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Altoid

Member

Registered: 2017-05-07

Posts: 1,592  

[SOLVED] Heads up: dpkg error -> caused by added kvm group

Hello:

While tidying up a parallel Beowulf installation I have on another drive (to eventually migrate to Openbox instead of XFCE) I came across this problem:
It was previously upgraded from ASCII.

root@devuan3:/etc/apt# apt upgrade
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
Calculating upgrade... Done
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
1 not fully installed or removed.
After this operation, 0 B of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n] 
Setting up eudev (3.2.9-8~beowulf1) ...
The group `kvm' already exists and is not a system group. Exiting.
dpkg: error processing package eudev (--configure):
 installed eudev package post-installation script subprocess returned error exit status 1
Errors were encountered while processing:
 eudev
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)
root@devuan3:/etc/apt# 

Reinstalling eudev brings up this:

root@devuan3:/etc/apt# apt-get reinstall eudev
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 1 reinstalled, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
1 not fully installed or removed.
After this operation, 0 B of additional disk space will be used.
E: Internal Error, No file name for eudev:amd64
root@devuan3:/etc/apt# 

Trying to fix brings up this:

root@devuan3:/etc/apt# apt install -f
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
1 not fully installed or removed.
After this operation, 0 B of additional disk space will be used.
Setting up eudev (3.2.9-8~beowulf1) ...
The group `kvm' already exists and is not a system group. Exiting.
dpkg: error processing package eudev (--configure):
 installed eudev package post-installation script subprocess returned error exit status 1
Errors were encountered while processing:
 eudev
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)
root@devuan3:/etc/apt# 

Same with a dist-upgrade:

root@devuan3:/etc/apt# apt-get dist-upgrade
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
Calculating upgrade... Done
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
1 not fully installed or removed.
After this operation, 0 B of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n] 
Setting up eudev (3.2.9-8~beowulf1) ...
The group `kvm' already exists and is not a system group. Exiting.
dpkg: error processing package eudev (--configure):
 installed eudev package post-installation script subprocess returned error exit status 1
Errors were encountered while processing:
 eudev
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)
root@devuan3:/etc/apt# 

I then recalled that (on this installation) at one time last year I had some hassle in dmesg with respect to group kvm:

--- snip ---
[   14.484174] udevd[395]: specified group 'kvm' unknown
--- snip ---

See https://dev1galaxy.org/viewtopic.php?id=3850

... which I solved by simply creating the %&/$*~ group but in turn originated the eudev problem.

I removed the offending kvm group and all is well:

root@devuan3:~# apt update && apt install -f && apt upgrade
Hit:1 http://deb.devuan.org/merged beowulf InRelease
Hit:2 http://deb.devuan.org/merged beowulf-security InRelease
Hit:3 http://deb.devuan.org/merged beowulf-updates InRelease
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
All packages are up to date.
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
Calculating upgrade... Done
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
root@devuan3:~# 

Maybe at the 3.1 point release the kvm issue got fixed and it does not show up in dmesg.
I'll check and add the info later on.

Cheers,

A.

Altoid

Member

Registered: 2017-05-07

Posts: 1,592  

Re: [SOLVED] Heads up: dpkg error -> caused by added kvm group

Hello:

I'll check and add the info later on.

It seems that basic common sense prevailed, most probably within the Devuan maintainers/packagers. (Thanks!)

ie: no quemu package installed? Then no kvm device node or group needs to be added to the system.
Elementary ...

groucho@devuan3:~$ sudo dmesg | grep -i eudev
[    1.445705] udevd[94]: starting eudev-3.2.9
[   14.557986] udevd[391]: starting eudev-3.2.9

groucho@devuan3:~$ sudo dmesg | grep kvm
groucho@devuan3:~$ sudo dmesg | grep unknown
groucho@devuan3:~$ 

Cheers,

A.

Last edited by Altoid (2021-02-21 14:52:22)

fsmithred

Administrator

Registered: 2016-11-25

Posts: 2,501  

Re: [SOLVED] Heads up: dpkg error -> caused by added kvm group

Thanks. They're working on it.
https://bugs.devuan.org/cgi/bugreport.cgi?bug=548

Altoid

Member

Registered: 2017-05-07

Posts: 1,592  

Re: [SOLVED] Heads up: dpkg error -> caused by added kvm group

Hello:

Thanks.

You're welcome ...

They're working on it.

As far as I can understand, it is already fixed.
I had added the kvm group to the system in order to get rid of this complaint in dmesg:

--- snip ---
[   14.484174] udevd[395]: specified group 'kvm' unknown
--- snip ---

It was caused by a bug in PR 5597 that created a kvm node in Debian independently of quemu being installed.
So a bug was filed.

See https://github.com/systemd/systemd/issues/6360

But an argument in favour of this being a necessary feature and not a bug was put forth by head dick Poettering:

Anyway, I am very sure that /dev/kvm should be considered a standard system concept now, sharedby apps, and generic enough to be set up by systemd properly. I hope this makes some sense, and will close this now...

So I added the (unnecessary) kvm group and the dmesg complaint was no more.

But on a dist-upgrade to my ASCII I got the error in the OP and the error went away after I removed the unnecesary and non-system kvm group.

So, it seems that Devuan 3.1 does not create a kvm node and group by default, independently of quemu (or any other software) being installed.
Which is (if I understood correctly) how the principle of modularization works.

ie: a device node and group are created as needed by the software and not by default on installation of the OS.

Did I get this right?

Thanks in advance,

A.