Bug#913925: debsums incorrectly reports package as not installed

[Axel Beckert]

Control: tag -1 + moreinfo

Hi,

thanks for the bug report.

bss at iguanasuicide.net wrote:
> % sudo debsums -s spamassassin
> debsums: package spamassassin is not installed
> % apt-cache policy spamassassin
> spamassassin:
>   Installed: 3.4.2-1~deb9u1
>   Candidate: 3.4.2-1~deb9u1
>   Version table:
>      3.4.2-1 700
>         700 http://mirrors.gandi.net/debian buster/main amd64 Packages
>         500 http://mirrors.gandi.net/debian sid/main amd64 Packages
>  *** 3.4.2-1~deb9u1 900
>         900 http://mirrors.gandi.net/debian stretch/main amd64 Packages
>         100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

Please send us the output of "dpkg -l spamassassin".

I suspect that the spamassassin is either not configured or half
installed or in another way not fully installed.

> Clearly, either apt-cache or debsums is wrong, and since spamassassin just
> scanned the last mail traveling through this server, I'm betting debsums is
> wrong.

Partially. That error message likely lacks the word "properly" or
"fully". because debsums up to 2.2.2 is known to report packages whose
"dpkg -l" output doesn't start with "ii" as "not installed". Hence my
suspicion that the package is not in the expected state.

This suspected issue has been fixed with debsums 2.2.3 (currently in
buster and sid). From the 2.2.3 changelog entry:

  * Also allow half-configured packages to be checked.

		Regards, Axel
-- 
 ,''`.  |  Axel Beckert <abe at debian.org>, https://people.debian.org/~abe/
: :' :  |  Debian Developer, ftp.ch.debian.org Admin
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