package rabbitmq-server 1.7.2-1ubuntu1 failed to install/upgrade: subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1

Thanks for reporting this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better.

I can't reproduce this on a stock lucid machine. Had you previously installed rabbitmq? If you apt-get purge rabbitmq-server and then reinstall it, do you still get this error?

Thanks for your response.

I tried apt-get purge rabbitmq-server followed by reinstall and it doesn't solve the problem.

I still get

Setting up rabbitmq-server (1.7.2-1ubuntu1) ...
Starting rabbitmq-server: TIMEOUT - check /var/log/rabbitmq/startup_{log,err}
rabbitmq-server.
invoke-rc.d: initscript rabbitmq-server, action "start" failed.
dpkg: error processing rabbitmq-server (--configure):
subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1
Errors were encountered while processing:
rabbitmq-server
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

$cat /var/log/rabbitmq/startup_err
Password:
su: Authentication failure

After digging into the rabbitmq-server.postinst script, I found that the issue has to do with changing to the rabbitmq user before starting the rabbitmq server. If the rabbitmq users' password is changed to a known value and entered when the server starts, then the install succeeds. Otherwise it fails.

I worked around one issue by following this thread: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/shadow/+bug/735341?comments=all

This stopped it from asking for the root password when the --gecos option is invoke with adduser.

But if I execute

 su rabbitmq -s /bin/sh -c "/usr/lib/rabbitmq/bin/rabbitmq-multi status"

I get a password: prompt and nothing works I suppose because it's blank. This is authentication failure is what is logged in startup_err

Ok I did this:

sudo sed -i 's/nullok_secure/nullok/' /etc/pam.d/common-auth

And now it works.

[Expired for rabbitmq-server (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]