Indeed, I think the problem is that syslog-ng core depends on syslog-ng-mod-journal, which recursively depends on syslog-ng-core through a Provides line.

Hmm.. the funny part that a week ago I successfully installed the same package on one of my servers, but now in a clean docker container I couldn't do that.

I have a workaround, attached you'll find an equivs compatible control file, that provides the missing dependency, once that is installed, "apt-get install syslog-ng" works.

It goes like this:

# dpkg -i syslog-ng-abi-3.8-0_3.8.1-1_all.deb
Selecting previously unselected package syslog-ng-abi-3.8-0.
(Reading database ... 7256 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack syslog-ng-abi-3.8-0_3.8.1-1_all.deb ...
Unpacking syslog-ng-abi-3.8-0 (3.8.1-1) ...
Setting up syslog-ng-abi-3.8-0 (3.8.1-1) ...
# apt-get install syslog-ng-core
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree      
Reading state information... Done
The following additional packages will be installed:
  cron libevtlog0 libffi6 libglib2.0-0 libglib2.0-data libicu55 libivykis0 libnet1 libpopt0 libssl1.0.0 libwrap0 libxml2 logrotate sgml-base
  shared-mime-info syslog-ng-mod-journal tcpd xdg-user-dirs xml-core
Suggested packages:
  anacron checksecurity exim4 | postfix | mail-transport-agent mailx sgml-base-doc syslog-ng-mod-sql syslog-ng-mod-mongodb syslog-ng-mod-json
  syslog-ng-mod-smtp syslog-ng-mod-amqp syslog-ng-mod-geoip syslog-ng-mod-redis syslog-ng-mod-stomp syslog-ng-mod-riemann syslog-ng-mod-graphite
  syslog-ng-mod-python syslog-ng-mod-java syslog-ng-mod-java-common-lib syslog-ng-mod-elastic syslog-ng-mod-hdfs syslog-ng-mod-kafka syslog-ng-mod-http
  syslog-ng-mod-curl syslog-ng-mod-kvformat syslog-ng-mod-add-contextual-data debhelper
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  cron libevtlog0 libffi6 libglib2.0-0 libglib2.0-data libicu55 libivykis0 libnet1 libpopt0 libssl1.0.0 libwrap0 libxml2 logrotate sgml-base
  shared-mime-info syslog-ng-core syslog-ng-mod-journal tcpd xdg-user-dirs xml-core
0 upgraded, 20 newly installed, 0 to remove and 11 not upgraded.
Need to get 11.9 MB of archives.
After this operation, 49.5 MB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n]


The "syslog-ng-core" package only contains a subset of the syslog-ng package, pulling in a smaller set of dependencies, whereas syslog-ng is the full set.

The abi package here is just a fake one, I'll make sure this packaging issue gets fixed.


--
Bazsi

On Thu, Nov 3, 2016 at 10:25 PM, Simon Smith <simonsmith5521@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi All

has anyone been able to install syslog-ng 3.8 successfully on ubuntu 16.04 ?

I’m using the link from the mailing list a few months ago but again no luck - http://lists.balabit.hu/pipermail/syslog-ng/2016-August/023150.html

no matter what packages i try to install it just won’t work

any ideas?

root@syslog:~# apt-get install syslog-ng
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have
requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable
distribution that some required packages have not yet been created
or been moved out of Incoming.
The following information may help to resolve the situation:

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
 syslog-ng : Depends: syslog-ng-core (>= 3.8.1) but it is not going to be installed
             Depends: syslog-ng-mod-sql but it is not going to be installed
             Depends: syslog-ng-mod-mongodb but it is not going to be installed
             Depends: syslog-ng-mod-json but it is not going to be installed
             Recommends: syslog-ng-mod-journal but it is not going to be installed
             Recommends: syslog-ng-mod-smtp but it is not going to be installed
             Recommends: syslog-ng-mod-amqp but it is not going to be installed
             Recommends: syslog-ng-mod-geoip but it is not going to be installed
             Recommends: syslog-ng-mod-redis but it is not going to be installed
             Recommends: syslog-ng-mod-stomp but it is not going to be installed
             Recommends: syslog-ng-mod-riemann but it is not going to be installed
             Recommends: syslog-ng-mod-graphite but it is not going to be installed
             Recommends: syslog-ng-mod-python but it is not going to be installed
             Recommends: syslog-ng-mod-java but it is not going to be installed
             Recommends: syslog-ng-mod-java-common-lib but it is not going to be installed
             Recommends: syslog-ng-mod-elastic but it is not going to be installed
             Recommends: syslog-ng-mod-hdfs but it is not going to be installed
             Recommends: syslog-ng-mod-kafka but it is not going to be installed
             Recommends: syslog-ng-mod-http but it is not going to be installed
             Recommends: syslog-ng-mod-curl but it is not going to be installed
             Recommends: syslog-ng-mod-kvformat but it is not going to be installed
             Recommends: syslog-ng-mod-add-contextual-data but it is not going to be installed
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.
root@syslog:~# apt-get install syslog-ng-core
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have
requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable
distribution that some required packages have not yet been created
or been moved out of Incoming.
The following information may help to resolve the situation:

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
 syslog-ng-core : Depends: syslog-ng-mod-journal but it is not going to be installed
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.
root@syslog:~# apt-get install syslog-ng-mod-journal
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have
requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable
distribution that some required packages have not yet been created
or been moved out of Incoming.
The following information may help to resolve the situation:

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
 syslog-ng-mod-journal : Depends: syslog-ng-abi-3.8-0 but it is not installable
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.
root@syslog:~# apt-get install syslog-ng syslog-ng-core syslog-ng-mod-sql syslog-ng-mod-mongodb syslog-ng-mod-json syslog-ng-mod-journal
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have
requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable
distribution that some required packages have not yet been created
or been moved out of Incoming.
The following information may help to resolve the situation:

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
 syslog-ng-mod-journal : Depends: syslog-ng-abi-3.8-0 but it is not installable
 syslog-ng-mod-json : Depends: syslog-ng-abi-3.8-0 but it is not installable
 syslog-ng-mod-mongodb : Depends: syslog-ng-abi-3.8-0 but it is not installable
 syslog-ng-mod-sql : Depends: syslog-ng-abi-3.8-0 but it is not installable
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.
root@syslog:~# 

regards

Simon - Hestor Ltd

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