I'm trying to fix an APT setup in an Ubuntu server to which I only have SSH access and can't make head or tail of the dependency errors.

I've run sudo apt-get install -f, and get the following:

Reading package lists... Done

Building dependency tree

Reading state information... Done

0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 1 not upgraded.

4 not fully installed or removed.

After this operation, 0 B of additional disk space will be used.

Setting up ssl-cert (1.0.23ubuntu2) ...

dpkg: error processing ssl-cert (--configure):

 subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1

dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of postgresql-common:

 postgresql-common depends on ssl-cert (>= 1.0.11); however:

  Package ssl-cert is not configured yet.

dpkg: error processing postgresql-common (--configure):

 dependency problems - leaving unconfigured

No apport report written because the error message indicates its a followup error from a previous failure.

                                                                                                          dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of postgresql-8.4:

 postgresql-8.4 depends on postgresql-common (>= 104~); however:

  Package postgresql-common is not configured yet.

 postgresql-8.4 depends on ssl-cert; however:

  Package ssl-cert is not configured yet.

dpkg: error processing postgresql-8.4 (--configure):

 dependency problems - leaving unconfigured

No apport report written because MaxReports is reached already

                                                              dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of postgresql:

 postgresql depends on postgresql-8.4; however:

  Package postgresql-8.4 is not configured yet.

dpkg: error processing postgresql (--configure):

 dependency problems - leaving unconfigured

No apport report written because MaxReports is reached already

                                                              Errors were encountered while processing:

 ssl-cert

 postgresql-common

 postgresql-8.4

 postgresql

E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

What exactly does this mean? Is there a circular dependency?

I've tried installing the required dependency ssl-cert but it doesn't work either.

I can't use dpkg directly either.

Any tips on how to resolve this, or could someone help me to better understand the problem? Is there any additional information that I should provide?

===

EDIT:

Running sudo sh -x /path/to/config.postinst configure yields the following output:

+ . /usr/share/debconf/confmodule

+ [ !  ]

+ PERL_DL_NONLAZY=1

+ export PERL_DL_NONLAZY

+ [  ]

+ exec /usr/share/debconf/frontend /var/lib/dpkg/info/ssl-cert.postinst configure

Does that mean that the script fails to execute the last line?

Running sudo /usr/share/debconf/frontend /var/lib/dpkg/info/ssl-cert.postinst configure completes silently but a subsequent echo $? yields 1, indicating that an error did occur.

When I add set -x to the top of the file, and then run the sudo ... frontend ... configure command, it fails at:

make-ssl-cert generate-default-snakeoil

set -xing this file as well fails at:

 openssl req -config /tmp/tmp.wPl6nkzKYm -new -x509 -days 3650 -nodes -out /etc/ssl/certs/ssl-cert-snakeoil.pem -keyout /etc/ssl/private/ssl-cert-snakeoil.key

Running this command with sudo gives:

Generating a 1024 bit RSA private key

.....................++++++

.......................++++++

writing new private key to '/etc/ssl/private/ssl-cert-snakeoil.key'

-----

problems making Certificate Request

53829:error:0D07A097:asn1 encoding routines:ASN1_mbstring_ncopy:string too long:a_mbstr.c:154:maxsize=64

I'm not familiar with OpenSSL; what's going on here?

(Also, should I fork this to a new question? Has this question's scope been exceeded?)