whether
pcmcia-cs is installed or not. And mandb is running as root, anyway.
I don't understand this, but I hope this helps.
Dave
> I don't wish to play bug tennis, but Brian suggested that I reassign to
> boot-floppies if I determined that this wasn't a man-db bug, so I'm
> doing so. If it happens that the files in question aren't dangling
> symlinks despite man-db reporting them as such, then that would be a bug
> in man-db, but that's a rather less likely scenario than them genuinely
> being dangling symlinks.
Reply to: