Re: dpkg: syntax error: unknown group `Debian-exim' in statusoverride file
Mumia W. wrote:
> On 08/04/2006 06:06 AM, kevin bailey wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> I'm getting the following from a vanilla install of sarge.
>>
>> Any pointers gratefully received - obviously I want to be careful and not
>> screw up the dpkg system.
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
>> Kev
>>
>> psctbdc2:~# apt-get dist-upgrade
>> Reading Package Lists... Done
>> Building Dependency Tree... Done
>> Calculating Upgrade... Done
>> The following packages will be upgraded:
>> apache apache-common apache2-utils dhcp-client gnupg libapr0
>> libgd2-noxpm
>> 7 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
>> Need to get 2011kB/3671kB of archives.
>> After unpacking 106kB disk space will be freed.
>> Do you want to continue? [Y/n]
>> Get:1 http://security.debian.org stable/updates/main gnupg 1.4.1-1.sarge5
>> [1909kB]
>> Get:2 http://security.debian.org stable/updates/main dhcp-client
>> 2.0pl5-19.1sarge2 [102kB]
>> Fetched 2011kB in 17s (117kB/s)
>> Preconfiguring packages ...
>> dpkg: syntax error: unknown group `Debian-exim' in statusoverride file
>> E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (2)
>>
>>
>
> That's a weird error because, AFAIK, none of the packages you
> were updating depend upon exim.
>
> Perhaps you forgot to do an "aptitude upgrade" before the
> "aptitude dist-upgrade." If you continue to get the error, do
> this:
>
> aptitude search '~Dexim' | less
>
> and see if any of the packages that show up are in the list
> you were trying to upgrade.
>
> PS.
> That aptitude search command lists packages that depend upon
> exim.
>
>
>
Hi - here's what I tried.
psctbdc2:~# apt-get -s install aptitude
Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree... Done
aptitude is already the newest version.
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 7 not upgraded.
psctbdc2:~# man aptitude
Reformatting aptitude(8), please wait...
psctbdc2:~# aptitude upgrade
Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree
Reading extended state information
Initializing package states... Done
Reading task descriptions... Done
The following packages will be upgraded:
apache apache-common apache2-utils dhcp-client gnupg libapr0 libgd2-noxpm
7 packages upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 0B/3671kB of archives. After unpacking 106kB will be freed.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n/?]
Preconfiguring packages ...
dpkg: syntax error: unknown group `Debian-exim' in statusoverride file
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (2)
Ack! Something bad happened while installing packages. Trying to recover:
Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree
Reading extended state information
Initializing package states... Done
Reading task descriptions... Done
psctbdc2:~# aptitude upgrade
Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree
Reading extended state information
Initializing package states... Done
Reading task descriptions... Done
The following packages will be upgraded:
apache apache-common apache2-utils dhcp-client gnupg libapr0 libgd2-noxpm
7 packages upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 0B/3671kB of archives. After unpacking 106kB will be freed.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n/?]
Preconfiguring packages ...
dpkg: syntax error: unknown group `Debian-exim' in statusoverride file
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (2)
Ack! Something bad happened while installing packages. Trying to recover:
Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree
Reading extended state information
Initializing package states... Done
Reading task descriptions... Done
psctbdc2:~# aptitude dist-upgrade
Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree
Reading extended state information
Initializing package states... Done
Reading task descriptions... Done
The following packages have been kept back:
apache2-utils libapr0
The following NEW packages will be installed:
at exim4 exim4-base exim4-config exim4-daemon-light mailx mdetect mutt
read-edid
The following packages will be upgraded:
apache apache-common dhcp-client gnupg libgd2-noxpm
5 packages upgraded, 9 newly installed, 0 to remove and 2 not upgraded.
Need to get 217kB/6511kB of archives. After unpacking 7508kB will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n/?]
Writing extended state information... Done
Get:1 ftp://ftp.demon.co.uk stable/main at 3.1.8-11 [37.9kB]
Get:2 ftp://ftp.demon.co.uk stable/main mailx 1:8.1.2-0.20040524cvs-4
[151kB]
Get:3 ftp://ftp.demon.co.uk stable/main mdetect 0.5.2 [15.8kB]
Get:4 ftp://ftp.demon.co.uk stable/main read-edid 1.4.1-2 [12.4kB]
Fetched 217kB in 3s (54.8kB/s)
Preconfiguring packages ...
dpkg: syntax error: unknown group `Debian-exim' in statusoverride file
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (2)
Ack! Something bad happened while installing packages. Trying to recover:
Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree
Reading extended state information
Initializing package states... Done
Reading task descriptions... Done
psctbdc2:~# aptitude search '~Dexim' | less
psctbdc2:~# aptitude search '~Dexim'
p af - An
Emacs-like mail reader and composer
p bacula-director-common - Network
backup, recovery and verification (Director common files)
p biabam - bash
attachment mailer
p bonsai - The Mozilla
CVS query tool by web interface
p capisuite - easy fax
and voice box solution for ISDN/CAPI capable devices
p courier-imap - Courier
Mail Server - IMAP server
p courier-maildrop - Courier
Mail Server - Mail delivery agent
p courier-pop - Courier
Mail Server - POP3 server
p cyrus-common - CMU Cyrus
mail system (common files)
p debbugs - The bug
tracking system based on the active Debian BTS
p drupal -
fully-featured content management/discussion engine
p ecartis - Fast,
Flexible Mailing List Manager
pi exim4 - metapackage
to ease exim MTA (v4) installation
ci exim4-base - support
files for all exim MTA (v4) packages
p exim4-daemon-heavy - exim MTA
(v4) daemon with extended features, including exiscan-acl
pi exim4-daemon-light - lightweight
exim MTA (v4) daemon
p eximon - X monitor
for the exim mail transport agent.
