Bug#902394: autopkgtest-build-lxc fails with "invoke-rc.d: could not determine current runlevel"

[Daniel Kahn Gillmor <dkg@fifthhorseman.net>]

Package: autopkgtest
Version: 5.3.1
Severity: normal

As per instructions in autopkgtest-build-lxc(1), i run:

    # autopkgtest-build-lxc debian sid

It results in the following logs:

    I: Configuring libc-bin...
    I: Configuring systemd...
    I: Base system installed successfully.
    Download complete.
    Copying rootfs to /var/lib/lxc/autopkgtest-sid.new/rootfs...Generating locales (this might take a while)...
      en_US.UTF-8... done
      en_US.UTF-8... done
    Generation complete.
    update-rc.d: error: cannot find a LSB script for checkroot.sh
    update-rc.d: error: cannot find a LSB script for umountfs
    update-rc.d: error: cannot find a LSB script for hwclockfirst.sh
    Creating SSH2 RSA key; this may take some time ...
    2048 SHA256:b4Yqjm6HYfq7gc3DszRKby9G+lwWiejMbf11PAbi1BM root@sid (RSA)
    Creating SSH2 ECDSA key; this may take some time ...
    256 SHA256:RXkjVC92er2yy3zX04aysJYN+AxHgr0uH0Q9pNLbmw8 root@sid (ECDSA)
    Creating SSH2 ED25519 key; this may take some time ...
    256 SHA256:aFvRmDQhpOd1OygO7EcrshRF7+3xYXKJC6Vu0zLwfbs root@sid (ED25519)
    invoke-rc.d: could not determine current runlevel
    invoke-rc.d: policy-rc.d denied execution of start.

    Current default time zone: 'Etc/UTC'
    Local time is now:      Mon Jun 25 18:37:52 UTC 2018.
    Universal Time is now:  Mon Jun 25 18:37:52 UTC 2018.

    lxc-start: lxccontainer.c: wait_on_daemonized_start: 754 Received container state "ABORTING" instead of "RUNNING"
    lxc-start: tools/lxc_start.c: main: 368 The container failed to start.
    lxc-start: tools/lxc_start.c: main: 370 To get more details, run the container in foreground mode.
    lxc-start: tools/lxc_start.c: main: 372 Additional information can be obtained by setting the --logfile and --logpriority options.

and then fails.

Note that i have made this adjustment at the recommendation of autopkgtest:

    # cat /etc/lxc/default.conf 
    lxc.network.type = none
    #

There are too many layers of complexity here for me to be clear how to
debug the situation.  Feel free to reassign (with an explanation) if
you think the problem is with lxc, or with debootstrap, or with
init-system-helpers, or with something else (though retaining
"affects: autopkgtest" would be nice so that other people can find it
when looking at the autopkgtest page in the BTS.

Thanks for maintaining autopkgtest!

    --dkg


-- System Information:
Debian Release: sid
  APT prefers unstable
  APT policy: (500, 'unstable')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)

Kernel: Linux 4.16.0-2-amd64 (SMP w/2 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8), LANGUAGE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash
Init: systemd (via /run/systemd/system)

Versions of packages autopkgtest depends on:
ii  apt-utils       1.6.1
ii  libdpkg-perl    1.19.0.5
ii  procps          2:3.3.15-2
ii  python3         3.6.5-3
ii  python3-debian  0.1.32

Versions of packages autopkgtest recommends:
ii  autodep8  0.12

Versions of packages autopkgtest suggests:
ii  lxc          1:2.0.9-6
un  lxd-client   <none>
un  qemu-system  <none>
un  qemu-utils   <none>
ii  schroot      1.6.10-5

-- no debconf information