Hi, Our VPN Server at the Wimborne Model Town runs on a Raspberry Pi 4 and utilises strongSwan and a Script called Pistrong to install and configure it. This system has worked well since lockdown when I installed it so we could access the Pis on site. The system works by installing Pistrong (and hence strongSwan) on the Pi as a server and using the same process on each client device, choosing 'Client' in the process.
Some time ago this stopped working. At the time i had other issues so didn't look at it until recently. The American Author of Pistrong has helped enormously over the past few days and determined that the problem was caused by the server having an old copy of Pistrong, whereas the client has the latest because I had to rebuild my PC recently. However, a new problem has emerged, related to the upgrading of swanStrong. I typed and got the errors shown: <start> vuser@VPN-Server:~ $ sudo apt install strongswan Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree... Done Reading state information... Done The following additional packages will be installed: strongswan-charon strongswan-starter The following NEW packages will be installed: strongswan strongswan-charon strongswan-starter 0 upgraded, 3 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded. Need to get 0 B/419 kB of archives. After this operation, 983 kB of additional disk space will be used. Do you want to continue? [Y/n] debconf: Perl may be unconfigured (Unrecognized character \xFF; marked by <-- HERE after <-- HERE near column 1 at /usr/share/perl5/Debconf/AutoSelect.pm line 1. Compilation failed in require at (eval 1) line 8. BEGIN failed--compilation aborted at (eval 1) line 8. ) -- aborting Selecting previously unselected package strongswan-starter. (Reading database ... 42338 files and directories currently installed.) Preparing to unpack .../strongswan-starter_5.9.1-1+deb11u4_armhf.deb ... Unpacking strongswan-starter (5.9.1-1+deb11u4) ... Selecting previously unselected package strongswan-charon. Preparing to unpack .../strongswan-charon_5.9.1-1+deb11u4_armhf.deb ... Unpacking strongswan-charon (5.9.1-1+deb11u4) ... Selecting previously unselected package strongswan. Preparing to unpack .../strongswan_5.9.1-1+deb11u4_all.deb ... Unpacking strongswan (5.9.1-1+deb11u4) ... Setting up strongswan-starter (5.9.1-1+deb11u4) ... Unrecognized character \xFF; marked by <-- HERE after <-- HERE near column 1 at /usr/share/perl5/Debconf/AutoSelect.pm line 1. Compilation failed in require at /usr/share/debconf/frontend line 8. BEGIN failed--compilation aborted at /usr/share/debconf/frontend line 8. dpkg: error processing package strongswan-starter (--configure): installed strongswan-starter package post-installation script subprocess returned error exit status 255 dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of strongswan: strongswan depends on strongswan-starter; however: Package strongswan-starter is not configured yet. dpkg: error processing package strongswan (--configure): dependency problems - leaving unconfigured dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of strongswan-charon: strongswan-charon depends on strongswan-starter; however: Package strongswan-starter is not configured yet. dpkg: error processing package strongswan-charon (--configure): dependency problems - leaving unconfigured Processing triggers for man-db (2.9.4-2) ... Errors were encountered while processing: strongswan-starter strongswan strongswan-charon E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1) <end> I've trawled the Internet and found various solutions, none of which work. These included using dpkg to purge strongswan, strongswan-charon and strongswan-starter, before trying to install strongswan again. My American friend won't wake up for several hours, and in any case this seems to be a packaging problem, not a Pistrong problem. Can anyone help? -- Terry Coles -- Next meeting: Online, Jitsi, Tuesday, 2024-05-07 20:00 Check to whom you are replying Meetings, mailing list, IRC, ... http://dorset.lug.org.uk New thread, don't hijack: mailto:dorset@mailman.lug.org.uk
