[plug] Attempt to upgrade mailserver failed

[Bret Busby]

Below is the output of the failed upgrade.

mailserver is running Debian 4.0 (etch), and is running fetchmail to get 
mail, and postfix as the MTA. fetchmail has been previously running as a 
daemon, checking for messages every 15 minutes (900 seconds)

The system update/upgrade was attempted as, after a power failure 
yesterday (Sunday 11 February 2007), and having performed an orderly 
shutdown of the mailserver on UPS power backup, after later rebooting 
the mailserver, and then running the daemon to resume downloading 
messages, fetchmail no longer functions as a daemon, and has to be run 
manually, returning an error when run as a daemon. The daemon downloaded 
155 messages, when first run after rebooting, and then collapsed, and no 
longer functions. The system time of the mailserver is wrong in the 
excerpt from fetchmail.log below - this happened around 1730-1800 
yesterday (Sunday 11 February). The system time was corrected after the 
time of the fetchmail.log excerpt incident below, but fetchmail still 
fails to operate as a daemon.

The error message from fetchmail.log is

"
fetchmail: reading message (<username>)@mail.busby.net:155 of 155 
(3245 octets) fetchmail:  flushed
fetchmail: sleeping at Mon Feb 12 01:40:45 2007
fetchmail: awakened at Mon Feb 12 01:55:45 2007
fetchmail: Server CommonName mismatch: localhost != mail.busby.net
fetchmail: Server CommonName mismatch: localhost != mail.busby.net
fetchmail: sleeping at Mon Feb 12 01:56:05 2007
fetchmail: awakened at Mon Feb 12 02:11:05 2007
fetchmail: Server CommonName mismatch: localhost != mail.busby.net
fetchmail: Server CommonName mismatch: localhost != mail.busby.net

"

The hosting ISP support person told me that the above error is not 
fatal, and I was able to download messages (this evening) running 
fetchmail manually.

The protocol for the ISP mail server is set to POP3 in the fetchmail.rc 
file.

The output from the failed system upgrade attempt, is below.

Can someone please explain to me, why fetchmail no longer can operate as 
a daemon, and why the system upgrade attempt failed? The packages that 
are withheld from the system upgrade, include the critical utilities, 
such as fetchmail, postfix, and apt. Why these are withheld, would also 
be useful to know.

Thanks in anticipation

--
Bret Busby
Armadale
West Australia
..............

"So once you do know what the question actually is,
  you'll know what the answer means."
- Deep Thought,
   Chapter 28 of Book 1 of
   "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:
   A Trilogy In Four Parts",
   written by Douglas Adams,
   published by Pan Books, 1992

....................................................

mailserver:~# apt-get update
Get:1 http://ftp.au.debian.org testing Release.gpg [189B]
Get:2 http://ftp.au.debian.org testing Release [74.4kB]
Ign http://ftp.au.debian.org testing Release
Get:3 http://ftp.au.debian.org testing/main Packages [5669kB]
Get:4 http://ftp.wa.au.debian.org testing Release.gpg [189B]
Get:5 http://secure-testing.debian.net etch/security-updates Release.gpg 
[189B]
Get:6 http://ftp.wa.au.debian.org testing Release [74.4kB]
Hit http://secure-testing.debian.net etch/security-updates Release
Hit http://secure-testing.debian.net etch/security-updates/main Packages
Hit http://secure-testing.debian.net etch/security-updates/contrib 
Packages
Hit http://secure-testing.debian.net etch/security-updates/non-free 
Packages
Ign http://ftp.wa.au.debian.org testing Release
Get:7 http://ftp.wa.au.debian.org testing/main Packages [5669kB]
Get:8 http://ftp.wa.au.debian.org testing/non-free Packages [102kB]
Get:9 http://ftp.wa.au.debian.org testing/contrib Packages [69.8kB]
Get:10 http://ftp.au.debian.org testing/non-free Packages [102kB]
Get:11 http://ftp.au.debian.org testing/contrib Packages [69.8kB]
Fetched 11.8MB in 4m38s (42.5kB/s)
Reading package lists... Done
W: GPG error: http://ftp.au.debian.org testing Release: The following 
signatures couldn't be verified because the public key is not available: 
NO_PUBKEY A70DAF536070D3A1
W: GPG error: http://ftp.wa.au.debian.org testing Release: The following 
signatures couldn't be verified because the public key is not available: 
NO_PUBKEY A70DAF536070D3A1
W: You may want to run apt-get update to correct these problems
mailserver:~# apt-get update
Get:1 http://ftp.au.debian.org testing Release.gpg [189B]
Hit http://ftp.au.debian.org testing Release
Err http://ftp.au.debian.org testing Release

