invoke-rc.d: initscript nfs-kernel-server, action "start" failed

Earlier this morning I needed to run some tests against a NFS server running on BackTrack Linux version 5 release 3 and ran into some issues installing the nfs-kernel-server. It appeared as if things started to install properly but then the nfs-kernel-server did not start properly and ended up displaying a couple errors. Below I describe the error in more detail followed by the process I used to get the nfs-kernel-server installed properly on BT5.

NFS Server Error On BackTrack Linux:

root@bt:~# apt-get install nfs-common nfs-kernel-server portmap
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
nfs-common is already the newest version.
nfs-kernel-server is already the newest version.
portmap is already the newest version.
portmap set to manually installed.
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
1 not fully installed or removed.
After this operation, 0B of additional disk space will be used.
Setting up nfs-kernel-server (1:1.2.0-4ubuntu4.2) ...
* Exporting directories for NFS kernel daemon...
...done.
* Starting NFS kernel daemon
...fail!
invoke-rc.d: initscript nfs-kernel-server, action "start" failed.
dpkg: error processing nfs-kernel-server (--configure):
subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1
Errors were encountered while processing:
nfs-kernel-server
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)
root@bt:~#

Initially I attempted to reconfigure the nfs-kernel-server package using dpkg as shown in the example output below however that was not successful.

Failed Attempt To Resolve nfs-kernel-server Package Error:

root@bt:~# dpkg --configure nfs-kernel-server
Setting up nfs-kernel-server (1:1.2.0-4ubuntu4.2) ...
* Exporting directories for NFS kernel daemon...
...done.
* Starting NFS kernel daemon
...fail!
invoke-rc.d: initscript nfs-kernel-server, action "start" failed.
dpkg: error processing nfs-kernel-server (--configure):
subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1
Errors were encountered while processing:
nfs-kernel-server
root@bt:~#

After the above attempt failed I figured there must be some sort of conflict with another package so to resolve the problem I decided to remove the nfs-common package and then reinstall nfs-common and nfs-kernel-server. Also make sure that if you follow this process you also reinstall the saintexploit package.

Remove nfs-common And nfs-kernel-server From BT5:

root@bt:~# apt-get remove nfs-kernel-server
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following packages will be REMOVED:
nfs-kernel-server
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 1 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
1 not fully installed or removed.
After this operation, 426kB disk space will be freed.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]? Y
(Reading database ... 263966 files and directories currently installed.)
Removing nfs-kernel-server ...
* Stopping NFS kernel daemon
...done.
* Unexporting directories for NFS kernel daemon...
...done.
Processing triggers for man-db ...
Processing triggers for ureadahead ...
root@bt:~#
root@bt:~# apt-get remove nfs-common
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:
libnfsidmap2 librpcsecgss3 libgssglue1
Use 'apt-get autoremove' to remove them.
The following packages will be REMOVED:
nfs-common saintexploit
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 2 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
After this operation, 647kB disk space will be freed.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]? Y
(Reading database ... 263941 files and directories currently installed.)
Removing saintexploit ...
Removing nfs-common ...
stop: Unknown instance:
stop: Unknown instance:
stop: Unknown instance:
Processing triggers for desktop-file-utils ...
Processing triggers for python-gmenu ...
Rebuilding /usr/share/applications/desktop.en_US.utf8.cache...
Processing triggers for man-db ...
Processing triggers for ureadahead ...
Processing triggers for python-support ...
root@bt:~#

Notice how saintexploit has nfs-common as a dependency so again make sure to reinstall the saintexploit package once NFS is functioning properly. With both nfs-common and nfs-kernel-server removed you should now be able to reinstall them both without issue followed by saintexploit.

Reinstall nfs-common And nfs-kernel-server On Backtrack Linux:

root@bt:~# apt-get install nfs-common nfs-kernel-server
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following NEW packages will be installed:
nfs-common nfs-kernel-server
0 upgraded, 2 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 231kB/402kB of archives.
After this operation, 1,073kB of additional disk space will be used.
Get:1 http://updates.repository.backtrack-linux.org/ revolution/main nfs-common 1:1.2.0-4ubuntu4.2 [231kB]
Fetched 231kB in 0s (482kB/s)
Selecting previously deselected package nfs-common.
(Reading database ... 260701 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking nfs-common (from .../nfs-common_1%3a1.2.0-4ubuntu4.2_amd64.deb) ...
Selecting previously deselected package nfs-kernel-server.
Unpacking nfs-kernel-server (from .../nfs-kernel-server_1%3a1.2.0-4ubuntu4.2_amd64.deb) ...
Processing triggers for ureadahead ...
Processing triggers for man-db ...
Setting up nfs-common (1:1.2.0-4ubuntu4.2) ...
statd start/running, process 14295
gssd stop/pre-start, process 14320
idmapd start/running, process 14355
Setting up nfs-kernel-server (1:1.2.0-4ubuntu4.2) ...
* Exporting directories for NFS kernel daemon...
...done.
* Starting NFS kernel daemon
...done.
root@bt:~#

Notice that this time nfs-kernel-server installs and the NFS kernel daemons starts without issue. Now as a last step reinstall saintexploit so things are back to how they were before removing nfs-common.

Reinstall saintexploit On Backtrack Linux:

root@bt:~# apt-get install saintexploit
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following NEW packages will be installed:
saintexploit
0 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 17.3MB of archives.
After this operation, 0B of additional disk space will be used.
Get:1 http://all.repository.backtrack-linux.org/ revolution/testing saintexploit 7.8.9-bt1 [17.3MB]
Fetched 17.3MB in 13s (1,268kB/s)
Selecting previously deselected package saintexploit.
(Reading database ... 260771 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking saintexploit (from .../saintexploit_7.8.9-bt1_all.deb) ...
Processing triggers for desktop-file-utils ...
Processing triggers for python-gmenu ...
Rebuilding /usr/share/applications/desktop.en_US.utf8.cache...
Processing triggers for python-support ...
Setting up saintexploit (7.8.9-bt1) ...
Reconfiguring...
Checking to make sure all the targets are here...
Trying to find Perl... /usr/bin/perl5.10.1
Changing the source in PERL scripts...
Trying to find HTML/WWW browser... /usr/bin/firefox
Looking for UNIX commands...
Can't find finger
Found Xprobe2 ; for best results upgrade to 0.3 or higher
Doing substitutions on the shell scripts...
Changing paths in config/paths.pl...
Changing paths in config/paths.sh...
Looking for libssl.../usr/lib/libssl.so
Looking for libcrypto.../usr/lib/libcrypto.so
Upgrading configuration files...
root@bt:~#