weird anacron issue

[joealuminium]

Hi,

I've just installed SparkyLinux (SparkyLinux 7.3)on my main PC and I had a weird issue with anacron.
It didn't appear to do anything.

I had set up a couple of backup scripts one in /etc/cron.daily and one in /etc/cron.monthly they work fine and run as they should with run-parts /etc/cron.daily but not when invoked by anacron, nothing happens. No timestamp files were created in /var/spool/anacron.

When I ran anacron -u from the command line again no timestamp files were created. After a bit of digging and removing and installing anacron I discovered that /usr/sbin/anacron was a symbolic link to /bin/true and there was a file in /usr/sbin called anacron.orig.anacron. When I removed anacron from the system the file /usr/sbin/anacron.orig.anacron was removed. It reappeared when I installed anacron.

I removed the symbolic link from /usr/sbin/anacron to /bin/true and created a symbolic link to anacron.orig.anacron and now everything appears to work.

Is this intentional? A known issue? or an oversight.     

Cheers

[pgf]

I think this is the same bug that's been discussed for a different distro, over here: 
  https://dev1galaxy.org/viewtopic.php?id=5096

It seems that the live install does a "diversion" of anacron, and replaces it with a symlink to /bin/true, and I'm guessing that that doesn't get cleaned up properly.

Running the command:

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dpkg-divert --list| grep live-configgives a single line of output:

Code Select Expand

diversion of /usr/sbin/anacron to /usr/sbin/anacron.orig.anacron by live-config

It seems that the live install leaves behind a debian "diversion" of /usr/sbin/anacron, which causes it to install the anacron binary to /usr/sbin/anacron.orig.anacron instead.

I only partly understand all of this, but I think this will work:

To fix this, first:

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    sudo dpkg-divert --remove /usr/sbin/anacron
Then install the anacron package.

If anacron was already installed, then instead, you'll need to move the anacron binary to its proper place:

Code Select Expand

    sudo mv /usr/sbin/anacron.orig.anacron /usr/sbin/anacron


[pgf]

By the way, I encountered this problem doing an install from the 2024.08 live USB.  So it's still in the latest release.

[joealuminium]

I got this problem again installing 7.5 so it is still an issue I've just been through the process of tracking down why anacron wasn't running any of my cron.daily jobs and found the  symbolic link to /bin/true. Only after doing this did I remember I went through this earlier this year. I've slept since then and I  got my bus pass this year!

I should have looked on here first.

I have put it in my install check list notes along with /etc/default/grub having GRUB_DISABLE_OS_PROBER=false, so other (dual boot) OS are not discovered.