"polkitd.service is masked" warnings on package install while policykit-1 is unpacked but not yet configured

> The fix has been included for Ubuntu Vivid, need to be forward ported for Ubuntu Xenial

> https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/policykit-1/+bug/1447654

That is not the same bug. That bug refers to an install-time hang, which this is not.

Not sure how far down the stack this bug lies, but assigning initally to init-system-helpers, which is the maintainer script interface.

This happens because "policykit-1" is being installed at the same time, but it is only unpacked, not yet configured while other packages are being configured which calls systemctl. This is only cosmetical and does not actually break the packages, so lowering importance.

I think policykit-1 itself is fine, we do want to mask services of packages which are unpackaged but not yet configured.
So this is indeed somewhere between init-system-helpers or systemctl itself, either of which could suppress that error message.

Thinking about this some more, we don't actually want to query/use polkit when calling systemctl from maintainer scripts. These always run as root, and it's not expected at all that they (potentially) ask interactively for authentication. So we can call systemctl with --no-ask-password to disable querying of polkit which will not only avoid these warnings, but also avoid triggering polkit at all, which robustifies package installation as there are fewer moving parts.

This needs to be done in init-system-helpers as well as systemd's package trigger.

Corresponding patch for the systemd package.

Started an upstream discussion about an alternative approach: https://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/systemd-devel/2016-April/036135.html

Let's fix this in systemctl proper, as per upstream discussion: https://github.com/systemd/systemd/issues/2748

I landed the fix upstream (https://github.com/systemd/systemd/commit/89d03482207) and pulled it into our packaging git.

This bug was fixed in the package systemd - 229-4ubuntu1

---------------
systemd (229-4ubuntu1) xenial; urgency=medium

  * Merge with Debian unstable. Remaining Ubuntu changes:
    - Hack to support system-image read-only /etc, and modify files in
      /etc/writable/ instead.

    Upgrade fixes, keep until 16.04 LTS release:
    - systemd Conflicts/Replaces/Provides systemd-services.
    - Remove obsolete systemd-logind upstart job.
    - Clean up obsolete /etc/udev/rules.d/README.
    - systemd.postinst: Migrate mountall specific fstab options to standard
      util-linux "nofail" option.
    - systemctl: Don't forward telinit u to upstart. This works around
      upstart's Restart() always reexec'ing /sbin/init on Restart(), even if
      that changes to point to systemd during the upgrade. This avoids running
      systemd during a dist-upgrade. (LP: #1430479)
    - Provide shutdown fallback for upstart. (LP: #1370329)
    - Break lvm (<< 2.02.133-1ubuntu1) and remove our dummy /etc/init.d/lvm2
      on upgrades, as it's shipped by lvm2 now.
    - Make udev break on mdadm << 3.3-2ubuntu3, as udev's init script dropped
      the "Provides: raid-mdadm".
    - Clean up /var/log/udev on upgrade (which is written under upstart, but
      not under systemd). (LP: #1537211)
    - Migrate existing s390x network configuration to new names. (LP: #1526808)
    - systemd.postinst: Bump Version comparison for migrating the UTC setting
      from /etc/default/rcS to /etc/adjtime, to run it for upgrades to 16.04.
    - VMWare BIOS reports implausibly high onboard numbers. This got fixed in
      upstream commit 6c1e69f9. Migrate names in ifupdown accordingly.
      (LP: #1550539)
    - udev: Don't kill peer processes if we don't run in a cgroup. This happens
      when running under/upgrading from upstart. udevd and everything else run
      in the root hierarchy on all controllers then, and the alleged cleanup of
      "our" cgroup becomes a system-wide killing spree. (LP: #1555237)

systemd (229-4) unstable; urgency=medium

  * Fix assertion crash when processing a (broken) device without a sysfs
    path. (Closes: #819290, LP: #1560695)
  * Fix crash when shutdown is issued from a non-tty. (LP: #1553040)
  * networkd: Stay running while any non-loopback interface is up.
    (Closes: #819414)
  * Fix reading uint32 D-Bus properties on big-endian.
  * Fix crash if an udev device has many tags or devlinks. (LP: #1564976)
  * systemctl, loginctl, etc.: Don't start polkit agent when running as root.
    (LP: #1565617)
  * keymap: Add Add HP ZBook (LP: #1535219) and HP ProBook 440 G3.
  * systemd.resource-control.5: Fix links to cgroup documentation on
    kernel.org. (Closes: #819970)
  * Install test-udev into libudev-dev, so that we have it available for
    autopkgtests.
  * Add "udev" autopkgtest for running the upstream test/udev-test.pl.

