Uninstalling a package from Ubuntu (sendmail-base) issue

Question

I am trying to uninstall sendmail-base package but failed. Is there any way to remove this?

root@server:~# apt-get remove --purge sendmail-base 
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
The following packages will be REMOVED:
  sendmail-base*
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 1 to remove and 3 not upgraded.
1 not fully installed or removed.
After this operation, 1,274kB disk space will be freed.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]? y
(Reading database ... 67543 files and directories currently installed.)
Removing sendmail-base ...
Can't locate DebianNet.pm in @INC (@INC contains: /etc/perl /usr/local/lib/perl/5.10.1 /usr/local/share/perl/5.10.1 /usr/lib/perl5 /usr/share/perl5 /usr/lib/perl/5.10 /usr/share/perl/5.10 /usr/local/lib/site_perl .) at /usr/sbin/update-inetd line 23.
dpkg: error processing sendmail-base (--purge):
 subprocess installed pre-removal script returned error exit status 2
Errors were encountered while processing:
 sendmail-base
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)



root@server# uname -a
Linux server 2.6.32-27-generic-pae #49-Ubuntu SMP Thu Dec 2 00:07:52 UTC 2010 i686 GNU/Linux



root@server# dpkg -l sendmail-base
Desired=Unknown/Install/Remove/Purge/Hold
| Status=Not/Inst/Cfg-files/Unpacked/Failed-cfg/Half-inst/trig-aWait/Trig-pend
|/ Err?=(none)/Reinst-required (Status,Err: uppercase=bad)
||/ Name                                      Version                                   Description
+++-=========================================-=========================================-==================================================================================================
pF  sendmail-base                             8.14.3-9.1ubuntu1                         powerful, efficient, and scalable Mail Transport Agent

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered May 23 '13 at 13:57

2

Can you find DebianNet.pm on your system?

Use apt-file search to find the package that provides that file, install that package and retry removing.

answered May 23 '13 at 13:57

ptman

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Yes i can. `apt-file search DebianNet.pm update-inetd: /usr/share/perl5/DebianNet.pm` – Diden May 23 '13 at 14:01
You probably want to install that package then, and retry the removal. – Cian May 23 '13 at 14:02
Thanks ! I found I did the following : apt-get install update-inetd && apt-get remove sendmail-base. Works great now! – Diden May 23 '13 at 14:06

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered May 23 '13 at 13:56

1

I'm not sure why that isn't working.Try using this command line:

sudo apt-get autoremove sendmail-base

This will autoremove the dependencies, then you can try to remove it again.

answered May 23 '13 at 13:56

user2180246

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score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Oct 17 '18 at 05:54

1

I had this problem since upgrade to ubuntu 18.10.

I had to combine above answers to fix the problem.

sudo apt autoremove sendmail-base && sudo apt install update-inetd && sudo apt remove sendmail-base

answered Oct 17 '18 at 05:54

Danny van der Knaap

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score 0 · Answer 4 · answered May 23 '13 at 13:56

0

This package seems to require Netbase (which includes DebianNet.pm) to run its uninstall script. You can install this, and the pre-removal script should run correctly.

answered May 23 '13 at 13:56

Cian

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Package is on the system. – Diden May 23 '13 at 14:03
Package is on the system. dpkg -l netbase Desired=Unknown/Install/Remove/Purge/Hold – Diden May 23 '13 at 14:03

Uninstalling a package from Ubuntu (sendmail-base) issue

4 Answers4