Bug 1093772

Summary:	[Doc] Following docs to install a distributed environment with packstack results in failure
Product:	Red Hat OpenStack	Reporter:	Matt Reid <mreid>
Component:	doc-Getting_Started_Guide	Assignee:	RHOS Documentation Team <rhos-docs>
Status:	CLOSED CURRENTRELEASE	QA Contact:	RHOS Documentation Team <rhos-docs>
Severity:	urgent	Docs Contact:
Priority:	urgent
Version:	4.0	CC:	adahms, ddomingo, mreid, rlandman, slong, yeylon
Target Milestone:	---	Keywords:	Documentation, Triaged
Target Release:	5.0 (RHEL 7)
Hardware:	Unspecified
OS:	Unspecified
Whiteboard:
Fixed In Version:		Doc Type:	Bug Fix
Doc Text:		Story Points:	---
Clone Of:
Clones:	1139085 (view as bug list)		Environment:
Last Closed:	2015-02-13 05:58:30 UTC	Type:	Bug
Regression:	---	Mount Type:	---
Documentation:	---	CRM:
Verified Versions:		Category:	---
oVirt Team:	---	RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
Cloudforms Team:	---	Target Upstream Version:
Embargoed:
Bug Depends On:
Bug Blocks:	1099570, 1139085

Description Matt Reid 2014-05-02 15:36:28 UTC

Description of problem:
Following the Getting Started Guide and trying to get a distributed environment up and running using packstack ends in failure currently. Each node that the user intends to use must either be prepped manually, or the user has to know how to tell packstack to register and subscribe the nodes, either using an answer file, or specifying it as part of the packstack command. Otherwise, when packstack goes to try and install what it needs to on each node, the node will report that it can't find the needed packages and error out.

Currently there's an issue with how packstack handles register/subscribing/and enabling content (BZ 1093482), but even once that's fixed, the docs still don't let the user know that they need to prep each node, or show them how to automate the task. All I can find in the docs to this effect is in the Software Requirements step, where we say:
"All systems in the environment must have Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.5 Server installed and be subscribed to receive package updates from Red Hat Network or an equivalent source such as a Red Hat Network Satellite server."

That's not mentioned down in the running packstack section though. As part of the answer file, you can provide CONFIG_RH_USER and CONFIG_RH_PW, and then packstack will register and subscribe each node as part of its install. I imagine that you could also specify those at runtime, and not use an answer file, but I'm not sure.

Without access to a repository to pull the needed bits from, the install will fail. The user can manually go through and ssh into each node they plan to use, and register it, attach an OpenStack subscription, and enable the OSP4 repository, then the node is in a state where packstack can install openstack. Seems like we should have more information around this in the doc, and at least call out again that each node needs to be in a state where it has access to the "rhel-6-server-openstack-4.0-rpms" repository. Ideally, we'd include some information on how to let packstack take care of that for distributed environments, so users don't have to go through those manual steps on each and every node they're planning on pointing packstack to.

Additional info:

Comment 2 Summer Long 2014-05-05 00:45:29 UTC

Assigning to Bruce Reeler, as the designated Packstack author.

Comment 8 Bruce Reeler 2014-07-14 06:26:57 UTC

*** Bug 1080169 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 9 Bruce Reeler 2014-07-18 05:35:12 UTC

In response to comment 6:

1) In "Procedure 5.1. Quick Start Deployment using PackStack":

I changed the "Note" to an "Important" admonishment, because installation won't actually work without the subscriptions on multiple nodes. I added info into the admonishment on using answer file to subscribe nodes to RHN. 
Generating and editing the answer file is described in later sections, so this has to refer to those sections.

2) In "5.3. Running PackStack Non-interactively":
I added the Important admonishment about subscriptions again (modified as necessary), seeing as users who go straight to this section will not have seen it earlier.

In response to comment 7:
Changed "Compute controller" to "Controller node" to make it clearer.