#1152542 python3-ipalib: missing dependency on python3-packaging; ipa fails with ModuleNotFoundError

#1152542#5
Date:
2026-10-30 11:13:11 UTC
From:
To:
Dear Maintainer,

After installing freeipa-client 4.13.1-1+b1 on unstable, the ipa command
fails immediately because the Python module "packaging" is not installed:

  $ ipa
  Traceback (most recent call last):
    File "/usr/bin/ipa", line 27, in <module>
      from ipaclient.__main__ import main
    File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/ipaclient/__main__.py", line 7, in
<module>
      from ipalib import api, cli
    File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/ipalib/__init__.py", line 884, in
<module>
      from ipapython.version import VERSION as __version__
    File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/ipapython/version.py", line 20, in
<module>
      from packaging.version import parse as parse_version
  ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'packaging'

/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/ipapython/version.py is shipped by
python3-ipalib and imports packaging.version, but python3-ipalib does not
depend on python3-packaging. Neither does python3-ipaclient or
freeipa-client, and python3-packaging was not installed on this system.

Because ipalib is imported at startup, this makes the ipa command unusable
unless python3-packaging happens to be installed already.

Suggested fix: add python3-packaging to the Depends of python3-ipalib

Workaround: installing the missing package manually resolves the error

  # apt install python3-packaging