Comment 2 for bug 653362

Hello Col., Thank you for taking the time to file this bug report and help us make Ubuntu better.

The error messages in DpkgTerminalLog.txt that show this failure are here:

Selecting previously deselected package mail-stack-delivery.
Unpacking mail-stack-delivery (from .../mail-stack-delivery_1%3a1.2.12-1ubuntu7_all.deb) ...
/var/lib/dpkg/tmp.ci/preinst: 74: /etc/dovecot/conf.d/01-dovecot-postfix.conf: Permission denied
/var/lib/dpkg/tmp.ci/preinst: 74: /etc/dovecot/conf.d/01-dovecot-postfix.conf: Permission denied
/var/lib/dpkg/tmp.ci/preinst: 74: /etc/dovecot/auth.d/01-dovecot-postfix.auth: Permission denied
/var/lib/dpkg/tmp.ci/preinst: 74: /etc/dovecot/auth.d/01-dovecot-postfix.auth: Permission denied
rmdir: failed to remove `/var/backups/dovecot-postfix/': Directory not empty
dpkg: error processing /var/cache/apt/archives/mail-stack-delivery_1%3a1.2.12-1ubuntu7_all.deb (--unpack):
 subprocess new pre-installation script returned error exit status 1

This file attempts to rename these files from dovecot-postfix to mail-stack-delivery if they exist.

Is it possible that you have changed the permissions on the directory or files that would cause these errors? Maybe /etc is mounted readonly? The permission denied is odd because these scripts run as root.

I just tested upgrading Lucid -> Maverick with dovecot-postifx installed, and it renamed the file without any errors.

Col, if you could please post the result of

ls -lR /etc/dovecot

That would help us determine whether or not the permissions have been locally modified in a way that breaks the install script, or whether the install scripts need to be changed.

Marking Incomplete pending respond from Col. Sood.