[Pkg-mailman-hackers] Bug#513988: mailman/bin/update fails, but postinst ignores error

[Lionel Elie Mamane]

Package: mailman
Version: 1:2.1.11-9
Severity: important

The postinst runs the mailman "update" when upgrading. It failed, but
the postinst exited successfully, ignoring the error. Running
 sg list -c "umask 002; /usr/lib/mailman/bin/update;"
(as root) manually later worked just fine.

Here's the output of dpkg/postinst/... when upgrading:

Setting up mailman (1:2.1.11-9) ...
Installing new version of config file /etc/init.d/mailman ...
Installing site language cs ............................................ done.
Installing site language de ................................ done.
Installing site language en ............................................ done.
Installing site language fr ............................................. done.
Installing site language nl ............................................ done.
Installing site language pl ........................................... done.
Upgrading from version 0x20109f0 to 0x2010bf0
getting rid of old source files
Updating mailing list: mailman
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/lib/mailman/bin/update", line 774, in <module>
    errors = main()
  File "/usr/lib/mailman/bin/update", line 664, in main
    errors = errors + dolist(listname)
  File "/usr/lib/mailman/bin/update", line 194, in dolist
    mlist.Lock(0.5)
  File "/var/lib/mailman/Mailman/MailList.py", line 161, in Lock
    self.__lock.lock(timeout)
  File "/var/lib/mailman/Mailman/LockFile.py", line 243, in lock
    self.__write()
  File "/var/lib/mailman/Mailman/LockFile.py", line 422, in __write
    fp = open(self.__tmpfname, 'w')
IOError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: '/var/lib/mailman/locks/mailman.lock.tofu.14934.0'
Starting Mailman master qrunner: mailmanctl.


-- System Information:
Debian Release: 5.0
  APT prefers testing
  APT policy: (300, 'testing'), (200, 'unstable'), (1, 'experimental')
Architecture: i386 (i686)

Kernel: Linux 2.6.26-1-686 (SMP w/1 CPU core)
Locale: LANG=fr_LU.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=fr_LU.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash

Versions of packages mailman depends on:
ii  adduser                  3.110           add and remove users and groups
ii  apache2                  2.2.9-10+lenny2 Apache HTTP Server metapackage
ii  apache2-mpm-prefork [htt 2.2.9-10+lenny2 Apache HTTP Server - traditional n
ii  cron                     3.0pl1-105      management of regular background p
ii  debconf [debconf-2.0]    1.5.24          Debian configuration management sy
ii  exim4                    4.69-9          metapackage to ease Exim MTA (v4) 
ii  exim4-daemon-light [mail 4.69-9          lightweight Exim MTA (v4) daemon
ii  libc6                    2.7-18          GNU C Library: Shared libraries
ii  logrotate                3.7.1-5         Log rotation utility
ii  lsb-base                 3.2-20          Linux Standard Base 3.2 init scrip
ii  pwgen                    2.06-1          Automatic Password generation
ii  python                   2.5.2-3         An interactive high-level object-o
ii  python-support           0.8.4           automated rebuilding support for P
ii  ucf                      3.0014          Update Configuration File: preserv

mailman recommends no packages.

Versions of packages mailman suggests:
pn  listadmin                  <none>        (no description available)
ii  lynx                       2.8.7dev9-2.1 Text-mode WWW Browser (transitiona
pn  spamassassin               <none>        (no description available)

-- debconf information:
  mailman/update_passwords:
* mailman/site_languages: cs, de, en, fr, nl, pl
* mailman/used_languages: cs de en fr nl pl
* mailman/create_site_list:
* mailman/queue_files_present:
* mailman/default_server_language: en
* mailman/gate_news: false
  mailman/update_aliases: