Dietpi-update fails to complete due to apt-key cannot create /dev/null

Creating a bug report/issue

[*] I have searched the existing open and closed issues

Required Information

DietPi version | G_DIETPI_VERSION_CORE=9 G_DIETPI_VERSION_SUB=2 G_DIETPI_VERSION_RC=1 G_GITBRANCH='master' G_GITOWNER='MichaIng'
Distro version | bookworm 1
Kernel version | 6.1.21-v7+
SBC model | RPi 3B+
Power supply used | stock US included
SD card used | SanDisk ultra 32 GB
Bug report ID | d8fd3fe5-bbd1-4970-a5ce-7e520d61e20a

Steps to reproduce

sudo dietpi-update

Expected behaviour

Successful update/patching from v9.2.1 to v9.6.1

Actual behaviour

/usr/bin/apt-key: 95: cannot create /dev/null: Permission denied
/usr/bin/apt-key: 95: cannot create /dev/null: Permission denied                              
/usr/bin/apt-key: 95: cannot create /dev/null: Permission denied
E: gpgv, gpgv2 or gpgv1 required for verification, but neither seems installed                
Sub-process apt-key returned an error code (29)
Err:1 https://raspbian.mirror.constant.com/raspbian bookworm InRelease

Extra details

After the update fails, my shell prompt includes three lines of -bash: /dev/null: Permission denied with the only remedy being to restore using dietpi-backup.

I will admit I have quite a bit of additional software installed, including the starship shell prompt, that may be giving me this error. I have found that a manual sudo apt-get update/upgrade yields no issues, and other software installed via dietpi-softwate such as pihole has no issues updating.

Hmm, I faced a very similar issue some weeks ago. The /dev/null node was somehow replaced by an actual file, which of course breaks everything which tries to redirect output to it, and has no root permissions. Can you check this:

ls -l /dev/null

I restored to my most recent backup and this was the result pre dietpi-update crw-rw-rw- 1 root root 1, 3 Jul 11 19:35 /dev/null

After the update crw-r--r-- 1 root root 1, 3 Jul 7 22:50 /dev/null

to the be clear, the update still fails to complete and it breaks apt completely, giving me the gpgv errors as mentioned in the initial report

Can you share the full update log:

cat /var/tmp/dietpi/logs/dietpi-update.log

DietPi-Update
─────────────────────────────────────────────────────
 Phase: Applying pre-patches

[  OK  ] DietPi-Update | Downloading pre-patches
[  OK  ] DietPi-Update | Applying execute permission
[  OK  ] DietPi-Update | Successfully applied pre-patches

 DietPi-Update
─────────────────────────────────────────────────────
 Phase: Upgrading APT packages

[ INFO ] DietPi-Update | APT update, please wait...
Get:1 https://raspbian.mirror.constant.com/raspbian bookworm InRelease [15.0 kB]
Get:2 https://dietpi.com/apt bookworm InRelease [3525 B]
Get:3 https://dietpi.com/apt all InRelease [25.3 kB]
Get:4 https://raspbian.mirror.constant.com/raspbian bookworm/main armhf Packages [14.5 MB]
Get:5 https://archive.raspberrypi.com/debian bookworm InRelease [23.6 kB]
Get:6 https://dietpi.com/apt bookworm/main armhf Packages [2032 B]
Get:7 https://archive.raspberrypi.com/debian bookworm/main armhf Packages [419 kB]
Get:8 https://archive.raspberrypi.com/debian bookworm/main armhf Contents (deb) [3396 kB]
Fetched 18.4 MB in 13s (1460 kB/s)
Reading package lists...
[  OK  ] DietPi-Update | APT update
[ INFO ] DietPi-Update | APT upgrade, please wait...
Reading package lists...
Building dependency tree...
Reading state information...
Calculating upgrade...
The following packages will be upgraded:
  vaultwarden
1 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 11.5 MB of archives.
After this operation, 557 kB of additional disk space will be used.
Get:1 https://dietpi.com/apt bookworm/main armhf vaultwarden armhf 1.31.0-dietpi1 [11.5 MB]
Fetched 11.5 MB in 2s (5829 kB/s)
(Reading database ... 96414 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack .../vaultwarden_1.31.0-dietpi1_armhf.deb ...
Unpacking vaultwarden (1.31.0-dietpi1) over (1.30.5-dietpi3) ...
Setting up vaultwarden (1.31.0-dietpi1) ...

Configuration file '/mnt/dietpi_userdata/vaultwarden/vaultwarden.env'
 ==> Modified (by you or by a script) since installation.
 ==> Package distributor has shipped an updated version.
 ==> Keeping old config file as default.
Configuring vaultwarden service user ...
usermod: no changes
Setting vaultwarden userdata owner ...
Configuring vaultwarden systemd service ...
[  OK  ] DietPi-Update | APT upgrade

 DietPi-Update
─────────────────────────────────────────────────────
 Phase: Installing new DietPi code

[  OK  ] DietPi-Update | Downloading update archive
[  OK  ] DietPi-Update | Unpacking update archive
[  OK  ] DietPi-Update | Removing unused files
[  OK  ] DietPi-Update | Hardening update archive mode
[  OK  ] DietPi-Update | Installing new DietPi scripts
[  OK  ] DietPi-Update | Installing new DietPi system files
[ SUB1 ] DietPi-Set_software > verify_dietpi.txt
[  OK  ] DietPi-Set_software | Downloading current dietpi.txt
[  OK  ] verify_dietpi.txt  | Completed
[  OK  ] DietPi-Update | sync
[  OK  ] DietPi-Update | systemctl daemon-reload

 DietPi-Update
─────────────────────────────────────────────────────
 Phase: Applying incremental patches

[ INFO ] DietPi-Update | Current version : v9.2.1
[ INFO ] DietPi-Update | Latest version  : v9.6.1
[ INFO ] DietPi-Patch | Patching to DietPi v9.3...
[ SUB2 ] DietPi-Set_software > apt-mirror (dietpi)
[  OK  ] DietPi-Set_software | eval echo 'deb https://dietpi.com/apt bookworm main rpi3' > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/dietpi.list
[  OK  ] DietPi-Set_software | eval echo 'deb https://dietpi.com/apt all rpi' >> /etc/apt/sources.list.d/dietpi.list
[  OK  ] apt-mirror dietpi | Completed
[ INFO ] DietPi-Patch | APT update, please wait...
Hit:1 https://dietpi.com/apt bookworm InRelease
Hit:2 https://raspbian.mirror.constant.com/raspbian bookworm InRelease
Hit:3 https://dietpi.com/apt all InRelease
/usr/bin/apt-key: 95: cannot create /dev/null: Permission denied
/usr/bin/apt-key: 95: cannot create /dev/null: Permission denied
/usr/bin/apt-key: 95: cannot create /dev/null: Permission denied
E: gpgv, gpgv2 or gpgv1 required for verification, but neither seems installed
Sub-process apt-key returned an error code (29)Err:1 https://dietpi.com/apt bookworm InRelease
  gpgv, gpgv2 or gpgv1 required for verification, but neither seems installed
Hit:4 https://archive.raspberrypi.com/debian bookworm InRelease
/usr/bin/apt-key: 95: cannot create /dev/null: Permission denied
/usr/bin/apt-key: 95: cannot create /dev/null: Permission denied
/usr/bin/apt-key: 95: cannot create /dev/null: Permission denied
E: gpgv, gpgv2 or gpgv1 required for verification, but neither seems installed
Sub-process apt-key returned an error code (29)Err:2 https://raspbian.mirror.constant.com/raspbian bookworm InRelease
  gpgv, gpgv2 or gpgv1 required for verification, but neither seems installed
/usr/bin/apt-key: 95: cannot create /dev/null: Permission denied
/usr/bin/apt-key: 95: cannot create /dev/null: Permission denied
/usr/bin/apt-key: 95: cannot create /dev/null: Permission denied
E: gpgv, gpgv2 or gpgv1 required for verification, but neither seems installed
Sub-process apt-key returned an error code (29)Err:3 https://dietpi.com/apt all InRelease
  gpgv, gpgv2 or gpgv1 required for verification, but neither seems installed
/usr/bin/apt-key: 95: cannot create /dev/null: Permission denied
/usr/bin/apt-key: 95: cannot create /dev/null: Permission denied
/usr/bin/apt-key: 95: cannot create /dev/null: Permission denied
E: gpgv, gpgv2 or gpgv1 required for verification, but neither seems installed
Sub-process apt-key returned an error code (29)Err:4 https://archive.raspberrypi.com/debian bookworm InRelease
  gpgv, gpgv2 or gpgv1 required for verification, but neither seems installed
Reading package lists...
W: An error occurred during the signature verification. The repository is not updated and the previous index files will be used. GPG error: https://dietpi.com/apt bookworm InRelease: gpgv, gpgv2 or gpgv1 required for verification, but neither seems installed
W: An error occurred during the signature verification. The repository is not updated and the previous index files will be used. GPG error: https://raspbian.mirror.constant.com/raspbian bookworm InRelease: gpgv, gpgv2 or gpgv1 required for verification, but neither seems installed
W: An error occurred during the signature verification. The repository is not updated and the previous index files will be used. GPG error: https://dietpi.com/apt all InRelease: gpgv, gpgv2 or gpgv1 required for verification, but neither seems installed
W: An error occurred during the signature verification. The repository is not updated and the previous index files will be used. GPG error: https://archive.raspberrypi.com/debian bookworm InRelease: gpgv, gpgv2 or gpgv1 required for verification, but neither seems installed
E: Failed to fetch https://raspbian.mirror.constant.com/raspbian/dists/bookworm/InRelease  gpgv, gpgv2 or gpgv1 required for verification, but neither seems installed
E: Failed to fetch https://dietpi.com/apt/dists/bookworm/InRelease  gpgv, gpgv2 or gpgv1 required for verification, but neither seems installed
E: Failed to fetch https://dietpi.com/apt/dists/all/InRelease  gpgv, gpgv2 or gpgv1 required for verification, but neither seems installed
E: Failed to fetch https://archive.raspberrypi.com/debian/dists/bookworm/InRelease  gpgv, gpgv2 or gpgv1 required for verification, but neither seems installed
E: Some index files failed to download. They have been ignored, or old ones used instead.
[FAILED] DietPi-Patch | APT update
 - Command: apt-get -y -eany update
[FAILED] DietPi-Patch | Unable to continue, DietPi-Patch will now terminate.
[FAILED] DietPi-Update | An error occurred during incremental patching. Please check the above log or /var/tmp/dietpi/logs/dietpi-update.log for errors, and rerun "dietpi-update" after the cause has been solved.

