Strange apt problem with vsftp and pure-ftpd

[aven134]

after searching a while i found only one thread on the ubuntu forums from a while ago that describes pretty much the same issue, but was never answered and eventually closed. Before i get into it i think it might be important that i mention this is all being done while logged in as root.

So I installed pure-ftpd a day or two ago and wasn't satisfied with it so i tried to uninstall it with

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service pure-ftpd stop
apt-get remove pure-ftpd

Which seemed to work alright, so i installed vsftpd after that. After configuring that (with pretty normal config, this is a personal ftp server) , I launched the server and tried to connect, when i noticed that it would not accept my (root) password no matter how many times i retried it. So after messing with that for a while I decided I would just use a different ftp server ( don't blame me, I was pretty pissed off at this point) so I attempted to remove it with apt just as i did with pure-ftp. and I got this error.

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root@CF30:~# sudo apt-get remove vsftpd
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
The following packages will be REMOVED:
  vsftpd
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 1 to remove and 181 not upgraded.
1 not fully installed or removed.
After this operation, 374 kB disk space will be freed.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]? Y
(Reading database ... 349234 files and directories currently installed.)
Removing vsftpd ...
update-inetd: --disable requires only one argument
dpkg: error processing vsftpd (--remove):
 subprocess installed post-removal script returned error exit status 1
Errors were encountered while processing:
 vsftpd
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)
root@CF30:~#

Well, I've never seen this before. So i just though maybe i could try restarting, purging, updating, etc. and maybe it would fix itself. Nope.
This problem continued to occur no matter what i did to try and remove it, which includes every possible method i could find anywhere, none of them helped including using aptitude as an alternative and using --force-all with dpkg. Just the same error. And to make this better, this same exact error occurs when i try to install OR remove ANY package on my system with and installer like apt, aptitude, dpkg, or what have you. Does not even matter what the package is, apt just exits. So this is preventing me from doing anything at all. It's probably also worth mentioning that after uninstalling pure-ftpd and installing vsftpd and starting the server, it gave me the banner for pure-ftpd even though I already purged it and stopped processes. Restarting fixed that particular issue, however.

If you help me fix this problem I will sell you my soul. If you need any logs or whatever just say so. PLEASE HELP!

[dilberts_left_nut]

What does this say?

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apt-cache policy vsftpd

[aven134]

What does this say?

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apt-cache policy vsftpd

Probably worth mentioning that I am using Kali linux, which is debian based.

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root@CF30:~# apt-cache policy vsftpd
vsftpd:
  Installed: 2.3.5-3
  Candidate: 2.3.5-3
  Version table:
 *** 2.3.5-3 0
        500 http://http.kali.org/kali/ kali/main i386 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

[dilberts_left_nut]

It seems the post removal script is passing invalid option to update-inetd.
Probably something you need to take up with the kali maintainer of that package.

Begs the question of why you're trying to run an ftp server on kali though - that's *really* not what it's intended for.

[aven134]

The ftp server is for security related testing purposes, I do not think it is that unusual... I don't think it's an issue with Kali honestly, but I do see what you are talking about with inetd. I already tried troubleshooting it at that angle with little success.

[aven134]

Just wanted to post an update for those who may be experiencing the same issue, because I have fixed whatever the hell the problem was. No thanks to the user above.

the solution is provided here
https://www.daniweb.com/hardware-and-so ... kali-linux
and here
http://www.cyberciti.biz/tips/troublesh ... ovals.html

and in case those sites should ever result in dead links, because I am a considerate person -

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cd /var/lib/dpkg/info

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ls vsftpd.*

Then go into each of those files and find the line that reads

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#/bin/sh -e

and remove "-e"
or if there is a line like this

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set -e

remove it or comment it out.

Then issue the following command

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sudo apt-get --purge remove vsftpd