 -- Martin Pitt <email address hidden> Thu, 07 Apr 2016 09:53:25 +0200

------- Comment From <email address hidden> 2016-08-02 04:34 EDT-------
== Comment from Pooja ==
Hi,

Verified on Ubuntu 16.04.1, no error messages seen while installing the package.

root@ubuntu:~# uname -a
Linux ubuntu 4.4.0-25-generic #44-Ubuntu SMP Fri Jun 10 18:13:08 UTC 2016 ppc64le ppc64le ppc64le GNU/Linux

root@ubuntu:~# apt-get install apport
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following additional packages will be installed:
apport-symptoms libpolkit-agent-1-0 libpolkit-backend-1-0 policykit-1
python3-apport python3-problem-report python3-systemd
Suggested packages:
apport-gtk | apport-kde python3-launchpadlib
The following NEW packages will be installed:
apport apport-symptoms libpolkit-agent-1-0 libpolkit-backend-1-0 policykit-1
python3-apport python3-problem-report python3-systemd
0 upgraded, 8 newly installed, 0 to remove and 5 not upgraded.
Need to get 352 kB of archives.
After this operation, 2,700 kB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n] y
Get:1 http://us.ports.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-ports xenial-updates/main ppc64el python3-problem-report all 2.20.1-0ubuntu2.1 [9,862 B]
Get:2 http://us.ports.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-ports xenial-updates/main ppc64el python3-apport all 2.20.1-0ubuntu2.1 [79.3 kB]
Get:3 http://us.ports.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-ports xenial-updates/main ppc64el apport all 2.20.1-0ubuntu2.1 [119 kB]
Get:4 http://us.ports.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-ports xenial/main ppc64el apport-symptoms all 0.20 [14.2 kB]
Get:5 http://us.ports.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-ports xenial/main ppc64el libpolkit-agent-1-0 ppc64el 0.105-14.1 [14.1 kB]
Get:6 http://us.ports.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-ports xenial/main ppc64el libpolkit-backend-1-0 ppc64el 0.105-14.1 [33.6 kB]
Get:7 http://us.ports.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-ports xenial/main ppc64el policykit-1 ppc64el 0.105-14.1 [51.8 kB]
Get:8 http://us.ports.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-ports xenial/main ppc64el python3-systemd ppc64el 231-2build1 [30.0 kB]
Fetched 352 kB in 0s (1,027 kB/s)
Selecting previously unselected package python3-problem-report.
(Reading database ... 60308 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack .../python3-problem-report_2.20.1-0ubuntu2.1_all.deb ...
Unpacking python3-problem-report (2.20.1-0ubuntu2.1) ...
Selecting previously unselected package python3-apport.
Preparing to unpack .../python3-apport_2.20.1-0ubuntu2.1_all.deb ...
Unpacking python3-apport (2.20.1-0ubuntu2.1) ...
Selecting previously unselected package apport.
Preparing to unpack .../apport_2.20.1-0ubuntu2.1_all.deb ...
Unpacking apport (2.20.1-0ubuntu2.1) ...
Selecting previously unselected package apport-symptoms.
Preparing to unpack .../apport-symptoms_0.20_all.deb ...
Unpacking apport-symptoms (0.20) ...
Selecting previously unselected package libpolkit-agent-1-0:ppc64el.
Preparing to unpack .../libpolkit-agent-1-0_0.105-14.1_ppc64el.deb ...
Unpacking libpolkit-agent-1-0:ppc64el (0.105-14.1) ...
Selecting previously unselected package libpolkit-backend-1-0:ppc64el.
Preparing to unpack .../libpolkit-backend-1-0_0.105-14.1_ppc64el.deb ...
Unpacking libpolkit-backend-1-0:ppc64el (0.105-14.1) ...
Selecting previously unselected package policykit-1.
...

This is the diff between the deb-systemd-invoke from init-system-helpers-1.51, and the one in my previous comment.

Augh, sorry, wrong bug.