Thanks Christian! Interesting, the "ERROR: should execute as the [pollinate] user" looks quite unrelated to any networking setup and smelled like a package postinst/systemd unit bug.
I started trying to reproduce this outside of the Ubuntu CI, with a most naïve curl -O https://cloud-images.ubuntu.com/daily/server/groovy/current/groovy-server-cloudimg-amd64.img curl -O https://github.com/cockpit-project/bots/raw/master/machine/cloud-init.iso qemu-system-x86_64 -enable-kvm -nographic -m 2048 -device virtio-rng-pci -drive file=groovy-server-cloudimg-amd64.img,if=virtio -snapshot -cdrom cloud-init.iso (that cloud-init is nothing special, just to get root:foobar and admin:foobar accounts, see [1]) But this fails to start ssh.service, and neither does it actually run cloud-init, so there is no way to log in and examine further. But indeed it seems to have started pollinate: [ OK ] Finished Pollinate to seed…seudo random number generator. Starting OpenBSD Secure Shell server... [ OK ] Started Dispatcher daemon for systemd-networkd. [FAILED] Failed to start OpenBSD Secure Shell server. See 'systemctl status ssh.service' for details. Our CI uses libvirt for everything, which of course makes a CLI reproducer a lot more difficult. It's fairly easy when actually using our python wrappers: git clone https://github.com/cockpit-project/bots/ bots/vm-run ubuntu-stable (log in as root:foobar) This downloads the actual image to ~/.cache/cockpit-images and creates a transient domain with a transient overlay. I attach the `virsh dumpxml` output, but of course that has a lot of absolute file system paths in it, UUIDs, and other junk that is specific to my system. There the pollinate user exists # id pollinate uid=111(pollinate) gid=1(daemon) groups=1(daemon) # systemctl cat pollinate [..] [Service] User=pollinate ExecStart=/usr/bin/pollinate Type=oneshot which looks right. I edited the systemd unit to run pollinate through /bin/sh -ex, and that did reveal something: Feb 07 09:24:10 ubuntu sh[2449]: + set -e Feb 07 09:24:10 ubuntu sh[2449]: + set -f Feb 07 09:24:10 ubuntu sh[2449]: + PKG=pollinate Feb 07 09:24:10 ubuntu sh[2450]: + mktemp -d -t pollinate.XXXXXXXXXXXX Feb 07 09:24:10 ubuntu sh[2449]: + TMPDIR=/tmp/pollinate.77BPmzGSfzFm Feb 07 09:24:10 ubuntu sh[2449]: + trap rm -rf /tmp/pollinate.77BPmzGSfzFm 2>/dev/null || true EXIT HUP INT QUIT TERM Feb 07 09:24:10 ubuntu sh[2449]: + CACHEDIR=/var/cache/pollinate Feb 07 09:24:10 ubuntu sh[2449]: + FLAG=/var/cache/pollinate/seeded Feb 07 09:24:10 ubuntu sh[2449]: + LOG=/var/cache/pollinate/log Feb 07 09:24:10 ubuntu sh[2451]: + hostname Feb 07 09:24:10 ubuntu sh[2449]: + HOSTNAME=ubuntu Feb 07 09:24:10 ubuntu sh[2449]: + STRICT=0 Feb 07 09:24:10 ubuntu sh[2453]: + logger -V Feb 07 09:24:10 ubuntu sh[2454]: + awk {print $4} Feb 07 09:24:10 ubuntu sh[2449]: + logger_ver=2.36 Feb 07 09:24:10 ubuntu sh[2449]: + dpkg --compare-versions 2.36 ge 2.26.2 Feb 07 09:24:10 ubuntu sh[2449]: + LOGGER=logger --id=2449 Feb 07 09:24:10 ubuntu sh[2449]: + [ -t 0 ] Feb 07 09:24:10 ubuntu sh[2449]: + [ -r /etc/default/pollinate ] Feb 07 09:24:10 ubuntu sh[2449]: + . /etc/default/pollinate Feb 07 09:24:10 ubuntu sh[2449]: + BINARY=1 Feb 07 09:24:10 ubuntu sh[2449]: + QUIET=0 Feb 07 09:24:10 ubuntu sh[2449]: + WAIT=10 Feb 07 09:24:10 ubuntu sh[2449]: + DEVICE=/dev/urandom Feb 07 09:24:10 ubuntu sh[2449]: + SERVER=https://entropy.ubuntu.com/ Feb 07 09:24:10 ubuntu sh[2449]: + POOL= Feb 07 09:24:10 ubuntu sh[2449]: + CURL_OPTS=--cacert /etc/pollinate/entropy.ubuntu.com.pem --capath /dev/null Feb 07 09:24:10 ubuntu sh[2449]: + [ ! -z ] Feb 07 09:24:10 ubuntu sh[2449]: + [ -z ] Feb 07 09:24:10 ubuntu sh[2449]: + [ ! -w /var/cache/pollinate ] Feb 07 09:24:10 ubuntu sh[2449]: + error should execute as the [pollinate] user Feb 07 09:24:10 ubuntu sh[2449]: + logger --id=2449 -t pollinate ERROR: should execute as the [pollinate] user /var/cache/pollinate indeed does not exist. I added CacheDirectory=pollinate to the systemd unit, and that fixes it. [1] https://github.com/cockpit-project/bots/blob/master/machine/make- cloud-init-iso ** Attachment added: "virsh dumpxml" https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/pollinate/+bug/1848923/+attachment/5461032/+files/ubuntu-2004.xml ** Summary changed: - pollinate.service fails to start: ERROR: should execute as the [pollinate] user + pollinate.service fails to start: ERROR: should execute as the [pollinate] user -- missing CacheDirectory= ** Changed in: pollinate (Ubuntu) Status: Incomplete => Confirmed -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1848923 Title: pollinate.service fails to start: ERROR: should execute as the [pollinate] user -- missing CacheDirectory= To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/pollinate/+bug/1848923/+subscriptions -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
