Buster everywhere, latest update.
I update/upgrade using apt on 3 different computers (SuperMicro desktop, Dell laptop, Raspberry Pi cute thing). Sample from a few minutes ago, on the desktop:
root@sbox:~# apt update
Hit:1 http://security.debian.org/debian-security buster/updates InRelease
Hit:2 http://deb.debian.org/debian buster InRelease
Get:3 http://deb.debian.org/debian buster-updates InRelease [51.9 kB]
Get:4 http://deb.debian.org/debian buster-backports InRelease [46.7 kB]
Fetched 98.6 kB in 2s (52.2 kB/s)
...
Error: GDBus.Error:org.freedesktop.systemd1.UnitMasked: Unit -.mount is masked.
*.mount files are systemd representations of mount points. Sometimes they're autogenerated from /etc/fstab (that is, fstab is still a first-class place to configure mount points), but they might also be in the usual systemd locations such as /etc/systemd/system
Now you can't name the mount files exactly after the mount points (mostly because / isn't valid in file names), so systemd uses an escaping mechanism
$ systemd-escape --unescape - /
So, this is a mount file for the root directory.
Now, what does it mean that the unit is masked? Here, you need to look at the man page for "systemctl", in the description for the "is-enabled" subcommand. "Masked" means "Completely disabled, so that any start operation on it fails". Masking may be done either by the system, or the administrator, but it basically means that systemd won't be able to mount your root directory (however, that's a moot point as userspace never mounts the root directory; that's the kernel's job :)
In summary, I'd say it's a strange error, but harmless.
...>
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
All packages are up to date.
And all seems to have worked -- when update says there are upgrades available, it asks if I want them, then downloads and installs properly, but the same error message is displayed. I've been a Debian user for some 15 years, and I've never seen an error from dpkg, apt, apt-get, synaptic, or aptitude. Until a few weeks ago. On all my computers, except the 'Pi (also systemd). I don't know what makes this happen or even what it means (a bent apt update? a bent systemd update?).
Thoughts? Howtos?
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