etcupdate failing

[Steven Bellovin <smb%cs.columbia.edu@localhost>]

I'm trying to update a machine (a Xen domU, in fact).  After
having some trouble just installing the sets by hand the way
I usually do, I ran sysinst from a CD (image).  I then booted
single-user to run etcupdate, using the CD image's binary/sets
directory.  It's failing:

# etcupdate -s /mnt/amd64/binary/sets
*** Creating /tmp/temproot
*** Populating /tmp/temproot from /mnt/amd64/binary/sets (copying)
*** ERROR: Files from the etc.tgz set are missing

How can I tell what is missing?  More likely, how can I make
it not believe that something is missing when I doubt that that's
really the case.

This is all amd64, xen 3.3, upgrading to 5.1_STABLE as of a few
days ago from an earlier 5.x snapshot.


                --Steve Bellovin, https://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb