Hi everyone,
I'm having trouble installing/removing sendmail in Debian Sid (well, aptosid --
http://www.aptosid.com -- actually).
'apt -f install' did not fix it, nor did 'dpkg --configure -a'.
Since it was not essential (and did not install correctly), I tried to uninstall it, but it also fails:
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# apt remove procmail sendmail sendmail-base sendmail-bin sendmail-cf sensible-mda
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following packages will be REMOVED:
procmail sendmail sendmail-base sendmail-bin sendmail-cf sensible-mda
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 6 to remove and 2 not upgraded.
4 not fully installed or removed.
After this operation, 4,213 kB disk space will be freed.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n]
(Reading database ... 1537409 files and directories currently installed.)
Removing sendmail (8.15.2-11) ...
Removing sensible-mda (8.15.2-11) ...
Removing sendmail-bin (8.15.2-11) ...
Removing sendmail-base (8.15.2-11) ...
update-inetd: error: --group is only relevant with --add
dpkg: error processing package sendmail-base (--remove):
installed sendmail-base package pre-removal script subprocess returned error exit status 255
Removing procmail (3.22-26) ...
Removing sendmail-cf (8.15.2-11) ...
Errors were encountered while processing:
sendmail-base
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)
--------------------------------
One notices in the failed install attempt (the pastebin link above):
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adduser: Warning: The home directory `/var/lib/sendmail' does not belong to the user you are currently creating.
update-inetd: warning: cannot add service, /etc/inetd.conf does not exist
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I had:
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# ls -ld /var/lib/sendmail
drwx------ 2 smmta smmta 4096 Aug 22 15:06 /var/lib/sendmail/
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Changing ownership to root did not allow me to uninstall it.
Aptosid itself does not come with a mail daemon installed, so I must have installed at some point some daemon that created the /var/lib/sendmail. (If I were to try to install again, I'd probably opt for a lighter alternative, something like ssmtp. So, right now, I just want to remove sendmail.) So, I have sendmail-base stuck as not fully installed.
It was recommended I install 'openbsd-inetd' (it was not installed, neither was xinetd), but it still fails to install:
https://pastebin.com/sStYqMYi(I also still cannot uninstall it...)
Any help would be greatly appreciated!