Ubuntu 16.04.1 LTS weird error on systemctl enable docker

[sebamontini]

I'm installing docker engine following the doc at: https://docs.docker.com/engine/installation/linux/ubuntulinux/

everything goes well, docker installs and runs properlly, except when I try to do a:
sudo systemctl enable docker

then I get this error:

Synchronizing state of docker.service with SysV init with /lib/systemd/systemd-sysv-install...
Executing /lib/systemd/systemd-sysv-install enable docker
initctl: Unable to connect to Upstart: Failed to connect to socket /com/ubuntu/upstart: Connection refused
The script you are attempting to invoke has been converted to an Upstart
job, but lsb-header is not supported for Upstart jobs.
insserv: warning: script 'docker' missing LSB tags and overrides
insserv: Default-Start undefined, assuming empty start runlevel(s) for script `docker'
insserv: Default-Stop  undefined, assuming empty stop  runlevel(s) for script `docker'
update-rc.d: error: docker Default-Start contains no runlevels, aborting.

Steps to reproduce the issue:

1. install docker on an Ubuntu 16.04 LTS following the doc: https://docs.docker.com/engine/installation/linux/ubuntulinux/
2. sudo systemctl enable docker

Output of docker version:

Client:
 Version:      1.12.3
 API version:  1.24
 Go version:   go1.6.3
 Git commit:   6b644ec
 Built:        Wed Oct 26 21:39:03 2016
 OS/Arch:      linux/amd64

Server:
 Version:      1.12.3
 API version:  1.24
 Go version:   go1.6.3
 Git commit:   6b644ec
 Built:        Wed Oct 26 21:39:03 2016
 OS/Arch:      linux/amd64

Output of docker info:

Containers: 0
 Running: 0
 Paused: 0
 Stopped: 0
Images: 0
Server Version: 1.12.3
Storage Driver: aufs
 Root Dir: /var/lib/docker/aufs
 Backing Filesystem: extfs
 Dirs: 0
 Dirperm1 Supported: true
Logging Driver: json-file
Cgroup Driver: cgroupfs
Plugins:
 Volume: local
 Network: host bridge null overlay
Swarm: inactive
Runtimes: runc
Default Runtime: runc
Security Options: apparmor
Kernel Version: 4.4.0-36-generic
Operating System: Ubuntu 16.04.1 LTS
OSType: linux
Architecture: x86_64
CPUs: 2
Total Memory: 7.795 GiB
Name: ip-172-17-0-108
ID: 33XT:42QD:BEPP:GJK4:QLUR:B2SG:BUM7:ABH2:ATSL:WDXM:WODL:RTOE
Docker Root Dir: /var/lib/docker
Debug Mode (client): false
Debug Mode (server): false
Registry: https://index.docker.io/v1/
WARNING: No swap limit support
Insecure Registries:
 127.0.0.0/8```

**Additional environment details (AWS, VirtualBox, physical, etc.):**
EC2 instance, running the official Ubuntu 16.04 LTS AMI

[mlaventure]

It looks like you have a conflict with an old upstart configuration. ubuntu switched to systemd as the init system a while back.

You may want to look around for old docker upstart script and remove them, then purge/reinstall docker. You may have to delete files that you modified manually to ensure that the correct one get reinstalled.

[nulladmin]

I ran into a similar error after upgrading a system from Ubuntu 14.04 LTS to 16.04.1 LTS and installing Docker 1.12.4. Easy if slightly time consuming to recreate.

Here's the output of systemctl enable docker.
systemctl is invoking /usr/sbin/update-rc.d in the systemd-sysv-install script and I suspect the trouble might lie somewhere in that code which thinks upstart is still installed.

machine101-root[/root]# systemctl enable docker
Synchronizing state of docker.service with SysV init with /lib/systemd/systemd-sysv-install...
Executing /lib/systemd/systemd-sysv-install enable docker
initctl: Unable to connect to Upstart: Failed to connect to socket /com/ubuntu/upstart: Connection refused
The script you are attempting to invoke has been converted to an Upstart
job, but lsb-header is not supported for Upstart jobs.
insserv: warning: script 'screen-cleanup' missing LSB tags and overrides
insserv: Default-Start undefined, assuming empty start runlevel(s) for script `screen-cleanup'
insserv: Default-Stop  undefined, assuming empty stop  runlevel(s) for script `screen-cleanup'
initctl: Unable to connect to Upstart: Failed to connect to socket /com/ubuntu/upstart: Connection refused
The script you are attempting to invoke has been converted to an Upstart
job, but lsb-header is not supported for Upstart jobs.
insserv: warning: script 'screen-cleanup' missing LSB tags and overrides
insserv: Default-Start undefined, assuming empty start runlevel(s) for script `screen-cleanup'
insserv: Default-Stop  undefined, assuming empty stop  runlevel(s) for script `screen-cleanup'

[thaJeztah]

It looks like Ubuntu installs packages to migrate users from SysvInit / Upstart to systemd, also see http://askubuntu.com/questions/776524/systemctl-cannot-disable-services-displays-upstart-errors, and https://wiki.ubuntu.com/SystemdForUpstartUsers

Looking at this, this doesn't look like a bug in docker, and adding additional code to take these migration scripts into account may be overreaching and out of scope for this project.

I'm closing this issue, because I don't think we can address this, but I hope the links above may help you further in finding a solution. Feel free to comment after I closed!

[CharlesB2]

Having the same issue I realized that moving the file from /etc/init.d/ to /etc/systemd/system solved the problem

[vinzBad]

mv /etc/init.d/screen-cleanup.dpkg-new /etc/init.d/script-cleanup as described in https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/binfmt-support/+bug/1691295 fixed it for me.