Removing Apache Docs also wants to remove "virtualmin-lamp-stack"

Virtualmin
1

Hello,

This is on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS. Also running latest Virtualmin/Webmin

For some reason, Virtualmin setup also installed apache-docs. As this gets flagged by pen testing, I want to remove them. However, I am a bit concerned if I do as there is another package it relates on that will also be removed, which is virtualmin-lamp-stack.

Running…

sudo apt remove apache2-doc

Give the following response…

The following packages will be REMOVED:
apache2-doc virtualmin-lamp-stack
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 2 to remove and 0 not upgraded.

I do not want to remove virtualmin or any other packages, just apache-docs.

Also, if you disable apache-docs, the next time the apache packages get updated, it re-enables apache-docs. Which is frustrating. Why does virtualmin-lamp-stack depend on apache2-doc?

  1. If I rely on virtualmin, will removing " virtualmin-lamp-stack" remove Virtualmin or the LAMP stack packages?

  2. Why do apache updates re-enable apache-docs? (disabled with ‘sudo a2disconf apache2-doc’)

2

@tzohosting,

Try something like…

sudo dpkg -r --force-depends apache-doc

3

I’ll make this package optional in Virtualmin 7.

4

Thanks, @Joe . Do you have a recommended solution to permanently disable/remove apache-docs, without fear of inadvertently removing other packages or impairing the current stack? And where apache-docs do not re-enabled after an apache2 update?

5

You can safely uninstall virtualmin-lamp-stack, as long as you don’t ever run apt-get autoremove (or as long as you use apt-get install ... for all of the packages so they get marked as installed manually, so they won’t get autoremoved when the package that depends on them goes away). This package is just a list of dependencies. Now that your system is installed, you don’t really need the package anymore.

But, really, seriously, if you ever use autoremove without noticing that the entire Virtualmin stack will be removed, it’ll completely slaughter your system.