Unable to remove (ksh) package in Ubuntu 18.04 Bionic due to missing binfmt-support package

Written by Claudio Kuenzler - 0 comments

Published on August 11th 2022 - Listed in Linux

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On an Ubuntu 18.04 (Bionic), the following problem showed up when I was trying to remove a package (ksh) using apt:

root@bionic:~# apt-get remove ksh
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
The following packages will be REMOVED:
  ksh
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 1 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
After this operation, 3,384 kB disk space will be freed.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n] y
(Reading database ... 52797 files and directories currently installed.)
Removing ksh (93u+20120801-3.1ubuntu1) ...
/var/lib/dpkg/info/ksh.prerm: 11: /var/lib/dpkg/info/ksh.prerm: update-binfmts: not found
dpkg: error processing package ksh (--remove):
 installed ksh package pre-removal script subprocess returned error exit status 127
Errors were encountered while processing:
 ksh
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

A deb package pre-removal (pkg.prerm) script

The failure comes from the so-called Debian package pre-remove (prerm) definition. This is a shell script launched before the package's files are deleted from the system:

root@bionic:~# cat /var/lib/dpkg/info/ksh.prerm
#!/bin/sh

set -e

case "$1" in
    remove|deconfigure)
        update-alternatives --remove ksh /bin/ksh93
    # remove compatibility symlink if broken
    test '!' -h /usr/bin/ksh || test -e /usr/bin/ksh || rm -f /usr/bin/ksh

    update-binfmts --package ksh --remove ksh /bin/ksh93
    ;;

    upgrade|failed-upgrade)
    ;;

    *)
        echo "prerm called with unknown argument \`$1'" >&2
        exit 0
    ;;
esac



exit 0

The pre-removal script of the ksh package wants to run the update-binfmts command. But update-binfmts can cause problems in LXC containers, hence this package was removed a while ago:

root@bionic:~# dpkg -l|grep binfmt
rc  binfmt-support      2.1.8-2         amd64        Support for extra binary formats

This missing command now leads to an error inside the pre-removal script of the ksh package. Because it uses set -e, it fails and exits immediately. apt receives the error exit code and stops the package removal. apt now runs into a situation which cannot be fixed by itself.

Fixing the pre-removal script

In this situation, the pre-removal script of the affected package needs to be adjusted. By commenting (disabling) the update-binfmts command, the pre-removal script should run through just fine and allow the removal of the package:

root@bionic:~# sed -i "s/update-binfmts/#update-binfmts/" /var/lib/dpkg/info/ksh.prerm
root@bionic:~# cat /var/lib/dpkg/info/ksh.prerm | grep binfmt
    #update-binfmts --package ksh --remove ksh /bin/ksh93

root@bionic:~# apt-get remove ksh
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
The following packages will be REMOVED:
  ksh
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 1 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
After this operation, 3,384 kB disk space will be freed.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n] y
(Reading database ... 52797 files and directories currently installed.)
Removing ksh (93u+20120801-3.1ubuntu1) ...
Processing triggers for man-db (2.8.3-2ubuntu0.1) ...

root@bionic:~# dpkg -l|grep ksh
rc  ksh   93u+20120801-3.1ubuntu1    amd64    Real, AT&T version of the Korn shell

 

Voilà, ksh package now successfully removed.

This method (fixing/adjusting the pre-removal script) should also apply to other packages which require certain (non-existant) commands.

What about newer ksh packages?

The problem described above happend with the ksh package in Ubuntu 18.04 (Bionic). Taking a look at the ksh package in Ubuntu 20.04 (Focal), this problem should not occur in Ubuntu 20.04 anymore. The pre-removal script now contains a check, that the update-binfmts command actually exists:

     if command -v update-binfmts >/dev/null; then
        test -e /var/lib/binfmts/ksh && \
            update-binfmts --package ksh --remove ksh \
            /bin/ksh || true
    fi

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