Bug#283510: Calling debootstrap with wrong --components= causes errors

[Frans Pop <aragorn@tiscali.nl>]

retitle 283510 Calling debootstrap with "--components=" causes ugly errors
clone 283510 -1
reassign -1 debootstrap
severity -1 minor
reassign 283510 base-installer
tags 283510 + patch
thanks

Markus,

Your problems have nothing to do with your network setup, but probably 
with intermittent errors while reading your CDROM.
There are several possible reasons for this:
- badly burned image: check the md5sum of the CD
- broken hardware
- problems in the driver used for reading the CD
- problems in the communications with the CD
  This could be a DMA problem (which we see quite often); you could try
  giving the following command from VT2:
     echo "using_dma:0" > /proc/ide/hdx/settings
  replacing 'hdx' with the device for your CD drive.

Also check if you can read the file /cdrom/.disk/base_components; this 
file should contain one line with the word 'main'.

Cheers,
FJP

=====================================

On Tuesday 30 November 2004 10:37, Markus Hanauska wrote:
> /var/log/messages still says
> eval: 3: Syntax error: newline unexpected (expecting ")")

I've been able to trace this error to the following code in the function 
download_release_indices() in /usr/lib/debootstrap/functions from 
debootstrap:
  for c in $TMPCOMPONENTS ; do
      eval "
    case \"\$c\" in
      $USE_COMPONENTS)
        COMPONENTS=\"\$COMPONENTS \$c\"
        ;;
    esac
           "
  done

The error occurs if run-debootstrap is called from base-installer's 
postinst with '--components=' (i.e. if $COMPONENTS is empty).
This is caused by an error when /cdrom/.disk/base_components is read.
(Thanks to Kamion for pointing me in the right direction.)

I have also cloned this BR to debootstrap so a check can be added there 
(probably where parameters are parsed).