Use of dpkg --set-selections is brain-dead?
Hello gurus,
I thought I would be slick and write a package that contains a script
that will figure out what should be installed/removed/upgraded/etc. on
each of the machines where I work. (Using sarge, btw.) I had planned
to do this by listing each of the packages and it's install status in a
file, then piping that file to 'dpkg --set-selections', and then using
'apt-get dselect-upgrade' to process the new package selections.
Unfortunately, this doesn't seem to work as I expected.
I've traced my problem down to the use of 'dpkg --set-selections'
command. As an example, I have a package named tiem-nis-client-cfg that
sets up NIS for generic workstations. If I understand correctly, I
should be able to do the following:
echo "tiem-nis-client-cfg install" | dpkg --set-selections
And then, when I type 'dpkg --get-selections', I should see
"tiem-nis-client-cfg install" one some line in the output.
Unfortunately, this doesn't seem to work:
~# echo "tiem-nis-client-cfg install" | dpkg --set-selections ;
echo $? ; dpkg --get-selections | grep 'tiem-nis-client-cfg' ; echo $?
0
1
The dpkg --set-selections command prints no error, and returns no error
code, but tiem-nis-client-cfg isn't set for installation.
I know that the package database knows about my tiem-nis-client-cfg,
because I can do this:
~# apt-cache show tiem-nis-client-cfg
Package: tiem-nis-client-cfg
...blah, blah, blah...
And I can install the package by hand:
~# apt-get install tiem-nis-client-cfg
Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree... Done
The following extra packages will be installed:
libslp1 nis
Suggested packages:
slpd openslp-doc
The following NEW packages will be installed:
libslp1 nis tiem-nis-client-cfg
0 upgraded, 3 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 291kB of archives.
After unpacking 1065kB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n]
Get:1 http://ftp.us.debian.org sarge/main libslp1 1.0.11a-2 [47.3kB]
Get:2 http://tortoise sarge/non-free tiem-nis-client-cfg 1.4 [3780B]
Get:3 http://ftp.us.debian.org sarge/main nis 3.13-2 [240kB]
Fetched 291kB in 0s (293kB/s)
Preconfiguring packages ...
Selecting previously deselected package libslp1.
(Reading database ... 50195 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking libslp1 (from .../libslp1_1.0.11a-2_i386.deb) ...
Selecting previously deselected package nis.
Unpacking nis (from .../archives/nis_3.13-2_i386.deb) ...
Setting up libslp1 (1.0.11a-2) ...
Setting up nis (3.13-2) ...
Setting NIS domainname to: tiem.utk.edu
Starting NIS services: ypbind [binding to YP server ..........
backgrounded]
(Reading database ... 50289 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking tiem-nis-client-cfg (from
.../tiem-nis-client-cfg_1.4_all.deb) ...
Setting up tiem-nis-client-cfg (1.4) ...
Setting NIS domainname to: tiem
Starting NIS services: ypbind
Tell me, oh wise gurus of Debian -- is dpkg just brain-dead? Is the man
page horribly wrong/out-of-date? Or what?
Confused,
Michael Peek
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