Unexpected Prompt About PackageKit Restart When Installing Wazuh Agent DEB After apt purge

[vikman90]

Parent Issue: #241

Description

After completely removing the Wazuh Agent DEB package using apt purge, reinstalling the package triggers an unexpected prompt during the installation process. The prompt asks whether the packagekit service should be restarted. This behavior is unusual and not expected during the installation of the Wazuh Agent.

Expected Behavior

• Installing the Wazuh Agent DEB package should proceed without any prompts related to packagekit or unrelated services.

Steps to Reproduce

1. Install the Wazuh Agent DEB package:

   sudo apt install ./wazuh-agent_x.x.x_xxx.deb

2. Remove the package completely:

   sudo apt purge wazuh-agent

3. Reinstall the same package:

   sudo apt install ./wazuh-agent_x.x.x_xxx.deb

4. Observe the unexpected prompt about restarting the packagekit service.

Root Cause Hypothesis

This behavior might be linked to:

1. Incorrect dependencies or hooks included in the DEB package.
2. An unexpected interaction with systemd service management during the installation process.

Tasks

1. Investigate the package metadata and scripts (preinst, postinst, etc.) to identify any triggers or dependencies related to packagekit.
2. Verify if the packagekit service is being incorrectly referenced or affected during the package installation.
3. Adjust the package configuration to eliminate the prompt unless absolutely necessary.
4. Test the updated package to ensure the prompt no longer appears.

[jotacarma90]

Update 25/11/2024

• Researching packagekit
• Problem reproduced very easily.
• Researching possible triggers related to packagekit:
  • I have read that it could be the modification or use of the following path:
    • /usr/lib/
    • /etc/dbus-1/system.d/
    • /etc/
  • Could be related to libc-bin
• Testing different changes in postinst script.

Update 26/11/2024

• On ubuntu24 the problem does not appear (the packagekit service restarts sometimes, but it does not ask for confirmation and promt does not appear asking to accept the restart).
• On ubuntu22 it does appear the promt asking for confirmation, I have been trying different things to try to solve it, using these environment variables:
  • DEBIAN_FRONTEND
  • NEEDRESTART_MODE
• Detected file that is not deleted after uninstallation, /etc/ld.so.conf.d/wazuh-agentlibs.conf, in principle does not seem related to this problem.
• Continue testing.

Update 27/11/2024

• Check different behavior in Ubuntu 24 for needrestart: https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/needrestart-changes-in-ubuntu-24-04-service-restarts/44671
• Tested more options.
• The flow of the prompt occurs by:
  • It is necessary to restart packagekit.
    • This is due to the use of ldconfig, and specifically because of the trigger related to libc-bin:

2024-11-27 12:07:11 trigproc libc-bin:amd64 2.35-0ubuntu3.8 <none>
2024-11-27 12:07:11 status half-configured libc-bin:amd64 2.35-0ubuntu3.8
2024-11-27 12:07:11 status installed libc-bin:amd64 2.35-0ubuntu3.8

• This is handled by the needrestart process which is run as a trigger after the installation of the wazuh package (it happens even after the SPECS postinst script).

• By default, it is set to interactive, but it can be changed to automatic in two different ways:

  • Using the envvar NEEDRESTART_MODE=a but we could only do it in the installation run itself:
    NEEDRESTART_MODE=a sudo -E apt install ./wazuh-agent_5.0.0-0_amd64_c2432b1dc.deb

  • Modifying the needrestart config (globally to the system), we can do it in the postinst script, but we leave that configuration modified:
    echo '$nrconf{restart} = “a”;' > /etc/needrestart/conf.d/no-prompt.conf

• Link with related info: Deactivate temporally needrestart during a system upgrade liske/needrestart#71

• At the moment we have those two options:

  • Add the envvar in the install command.
  • Modify the needrestart configuration globally while wazuh-agent is installed on the system.

• I have read about the possibility of also modifying those triggers I mentioned (specifically the needrestart one) to see if we can not affect the configuration.

Update 28/11/2024

• I have been trying to make sure that removing the use of ldconfig no longer brings up the packagekit restart, so we no longer have that annoying prompt.
• PR created: Remove ldconfig from wazuh-agent package #364
• Related issue to make the library static: Make static the libstdc++ library used in the wazuh-agent package #365

[jotacarma90]

This issue can be closed with: #375
By converting the libstdc++ library to static, it is no longer necessary to restart any process. The initial PR for this issue has been closed.