Kickstarting with multiple network interfaces prevents kickstart from completing

Solution Verified - Updated -

Environment

Red Hat Network Satellite or Proxy

5.4.1

Issue

Build from Satellite gives missing package information inconsistently

I'm not certain if this is a Satellite issue or a RHEL issue. In Satellite I have cloned channels for a RHEL 5 build as well as another set for RHEL 6 build. These were created from the RHEL synced channels. I've provisioned successfully from both channels a number of times. However, on certain hosts provisioning fails. For instance, I have a Dell R710 that I deploy RHEL 6 on and in the middle of deploying packages it gives an error as follows:

  • libgomp-4.4.6-4.el6.x86_64.rpm cannot be opened. Missing file, corrupt package, or corrupt media

I know the package is available and fine as I've deployed several other servers without problems. However, every time I build on this particular R710 it dies in the same place on the libgomp package.

A few days later I was deploying a Dell M620 with RHEL 5 and got the same error, but on a different package:

  • libjpeg-6b-37.x86_64.rpm cannot be opened. Missing file, corrupt package, or corrupt media.

Again, I've deployed from the same software channel on several other servers, but this one will always die at the same place. Another thing that is odd is it gives options to retry or reboot. However, in both cases the system appears hung and does not allow me to tab to either option.

Please give direction for how to troubleshoot this problem.

Resolution

To get around this issue, you can modify the ksdevice= variable as noted by one of the options below

  1. Add the MAC address of the NIC to kickstart from: ksdevice=DE:AD:BE:EF:CA:FE
  2. Use the “link” keyword to tell kickstart to use the interface that has a link status of UP: ksdevice=link
  3. Use the “bootif” keyword to tell kickstart to use the boot interface: ksdevice=bootif (for this to work you need IPAPPEND 2 in your pxelinux.cfg)

Root Cause

During kickstart with two network intefaces cabled the network configuration is placed additionally on the non-pxe'd network interface and thus causes the network to fail.

Diagnostic Steps

I've typically seen this with network issues like I mentioned on the phone.

With that said I have seen from time to time where a package could get corrupted typically during initial channel synchronization.

The easier solution is to rerun the satellite-sync on your channels and check log files

https://access.redhat.com/knowledge/solutions/23980

A more in depth way to clean up is to do the following

https://access.redhat.com/knowledge/solutions/60022

The strange part to me is that if you are running the same kickstart on other machines and not having problems it seems like it's not a corruption issue.

One other important thing is to always make sure to check in on your db tablespace

su - oracle
db-control report

keep below 85-90% to be safe

db-control extend

So from above check the md5sum of the file in question with one you download from rhn as shown from the second KCS article. Then we can go from there.

Assuming it's a network issue the retry should work, assuming you get the drac tty working using ctrl+alt+<F#> working it will help to debug this.

More progress today as my Alt-F2 now works! :) I went through my RHEL 5 channel and cleaned things up so it looks similar to the actual DVD. I did a few builds this afternoon and the R710 still fails at various locations during startup. With alt-F2 it's a lot easier to troubleshoot! I've found that the network is dying. It turns out that the NIC gets configured twice. At boot the p1p1 NIC gets configured and that's how it starts its build, etc. However, later as its prepping for install the em2 (embedded/onboard) NIC gets configured with the same IP address so both stop responding. Just to validate I could build without other problems I did an ifconfig em2 down. Then retried the package and everything went fine afterwards.

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