In Ubuntu 16.04, if during a package installation, you got the following error.

update-alternatives: error: /var/lib/dpkg/alternatives/rename corrupt: invalid status
dpkg: error processing package perl (--configure):
 subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 2

Errors were encountered while processing:
 perl
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

In this current case, it is the package “rename” with the package “perl”, but it probably can be used for any package.

Solution:

sudo mv /var/lib/dpkg/alternatives/rename /var/lib/dpkg/alternatives/rename.old
sudo apt-get install rename
sudo apt-get install perl