Ran into this issue after getting rid of the www-data user and group. The solution is simple and doesn't involve adding the account/group, assuming the objective is to run Lighttpd as a different user (not www-data). If the intention is to run Lighttpd with the www-data account, simply add the account. Otherwise, keep reading...
The Issue
[599][nullamatix ~]:# aptitude install package-x Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done Reading extended state information Initializing package states... Done Reading task descriptions... Done The following NEW packages will be installed: package-x The following partially installed packages will be configured: lighttpd lighttpd-mod-magnet 0 packages upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded. Need to get 220kB of archives. After unpacking 1028kB will be used. Writing extended state information... Done Get:1 http://ftp.us.debian.org lenny/main package-x [220kB] Fetched 220kB in 0s (446kB/s) Preconfiguring packages ... Selecting previously deselected package package-x. (Reading database ... 23009 files and directories currently installed.) Unpacking package-x (from .../package-x_i386.deb) ... Processing triggers for man-db ... Setting up lighttpd (1.4.25-1) ... chown: invalid user: `www-data:www-data' dpkg: error processing lighttpd (--configure): subprocess post-installation script returned error exit status 1 dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of lighttpd-mod-magnet: lighttpd-mod-magnet depends on lighttpd (= 1.4.25-1); however: Package lighttpd is not configured yet. dpkg: error processing lighttpd-mod-magnet (--configure): dependency problems - leaving unconfigured Setting up package-x (lenny3) ... Adding group `package-x' (GID 119) ... Done. Adding system user `package-x' (UID 117) ... Adding new user `package-x' (UID 117) with group `package-x' ... Not creating home directory `/var/run/package-x. Starting package-x: package-x. Errors were encountered while processing: lighttpd lighttpd-mod-magnet E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1) A package failed to install. Trying to recover: Setting up lighttpd (1.4.25-1) ... chown: invalid user: `www-data:www-data' dpkg: error processing lighttpd (--configure): subprocess post-installation script returned error exit status 1 dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of lighttpd-mod-magnet: lighttpd-mod-magnet depends on lighttpd (= 1.4.25-1); however: Package lighttpd is not configured yet. dpkg: error processing lighttpd-mod-magnet (--configure): dependency problems - leaving unconfigured Errors were encountered while processing: lighttpd lighttpd-mod-magnet Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done Reading extended state information Initializing package states... Done Writing extended state information... Done Reading task descriptions... Done [600][nullamatix ~]:#
The Solution
Open the Lighttpd postint file and replace www-data with the correct username:group.
[600][nullamatix ~]:# /var/lib/dpkg/info/lighttpd.postinst
There were 2 lines for this particular instance:
# old original # chown www-data:www-data /var/log/lighttpd /var/run/lighttpd # chown www-data:www-data /var/cache/lighttpd /var/cache/lighttpd/compress /var/cache/lighttpd/uploads # new replacement chown custom-user:custom-group /var/log/lighttpd /var/run/lighttpd chown custom-user:custom-group /var/cache/lighttpd /var/cache/lighttpd/compress /var/cache/lighttpd/uploads
Save the changes and exit. Now, assuming custom-user and custom-group exist, tell dpkg to reconfigure the packages. The -a flag tells dpkg to reconfigure, "all unpacked but unconfigured packages."
[601][nullamatix ~]:# dpkg --configure -a Setting up lighttpd (1.4.25-1) ... Starting web server: lighttpd. Setting up lighttpd-mod-magnet (1.4.25-1) ... [602][nullamatix ~]:#
That's it, problem solved...
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