Bug#354401: Error "chown: `root:UNKNOWN': invalid group" when setting up tex-common

[Norbert Preining <preining@logic.at>]

Hi all!

On Son, 26 Feb 2006, Stephen Gran wrote:
> > >   tex-common/groupname: UNKNOWN
> 
> That looks like an untrapped error from debconf, off-hand.  debconf will
> return strings like "UNKNOWN THIS OR THAT" on error, and it looks like
> it was truncated to just UNKNOWN.

In which circumstances such an error can occur? It is strange, I would
have expected that debconf takes the default as given in the template if
nothing was present.

I am out of my understanding: 

In config at the core, lets see:
  db_get tex-common/managecache || true
  if [ "$RET" = true ]; then
    db_input low tex-common/groupname || true
    db_go
  fi
and in postinst:
    db_get tex-common/managecache || true
    if [ $RET = true ] ; then
      db_get tex-common/groupname || true
      GROUP="$RET"
      if [ -n "$GROUP" ] ; then
...

So it seems that the call to 
	db_get tex-common/groupname || true
returned something really strange, although I have no Idea how this
could happen.

Anyone any idea how to debug this?

Best wishes

Norbert

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Dr. Norbert Preining <preining AT logic DOT at>             Università di Siena
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