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Iam tasked to install the Privacy Preserving Identity Management Shibboleth on our Ubuntu Server. In order to complete the setup i needed to purge an old standard installation of the Service Provider Package (libapache2-mod-shib2) and install a new one provided by "SWITCH" Authentication and Authorization Infrastructure (https://www.switch.ch/aai/guides/sp/installation/?os=ubuntu).

If i try to install the new package i get the following error:

service@emdlw:~$ sudo apt-get install shibboleth
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have
requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable
distribution that some required packages have not yet been created
or been moved out of Incoming.
The following information may help to resolve the situation:

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
 shibboleth : Depends: shibboleth-sp2-utils (>= 2.6.0)
              Recommends: libapache2-mod-shib2 (>= 2.6.0) but it is not going to be installed
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.

After some research i followed the solutions of How do I resolve unmet dependencies after adding a PPA? but none helped to resolve my issue.

My guess is that the apt packetmanager is broken because the package "shibboleth-sp2-utils" seems to be still installed but cant be removed or updated in order to resolve the dependencie error:

service@emdlw:~$ sudo apt-get install shibboleth-sp2-utils
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have
requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable
distribution that some required packages have not yet been created
or been moved out of Incoming.
The following information may help to resolve the situation:

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
 shibboleth-sp2-utils : Depends: libshibsp-plugins (= 2.6.0+dfsg1-3switchaai2~trusty1) but it is not going to be installed
                        Depends: libsystemd-daemon0 (>= 31) but it is not installable
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.

Output cat /etc/apt/sources.list:

service@emdlw:~$ cat /etc/apt/sources.list
#

# deb cdrom:[Ubuntu-Server 16.04 LTS _Xenial Xerus_ - Release amd64 (20160420.3)]/ xenial main restricted

# deb cdrom:[Ubuntu-Server 16.04 LTS _Xenial Xerus_ - Release amd64 (20160420.3)]/ xenial main restricted

# See http://help.ubuntu.com/community/UpgradeNotes for how to upgrade to
# newer versions of the distribution.
deb http://de.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ xenial main restricted
# deb-src http://de.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ xenial main restricted

## Major bug fix updates produced after the final release of the
## distribution.
deb http://de.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ xenial-updates main restricted
# deb-src http://de.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ xenial-updates main restricted

## N.B. software from this repository is ENTIRELY UNSUPPORTED by the Ubuntu
## team, and may not be under a free licence. Please satisfy yourself as to
## your rights to use the software. Also, please note that software in
## universe WILL NOT receive any review or updates from the Ubuntu security
## team.
deb http://de.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ xenial universe
# deb-src http://de.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ xenial universe
deb http://de.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ xenial-updates universe
# deb-src http://de.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ xenial-updates universe

## N.B. software from this repository is ENTIRELY UNSUPPORTED by the Ubuntu
## team, and may not be under a free licence. Please satisfy yourself as to
## your rights to use the software. Also, please note that software in
## multiverse WILL NOT receive any review or updates from the Ubuntu
## security team.
deb http://de.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ xenial multiverse
# deb-src http://de.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ xenial multiverse
deb http://de.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ xenial-updates multiverse
# deb-src http://de.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ xenial-updates multiverse

## N.B. software from this repository may not have been tested as
## extensively as that contained in the main release, although it includes
## newer versions of some applications which may provide useful features.
## Also, please note that software in backports WILL NOT receive any review
## or updates from the Ubuntu security team.
deb http://de.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ xenial-backports main restricted universe multiverse
# deb-src http://de.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ xenial-backports main restricted universe multiverse

## Uncomment the following two lines to add software from Canonical's
## 'partner' repository.
## This software is not part of Ubuntu, but is offered by Canonical and the
## respective vendors as a service to Ubuntu users.
# deb http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu xenial partner
# deb-src http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu xenial partner

deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial-security main restricted
# deb-src http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial-security main restricted
deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial-security universe
# deb-src http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial-security universe
deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial-security multiverse
# deb-src http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial-security multiverse

Output cat /etc/apt/sources.list.d/*:

service@emdlw:~$ cat /etc/apt/sources.list.d/*
deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/ondrej/php5-oldstable/ubuntu xenial main
# deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/ondrej/php5-oldstable/ubuntu xenial main
# deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/ondrej/php5-oldstable/ubuntu xenial main
deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/ondrej/php5-oldstable/ubuntu xenial main
# deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/ondrej/php5-oldstable/ubuntu xenial main
# deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/ondrej/php5-oldstable/ubuntu xenial main
deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/ondrej/php/ubuntu xenial main
# deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/ondrej/php/ubuntu xenial main
# deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/ondrej/php/ubuntu xenial main
# deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/ondrej/php/ubuntu xenial main
# deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/ondrej/php/ubuntu xenial main
# deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/ondrej/php/ubuntu xenial main
# deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/ondrej/php/ubuntu xenial main
deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/ondrej/php/ubuntu xenial main
# deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/ondrej/php/ubuntu xenial main
# deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/ondrej/php/ubuntu xenial main
# deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/ondrej/php/ubuntu xenial main
# deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/ondrej/php/ubuntu xenial main
# deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/ondrej/php/ubuntu xenial main
# deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/ondrej/php/ubuntu xenial main
deb http://pkg.switch.ch/switchaai/ubuntu trusty main
deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/webupd8team/java/ubuntu xenial main
# deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/webupd8team/java/ubuntu xenial main

Does anybody have advice on how the fix the issue? Any help would be appreciated.

  • Eric
E. Jansen
  • 1

2 Answers2

0

sudo apt-get --purge autoremove

removes orphaned packages, i.e. installed packages that used to be installed as an dependency, but aren't any longer. Use this after removing a package which had installed dependencies you're no longer interested in.

IT-Consultant
  • 1
  • Ive run "sudo apt-get --purge autoremove" and got the same dependency error - I am rather at a loss. Do you have any other ideas? – E. Jansen Apr 24 '18 at 12:48
0

The above answers didn't change anything for me. What worked was sudo dpkg --purge <package>. This also worked for broken packages which weren't installed, e.g.

pB  libnspr4-0d

Note: dpkg threw a warning, but the broken package disappeared from the list (if another one appears, repeat until done).

Steve Almond
  • 101