p eximon4 - monitor
application for the exim MTA (v4) (X11 interface)
p fcron - cron-like
scheduler with extended capabilities
p gforge -
Collaborative development tool - meta-package
p gforge-lists-mailman -
Collaborative development tool - mailing-lists (using Mailman)
p gforge-mta-exim -
Collaborative development tool - mail tools (using Exim)
p gforge-mta-exim4 -
Collaborative development tool - mail tools (using Exim 4)
p gnats - The GNU
problem report management system (central database)
p gnats-user - The GNU
problem report management system (client tools)
p gosa - Web Based
LDAP Administration Program
p gup - let a
remote site change their newsgroups subscription
p ifgate - Internet to
Fidonet gateway
p imp3 - Web Based
Mail Program
p inn - News
transport system `InterNetNews' by the ISC and Rich Salz
p inn2 -
'InterNetNews' news server
p ipband - daemon for
subnet bandwidth monitoring with reporting via email
p jitterbug - A cgi-bin
tool for problem reporting and tracking
p lire -
full-featured log analyzer and report generator
p log2mail - Daemon
watching logfiles and mailing lines matching patterns
p logcheck - Mails
anomalies in the system logfiles to the administrator
p lsb-core - Linux
Standard Base 2.0 core support package
p maildrop - mail
delivery agent with filtering abilities
p mailman - Powerful,
web-based mailing list manager
p mailscanner - email virus
scanner and spam tagger
p mailto - WWW Forms
to Mail Gateway
ci mailx - A simple
mail user agent
ci mutt - Text-based
mailreader supporting MIME, GPG, PGP and threading
p ninpaths - Paths
Survey reporting program
p noffle - offline
news server
p popularity-contest - Vote for
your favourite packages automatically
p printbill -
Sophisticated print billing / accounting system for lprng
p qpopper - Enhanced
Post Office Protocol server (POP3)
p qpopper-drac - Qpopper
with DRAC Support
p remstats - Remote
Statistics System: collectors and presentation-cgis
p renattach - Rename
attachments on the fly
p request-tracker3 - Extensible
trouble-ticket tracking system
p request-tracker3.4 - Extensible
trouble-ticket tracking system
p rt3-clients - Mail
gateway and command-line interface to request-tracker3
p rt3.4-clients - Mail
gateway and command-line interface to request-tracker3.4
p sa-exim - Use
SpamAssassin at SMTP time with the Exim v4 MTA
p sbuild - Tool for
building Debian binary packages from Debian sources
p scoop - Web-based
collaborative media application
p smokeping - latency
logging and graphing system
p sqwebmail - Courier
Mail Server - Webmail server
p subversion-tools - assorted
tools related to Subversion (aka. svn)
p systraq - monitor
your system and warn when system files change
p tripwire - file and
directory integrity checker
p uqwk-spool - Offline
mail and news package creator (spool version)
p webmin-exim - exim mail
server control module for webmin
p whatsnewfm - A utility
to filter the daily newsletter from freshmeat.net
psctbdc2:~# apt-get install postfix
Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree... Done
Suggested packages:
postfix-mysql postfix-pgsql postfix-ldap postfix-pcre
Recommended packages:
mail-reader resolvconf
The following NEW packages will be installed:
postfix
0 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 7 not upgraded.
Need to get 0B/802kB of archives.
After unpacking 1974kB of additional disk space will be used.
Preconfiguring packages ...
dpkg: syntax error: unknown group `Debian-exim' in statusoverride file
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (2)
psctbdc2:~# apt-get remove postfix
Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree... 0%
Building Dependency Tree... Done
Package postfix is not installed, so not removed
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 7 not upgraded.
psctbdc2:~#
psctbdc2:~# apt-get remove exim
Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree... Done
Package exim is not installed, so not removed
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 7 not upgraded.
psctbdc2:~# apt-get install exim
Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree... Done
Suggested packages:
mail-reader eximon
The following NEW packages will be installed:
exim
0 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 7 not upgraded.
Need to get 0B/759kB of archives.
After unpacking 1434kB of additional disk space will be used.
dpkg: syntax error: unknown group `Debian-exim' in statusoverride file
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (2)
psctbdc2:~#
Thanks for any quick pointers.
As this is a vanilla install I may just go to the site and reinstall the OS.
Debian has never given me this type of problem before so it may be something
weird or something I've done.
Thanks again,
Kevin
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