Get:2 http://ftp.au.debian.org testing Release [74.4kB]
Ign http://ftp.au.debian.org testing Release
Hit http://ftp.au.debian.org testing/main Packages
Hit http://ftp.au.debian.org testing/non-free Packages
Hit http://ftp.au.debian.org testing/contrib Packages
Get:3 http://ftp.wa.au.debian.org testing Release.gpg [189B]
Hit http://ftp.wa.au.debian.org testing Release
Err http://ftp.wa.au.debian.org testing Release

Get:4 http://ftp.wa.au.debian.org testing Release [74.4kB]
Get:5 http://secure-testing.debian.net etch/security-updates Release.gpg 
[189B]
Ign http://ftp.wa.au.debian.org testing Release
Hit http://ftp.wa.au.debian.org testing/main Packages
Hit http://ftp.wa.au.debian.org testing/non-free Packages
Hit http://ftp.wa.au.debian.org testing/contrib Packages
Hit http://secure-testing.debian.net etch/security-updates Release
Hit http://secure-testing.debian.net etch/security-updates/main Packages
Hit http://secure-testing.debian.net etch/security-updates/contrib 
Packages
Hit http://secure-testing.debian.net etch/security-updates/non-free 
Packages
Fetched 149kB in 18s (8173B/s)
Reading package lists... Done
W: GPG error: http://ftp.au.debian.org testing Release: The following 
signatures couldn't be verified because the public key is not available: 
NO_PUBKEY A70DAF536070D3A1
W: GPG error: http://ftp.wa.au.debian.org testing Release: The following 
signatures couldn't be verified because the public key is not available: 
NO_PUBKEY A70DAF536070D3A1
W: You may want to run apt-get update to correct these problems
mailserver:~# apt-get upgrade
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
The following packages have been kept back:
   apt apt-utils aptitude bash bsdmainutils bsdutils console-tools 
coreutils cpio cron debianutils dhcp-client dmidecode dpkg dselect 
e2fslibs e2fsprogs
   fdutils fetchmail findutils gcc-4.1-base gettext-base gnupg grep 
groff-base gzip hostname ifupdown info initscripts iptables klogd 
libacl1 libblkid1
   libbz2-1.0 libc6 libcomerr2 libconsole libdb3 libdb4.2 libdb4.3 
libgcc1 libgcrypt11 libgdbm3 libgpg-error0 libkrb53 libldap2 libncurses5 
libncursesw5
   libopencdk8 libpam-modules libpam0g libpcap0.8 libpcre3 libpopt0 
libreadline5 libsasl2 libselinux1 libsepol1 libsigc++-2.0-0c2a libslang2 
libssl0.9.7
   libssl0.9.8 libstdc++2.10-glibc2.2 libstdc++5 libstdc++6 
libtext-charwidth-perl libtext-iconv-perl libuuid1 libwrap0 lilo login 
lynx man-db mbr modutils
   mount nano ncurses-bin netbase netkit-ping nvi openssh-client 
openssh-server openssl passwd pciutils perl-base postfix ppp pppoe 
procmail procps psmisc
   sed sysklogd syslinux sysvinit tar tasksel tcpd telnet telnetd 
util-linux wget whiptail zlib1g
The following packages will be upgraded:
   adduser console-common console-data debconf debconf-i18n fileutils 
gcc-3.3-base libpam-runtime libss2 libtext-wrapi18n-perl libusb-0.1-4 
logrotate
   lsb-base makedev manpages modconf ncurses-base pppconfig pppoeconf 
readline-common shellutils ssh ssl-cert sysv-rc textutils
25 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 107 not upgraded.
Need to get 2064kB/4077kB of archives.
After unpacking 1331kB disk space will be freed.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]? y
WARNING: The following packages cannot be authenticated!
   ncurses-base textutils libtext-wrapi18n-perl debconf-i18n debconf 
console-data lsb-base console-common fileutils shellutils libpam-runtime 
libss2 sysv-rc
   adduser libusb-0.1-4 logrotate manpages readline-common makedev 
gcc-3.3-base modconf pppconfig pppoeconf ssl-cert ssh
Install these packages without verification [y/N]? n
E: Some packages could not be authenticated
mailserver:~#


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