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I have a Linux-Mint Debian Edition System. When I install sendmail I get an infinite loop.

Reading configuration from /etc/mail/sendmail.conf.
Validating configuration.
Creating /etc/mail/databases...
Reading configuration from /etc/mail/sendmail.conf.
Validating configuration.
Creating /etc/mail/databases...

When I try dpkg --configure -a it is the same.

Now I want to simple remove sendmail from the installation queue - but I can't simply do that, because apt-get always wants to configure sendmail first.

Is there a way to force apt-get to remove sendmail or set it to "configured" - even though the package is not properly configured?

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  • Maybe just a dpkg -r sendmail or dpkg -P sendmail will do it. The difference between -r and -P is that the last one will remove the whole programm including configuration.
    – noggerl
    Oct 29, 2013 at 9:06
  • The problem is - sendmail is not really installed... So dpkg -r sendmail dpkg -P sendmail does nothing. Maybe I should rephrase my question...
    – madflow
    Oct 29, 2013 at 9:10
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    It seems there are some problems with your local package database. Normally the installation of sendmail works quite well. So no it get's a little bit in guessing the error. With dpkg -l you can get a list of installed packages, with the packagname afterwards you can limit the output, in your case it would be dpkg -l "*sendmail*". Whats the output?
    – noggerl
    Oct 29, 2013 at 9:11
  • pastebin.com/Mpr1EVVG (Sorry - in german)
    – madflow
    Oct 29, 2013 at 9:21
  • According to "superuser.com/questions/428048/…" it just looks like the documentation is not fully installed, normally this happens in the apt-get install process right after the package-installation. I dont know if that's the cause but you can try apt-get install -f which should finish the installation of the sendmail documentation. But this is also just a little bit guessing. My Ubuntu installations tells me that sendmail-doc is only a recommended package so without trying i can't tell if the state is maybe right.
    – noggerl
    Oct 29, 2013 at 9:50

1 Answer 1

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It is a bug and logged in http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=717951

They have since fixed the bug, but if you currently are stuck in the infinite loop, that doesn't do you a ton of good. In the response to the bug, user Flo posts a workaround where you change the update_db file, this worked for me:

    $diff update_db update_db.orig 
479,480c479,482
<               str=$(echo "$line" | head -n 1);
<               line=$(echo "$line" | tail -n +2);
---
>               str=$(echo "$line" | cut -d -f 1);
>               line=$(echo "$line" | cut -d -f 2-);

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