Installation guide

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Chapter 7. Troubleshooting
This chapter provides tips for determining the cause of and resolving the most common errors
ass ociated with RHN Satellite. If you need additional help, contact Red Hat Network support at
https://rhn.redhat.com/help/contact.pxt. Log in using your Satellite-entitled account to see the full list of
options.
To begin troubleshooting general problems, examine the log file or files related to the component
exhibiting failures. A useful exercise is to iss ue the tail -f command for all log files and then run yum
list. You should then examine all new log entries for potential clues.
A common issue is full disk space. An almost sure sign of this is the appearance of halted writing in the
log files. If logging stopped during a write, such as mid-word, you likely have filled disks. To confirm this,
run this command and check the percentages in the Use% column:
df -h
In addition to log files, you can obtain valuable information by retrieving the s tatus of your RHN Satellite
and its various components. T his can be done with the command:
/usr/sbin/rhn-satellite status
In addition, you can obtain the s tatus of components such as the Apache Web server and the RHN
Task Engine individually. For instance, to view the status of the Apache Web server, run the command:
service httpd status
7.1. Inst alling a nd Upda ting
SELinux keeps giving me me ssages when I'm t rying t o install. Why?
If you encounter any issues with SELinux messages (such as AVC denial mess ages ) while
installing RHN Satellite, be sure to have the audit.log files available so that Red Hat Support
personnel can assist you. You can find the file in /var/log/audit/audit.log and can attach
the file to your Support ticket for engineers to as sist you.
I changed /var/satellite t o a n NFS mount , and now SELinux is st opping it working
properly. What do I nee d t o do?
You will need to tell SELinux about the NFS mount in order for it to allow that traffic. You can do this
with the command:
# /usr/sbin/setsebool -P spacewalk_nfs_mountpoint on
If you are using Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6, you will also need to run the command:
# /usr/sbin/setsebool -P cobbler_use_nfs on
My Satellite is failing. Any idea why?
Do not subscribe your RHN Satellite to any of the following child channels available from RHN's
central servers:
Red Hat Developer Suite
Red Hat Application Server
Red Hat Extras
Subscribing to these channels and updating your Satellite may install newer, incompatible versions
of critical s oftware components, causing the Satellite to fail.
7.2. Services
Why isn't the Apache Web server running?
If the Apache Web server isn't running, entries in your /etc/hosts file may be incorrect.
How do I find out what the sta tus of t he RHN Task Engine is?
To obtain the status of the RHN T ask Engine, run the command:
service taskom atic status
How do I find out what the sta tus of t he Sat ellite's Embedde d Database is?
To view the status of the Satellite's Embedded Database, if it exists , run the command:
service oracle status
Wha t do I do if yum, up2date, or the push capa bility of the RHN Sat ellite stops working?
If yum, up2date, or the push capability of the RHN Satellite ceases to function, it is possible that
old log files may be at fault. Stop the jabberd daemon before removing these files. To do so, issue
the following commands as root:
service jabberd stop
cd /var/lib/jabberd
rm -f _db*
service jabberd start
7.3. Conne ctivity
I ca n't conne ct! How do I work out wha t is wrong?
The following measures can be used to troubleshoot general connection errors :
Attempt to connect to the RHN Satellite's database at the command line us ing the correct
connection string as found in /etc/rhn/rhn.conf:
sqlplus username/password@sid
Ensure the RHN Satellite is using Network Time Protocol (NTP) and set to the appropriate time
zone. This also applies to all client systems and the separate database machine in RHN
Chapter 7. Troubleshooting
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