AWS apt install error = Could not get lock /var/lib/dpkg/lock - open (11: Resource temporarily unavailable)

Question

Using Amazon Linux AMI (2017.03.1) on a p2.xlarge instance, and attempting to sudo apt install {somepackage}, I get the following error:

Could not get lock /var/lib/dpkg/lock - open (11: Resource temporarily unavailable)

I have already tried

sudo rm /var/lib/apt/lists/lock

and

sudo rm /var/cache/apt/archives/lock

Answer 1

Solution:

sudo rm /var/lib/dpkg/lock
sudo dpkg --configure -a
sudo apt install {somepackage}

Answer 2

1. First look for that process by

sudo lsof /var/lib/dpkg/lock

2. Then make sure the process is not running by

ps cax | grep PID #PID is the Process id e.g 1111

3. If PID is shown(It's running) kill it {else go to step 5} by

sudo kill -9 PID

4. Make sure the process is killed done by

sudo ps cax | grep PID

5. Then remove the locked file by

sudo rm /var/lib/dpkg/lock

sudo rm /var/lib/dpkg/lock-frontend #optional

6. Finally make dpkg fix its self by

sudo dpkg --configure -a

Reference From