Install of apt package is failing

[meatwad]

Hi. I'm just getting started with elastic and am having an issue installing the package from the apt repo. Here's the output:

Fri 28 Sep 19:24:00
root@elastic [~]

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install elasticsearch

Hit:1 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic InRelease
Get:2 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic-security InRelease [83.2 kB]
Ign:3 https://artifacts.elastic.co/packages/6.x/apt stable InRelease
Get:4 https://artifacts.elastic.co/packages/6.x/apt stable Release [4,360 B]
Get:5 https://artifacts.elastic.co/packages/6.x/apt stable Release.gpg [473 B]
Get:6 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic-updates InRelease [88.7 kB]
Get:7 https://artifacts.elastic.co/packages/6.x/apt stable/main amd64 Packages [27.0 kB]
Get:8 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic-updates/main amd64 Packages [388 kB]
Fetched 591 kB in 1s (397 kB/s)
Reading package lists... Done
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following NEW packages will be installed:
elasticsearch
0 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 97.9 MB of archives.
After this operation, 151 MB of additional disk space will be used.
Get:1 https://artifacts.elastic.co/packages/6.x/apt stable/main amd64 elasticsearch all 6.4.1 [97.9 MB]
Fetched 97.9 MB in 5s (20.8 MB/s)
Selecting previously unselected package elasticsearch.
(Reading database ... 102199 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack .../elasticsearch_6.4.1_all.deb ...
dpkg: error processing archive /var/cache/apt/archives/elasticsearch_6.4.1_all.deb (--unpack):
new elasticsearch package pre-installation script subprocess returned error exit status 1
Errors were encountered while processing:
/var/cache/apt/archives/elasticsearch_6.4.1_all.deb
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

This is a dedicated ubuntu 18.04.1 KVM VM that I just spun up and has plenty of space storage so that's not the issue:

df -h /var

Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/mapper/ubuntu--vg-ubuntu--lv 115G 2.1G 113G 2% /

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

[meatwad]

OK, I found what the problem is. I extracted the .deb and in DEBIAN/preinst, if it doesn't find java, it just exits with an error code of 1 (the 'echo' statements are never displayed, the install just fails).

I added 'default-jre' to the Depends line of DEBIAN/control:

Depends: bash, libc6, adduser, coreutils, default-jre

Then rebuilt the .deb. It installs successfully if the default-jre package is already installed and installs it as a dependency if it's not:

apt-get install ./elasticsearch-6.4.1-mine.deb

Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Note, selecting 'elasticsearch' instead of './elasticsearch-6.4.1-mine.deb'
The following additional packages will be installed:
default-jre
Suggested packages:
default-java-plugin
The following NEW packages will be installed:
default-jre elasticsearch
0 upgraded, 2 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 1,092 B/82.4 MB of archives.
After this operation, 151 MB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n]
Get:1 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic/main amd64 default-jre amd64 2:1.10-63ubuntu1~02 [1,092 B]
Get:2 /tmp/elasticsearch-6.4.1-mine.deb elasticsearch all 6.4.1 [82.4 MB]
Fetched 1,092 B in 1s (867 B/s)
Selecting previously unselected package default-jre.
(Reading database ... 116894 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack .../default-jre_2%3a1.10-63ubuntu1~02_amd64.deb ...
Unpacking default-jre (2:1.10-63ubuntu1~02) ...
Selecting previously unselected package elasticsearch.
Preparing to unpack /tmp/elasticsearch-6.4.1-mine.deb ...
Creating elasticsearch group... OK
Creating elasticsearch user... OK
Unpacking elasticsearch (6.4.1) ...
Processing triggers for ureadahead (0.100.0-20) ...
Setting up default-jre (2:1.10-63ubuntu1~02) ...
Setting up elasticsearch (6.4.1) ...
Created elasticsearch keystore in /etc/elasticsearch
Processing triggers for systemd (237-3ubuntu10.3) ...
Processing triggers for ureadahead (0.100.0-20) ...

I know you probably don't want to necessarily lock users into using the default-jre package but if they're going through the trouble of installing the elasticsearch package from the repo, that's probably what they'll want to install anyway.

Cheers

[rjernst (Ryan Ernst)]

Thanks for reporting this. We are aware of the issue and plan to do something about it. See the comments in https://github.com/elastic/elasticsearch/issues/31845