"Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages" while installing NFS server

Question

I am trying to install an NFS server on my Ubuntu 12.04 machine but everytime it gives me an error like this:

david@machineA:~$ sudo apt-get install nfs-common nfs-kernel-server
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
nfs-common is already the newest version.
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:
 nfs-kernel-server : Depends: nfs-common (= 1:1.2.5-3ubuntu3) but 1:1.2.5-3ubuntu3.1 is to be installed
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.

Below is the output of lsb_release -a:

david@machineA:~$ lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description:    Ubuntu 12.04 LTS
Release:        12.04
Codename:       precise

Is there anything wrong I am doing? How can I resolve this issue?

did you try running sudo apt-get update first (and then install nfs) — Panther, Feb 08 '15 at 23:58
Yeah, the required and provided package versions only differ by one minor Ubuntu patch number. Looks like something what would happen intermittently. The version number is up to 1:1.2.5-3ubuntu3.2 now btw. — David Foerster, Feb 09 '15 at 00:04
I did that already sudo apt-get update first and then tried installing nfs. — arsenal, Feb 09 '15 at 00:04
Try updating at least a 2nd time. If that doesn't/didn't help, download nfs-common and nfs-kernel-server manually in the latest version for your architecture from https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/precise/+source/nfs-utils and install them with dpkg -i. — David Foerster, Feb 09 '15 at 00:21
Possible duplicate of Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages — karel, Aug 15 '19 at 08:02

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Feb 09 '15 at 00:55

0

Try running the following commands in this order:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install nfs-kernel-server

This will basically force the package cache to be updated, as well as upgrade other system utilities.

A problem you may be having is that you're specifying nfs-common, which gets the latest version. IIRC, apt will fulfill all dependencies (versions included) automagically, but forcing the install of nfs-common installs a too-new version of it.

answered Feb 09 '15 at 00:55

Kaz Wolfe

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Still the same issue after I followed the above steps. :( – arsenal Feb 09 '15 at 02:34
best to file a bug report and let the packager fix the dependencies. – Panther Feb 09 '15 at 03:39

"Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages" while installing NFS server

1 Answers1