Just to be sure, after restoring the backup, you ran dietpi-update just a single time and did not repeat it? Because I need to find the exact pre-patch, package upgrade or patch which caused this, but am unable to find the culprit so far.

We have a 2nd report: #7157 Weirdly, in this case, /dev/null was indeed replaced with a regular file, like it happened some time ago on my system as well, while in your case, it is still a node, just with wrong permissions.

This will re-create the node with the correct permissions:

sudo rm /dev/null
sudo mknod -m 0666 /dev/null c 1 3

Since it is a correct node in your case already:

sudo chmod 0666 /dev/null

I restored to my most recent backup and this was the result pre dietpi-update crw-rw-rw- 1 root root 1, 3 Jul 11 19:35 /dev/null

After the update crw-r--r-- 1 root root 1, 3 Jul 7 22:50 /dev/null

What I want to verify:

The first output was right before the dietpi-update you posted the logs from, without any other step done in between?
And the 2nd was right after the failure?

Because interesting is that the timestamp is now older: Jul 7 vs Jul 11. This would mean the /dev/null was not removed and re-created during the update, like because of a missing > redirect character when some file is removed, like

rm /path/to/file /dev/null

Such mistake would however result in a later/current timestamp. Means that e.g. a null file was accidentally contained in an archive and restored from there, preserving its timestamp, or just a file mved to /dev/null.

EDIT: Can you also show the services you have installed?

dietpi-services status

yes, that is correct. i had restored to a working backup. i obtained the output of ls on /dev/null immediately after rebooting. i then attempted dietpi-update again to obtain the second output of ls.

[  OK  ] DietPi-Services | nmbd                 active (running) since Fri 2024-07-12 11:51:01 UTC; 1 day 11h ago
[  OK  ] DietPi-Services | smbd                 active (running) since Fri 2024-07-12 11:51:03 UTC; 1 day 11h ago
[  OK  ] DietPi-Services | php8.2-fpm           active (running) since Fri 2024-07-12 11:51:02 UTC; 1 day 11h ago
[  OK  ] DietPi-Services | apache2              active (running) since Sat 2024-07-13 03:15:45 UTC; 19h ago
[  OK  ] DietPi-Services | vaultwarden          active (running) since Fri 2024-07-12 11:50:58 UTC; 1 day 11h ago
[  OK  ] DietPi-Services | cron                 active (running) since Fri 2024-07-12 11:50:56 UTC; 1 day 11h ago
[  OK  ] DietPi-Services | ssh                  active (running) since Fri 2024-07-12 11:50:59 UTC; 1 day 11h ago
[  OK  ] DietPi-Services | pihole-FTL           active (running) since Fri 2024-07-12 11:50:58 UTC; 1 day 11h ago
[  OK  ] DietPi-Services | unbound              active (running) since Fri 2024-07-12 11:51:00 UTC; 1 day 11h ago
[  OK  ] DietPi-Services | fail2ban             active (running) since Fri 2024-07-12 11:50:58 UTC; 1 day 11h ago
[  OK  ] DietPi-Services | dietpi-ramlog        active (exited) since Fri 2024-07-12 11:50:57 UTC; 1 day 11h ago
[  OK  ] DietPi-Services | dietpi-preboot       active (exited) since Fri 2024-07-12 11:50:57 UTC; 1 day 11h ago
[  OK  ] DietPi-Services | dietpi-postboot      active (exited) since Fri 2024-07-12 11:50:57 UTC; 1 day 11h ago
[ INFO ] DietPi-Services | dietpi-wifi-monitor  inactive x⸑x

this all occurred while at work and unable to respond as i don't have regular access to any computer during those hours, thus it was done using my mobile and a detached tmux session so i may let things run in the background while i will more than likely lose my ssh connection. i appreciate your quick replies and help in the matter so far!

Let's go through some possible culprits:

ls -l /dev/null # check that it is still has right permissions
apt update
ls -l /dev/null
apt upgrade
ls -l /dev/null
dietpi-services restart
ls -l /dev/null

MichaIng / DietPi