Azure Update Manager for Linux VM fails - error processing package base-files (--configure):

Question

I'm using Azure Update Manager to update my Linux VM. I've not done anything manually. Spent months to automatically my Linux image but with not luck.

Went to Azure Portal-> Azure Update Manager -> Select my VM -> and click install update.

An error occurs as the following.

Package failed to install: python3.10 (3.10.12-1~22.04.6).
Error code: 100
Command used: sudo DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive LANG=en_US.UTF8 apt-get -y --only-upgrade true install python3.10=3.10.12-1~22.04.6 libpython3.10=3.10.12-1~22.04.6 libpython3.10-stdlib=3.10.12-1~22.04.6 python3.10-minimal=3.10.12-1~22.04.6 libpython3.10-minimal=3.10.12-1~22.04.6

Command output:
Reading package lists...
Building dependency tree...
Reading state information...

The following packages will be upgraded:
    libpython3.10 libpython3.10-minimal libpython3.10-stdlib python3.10 python3.10-minimal

5 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove, and 58 not upgraded.
2 not fully installed or removed.

Need to get 0 B/7,379 kB of archives.
After this operation, 10.2 kB of additional disk space will be used.

Setting up base-files (12ubuntu4.7) ...
Configuration file '/etc/issue' modified since installation.
Package distributor has shipped an updated version.

What would you like to do about it?
Your options are: 
    Y or I: install the package maintainer's version
    N or O: keep your currently-installed version
    D: show the differences between the versions
    Z: start a shell to examine the situation

dpkg: error processing package base-files (--configure):
end of file on stdin at conffile prompt

Errors were encountered while processing: base-files
needrestart is being skipped since dpkg has failed
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

I didn't find any documentation on Microsoft website. Would you please give any hint on how to solve it ?

Answer 1

Hi Alakkad, Fadi,

Welcome to the Microsoft Q&A Platform! Thank you for asking your question here.

The error you're encountering appears to be related to the package configuration prompt during the update process. Specifically, the base-files package is attempting to modify the /etc/issue file, and it’s asking for user input to decide whether to accept the new version or keep the current one. Since this update process is automated via Azure Update Manager, the prompt is blocking the update.

To resolve this issue, you can prevent these prompts by using the DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive environment variable, which will tell the package manager to automatically accept the package maintainer’s version of configuration files. You can add this flag to the apt-get command as follows:

sudo DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive apt-get install -f

This command will automatically resolve any package configuration issues.

Additionally, you can force the configuration of the base-files package to automatically accept the new version of the /etc/issue file by running:

sudo dpkg --force-confnew --configure base-files

Afterward, it’s a good idea to run the following command to ensure there are no other broken packages or unmet dependencies:

sudo apt-get install -f

Once the issue is resolved, try running the Azure Update Manager again to complete the update process on your Linux VM.

For more information, please refer to the below documentation:
Troubleshoot issues with Azure Update Manager

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