Hi all,
I have this problem on 8 embedded systems running armbian stretch that all reports error like this on the systemd journal:
Feb 16 14:17:10 rod-ba82a8 console-setup.sh[293]: /bin/setupcon: 866: /bin/setupcon: cannot open /tmp/tmpkbd.BccRnI: No such file
Feb 16 14:17:10 rod-ba82a8 systemd[1]: console-setup.service: Main process exited, code=exited, status=1/FAILURE
Feb 16 14:17:10 rod-ba82a8 systemd[1]: Failed to start Set console font and keymap.
Feb 16 14:17:10 rod-ba82a8 systemd[1]: console-setup.service: Unit entered failed state.
Feb 16 14:17:10 rod-ba82a8 systemd[1]: console-setup.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'
So it look like the /tmp mount is required. I added it into the RequiresMountsFor line of the service file, run systemctl daemon-reload, but this make no change on the boot: console-setup failed with exactly the same error message.
Then I tryed to run 'setupcon' and 'reboot', no change.
Then I tryed to run 'systemctl start console-setup.service' and 'reboot': it worked !.
So my conclusion so far are:
1) Yes setupcon and console-setup.service require /tmp mount but this is not the rot cause of the problem, even if the error message let you think so.
2) Simply running 'systemctl start console-setup.service' manually solved the problem on those 8 systems that also have /tmp added into RequiresMountsFor.
Look like a timing and probably a dependency issue that make early console-setup to fail because it didn't find a expected file into /tmp. I don't know how this file is supposed to be there at bot time.
Best regards.
Jean-Christian