#1133280 apt: I get 'bash: --shell: invalid option' when upgrading packages

Package:
apt
Source:
apt
Description:
commandline package manager
Submitter:
Cristian Ionescu-Idbohrn
Date:
2026-04-19 11:33:03 UTC
Severity:
normal
#1133280#5
Date:
2026-04-11 14:51:17 UTC
From:
To:
Dear Maintainer,

Since a week or two back, when upgrading packages, several show
something like this:

,----
| Unpacking python3-pykakasi (2.3.0-2) over (2.3.0-1) ...
| bash: --shell: invalid option
| Usage:    bash [GNU long option] [option] ...
|     bash [GNU long option] [option] script-file ...
| GNU long options:
|     --debug
|     --debugger
|     --dump-po-strings
|     --dump-strings
|     --help
|     --init-file
|     --login
|     --noediting
|     --noprofile
|     --norc
|     --posix
|     --pretty-print
|     --rcfile
|     --restricted
|     --verbose
|     --version
| Shell options:
|     -ilrsD or -c command or -O shopt_option        (invocation only)
|     -abefhkmnptuvxBCEHPT or -o option
| Setting up python3-pykakasi (2.3.0-2) ...
| Processing triggers for man-db (2.13.1-1) ...
| Processing triggers for doc-base (0.11.2) ...
| Processing 1 changed doc-base file...
| bash: --shell: invalid option
| Usage:    bash [GNU long option] [option] ...
|     bash [GNU long option] [option] script-file ...
| GNU long options:
|     --debug
|     --debugger
|     --dump-po-strings
|     --dump-strings
|     --help
|     --init-file
|     --login
|     --noediting
|     --noprofile
|     --norc
|     --posix
|     --pretty-print
|     --rcfile
|     --restricted
|     --verbose
|     --version
| Shell options:
|     -ilrsD or -c command or -O shopt_option        (invocation only)
|     -abefhkmnptuvxBCEHPT or -o option
`----

though, the packages seem to install correctly.
#1133280#10
Date:
2026-04-13 06:12:31 UTC
From:
To:
Cristian Ionescu-Idbohrn wrote...
(...)

While I cannot reproduce this here ...

This smells a lot like #1133379 I've reported against util-linux/su
yesterday.

    Christoph
#1133280#15
Date:
2026-04-19 10:07:51 UTC
From:
To:
Hello,

some google-fu applied seems to me related information:
https://github.com/util-linux/util-linux/pull/4185 (Runuser
regression) and
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=1132610
(util-linux: su -s <shell> option is broken)

It also contains an ad-hoc fix that restores the previous
behaviour.

That seems to be an acceptable option until an final fix for all
affected scripts, man-pages, etc is agreed.

Thanks for considering.

Best regards,

Joerg