Red Hat Bugzilla – Bug 26214
up2date fails on headless RH7 w/o x
Last modified: 2015-01-07 18:43:10 EST
From Bugzilla Helper: User-Agent: Mozilla/4.5 [en] (WinNT; U) System - Dell PowerEdge 1400 Headless - boots to console X - not installed - all services must be run from command line OS - RH7.0 Reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1.up2date -r -l system hangs and finally gives a "time out" error message 2.up2date -l system spews error messages and process quits 3.up2date -d system spews error messages and process quits I found some info stating that there were problems running up2date from SSH. I have tried this from SSH and telnet. I cannot run this from the machine directly as it is "headless" and included in our server farm. Actual Results: 1. system hangs and does nothing until manually interrupted or returns There was a fatal error communicating with the server. The message was: Connection timed out 2. You are not registered with Red Hat Network. To use Update Agent, You must be registered. However, you can continue now with an anonymous registration, and only your Red Hat Linux version and computer architecture will be sent to redhat.com. You are free to use the rhn_register later to take full advantage of the benefits offered by the Red Hat Network. To register anonymously, specify "--register" as a command line option. Retrieving list of all available packages... Traceback (innermost last): File "/usr/sbin/up2date", line 382, in ? main() File "/usr/sbin/up2date", line 366, in main sys.exit(batchRun(onlyList, pkgNames)) File "/usr/sbin/up2date", line 138, in batchRun updated, skipped = up2date.getUpdatedPackageList(printit, percent) File "/usr/share/rhn/up2date/up2date.py", line 872, in getUpdatedPackageList pkgList = getAvailablePackageList() File "/usr/share/rhn/up2date/up2date.py", line 267, in getAvailablePackageList availPkgList = s.up2date.listall(getSystemId()) File "/usr/lib/python1.5/site-packages/xmlrpclib.py", line 576, in __call__ return self.__send(self.__name, args) File "/usr/lib/python1.5/site-packages/xmlrpclib.py", line 602, in __request request = dumps(params, methodname) File "/usr/lib/python1.5/site-packages/xmlrpclib.py", line 470, in dumps data = m.dumps(params) File "/usr/lib/python1.5/site-packages/xmlrpclib.py", line 246, in dumps self.__dump(v) File "/usr/lib/python1.5/site-packages/xmlrpclib.py", line 257, in __dump raise TypeError, "cannot marshal %s objects" % type(value) TypeError: cannot marshal <type 'None'> objects 3.Traceback (innermost last): File "/usr/sbin/up2date", line 382, in ? main() File "/usr/sbin/up2date", line 263, in main print "Error parsing command line arguments: %s" % msg NameError: msg Expected Results: According to the documents I have found it should have registered me and given me a list of available updates or just downloaded the available updates depending on the option flags used. Your documentation is located at http://www.redhat.com/support/manuals/RHNetwork/ref-guide/text-up2date.html and I have been unable to get up2date to do anything at all. I don't understand what is going wrong, because it should be working.
1. The up2date server was down temporarily. This accounts for your connection refused errors. 2. The problems with anonymous registration are fixed with up2date 2.1.7, available at updates.redhat.com. We recommend that you upgrade as indicated at http://www.redhat.com/errata. 3. Anonymous registration is not nearly as useful as a real RHN registration. Use the "rhn_register" program to complete registration.
I have applied the patches you recommened even though I had to use --force to get them to install. I am still having the same problem. I have an identical machine as my development workstation which has x installed and it works perfectly. In fact, it's updating as we speak. For some reason up2date seems to depend on X in a headless install. Both boxes are accessable via console and ssh. I can forward the x via ssh and up2date works fine. However, it still doesn't connect with you folks on the box WITHOUT x. That is the ONLY difference between the 2 boxes. They have been kept identical on purpose.
I forgot to add that rhn_register doesn't work either. I know that it's not a problem with my network connectivity because I can use this server to telnet, ssh, ftp, etc. in to box on my network and out on the internet. I should probably also mention that most unnecssary RPM's were uninstalled and if you like I can send you a spreadsheet showing you what is still active.
The next versions of up2date include a `--nox` option, that will tell the client not to attempt to use X regardless of the setting of DISPLAY, or otherwise. This option is available for `up2date`, and `rhn_register`, so it should solve this problem. There is also better handling of the cases where it looks like everything is setup for the use of X, but attaching to the X server fails (ie, a bogus DISPLAY setting is a good example).
Assigned QA to jturner
if your DISPLAY variable is set, up2date, rhn_register, and other programs (emacs) that support X will believe it and try to work with X. If you don't actually have X installed, then you should make sure that this variable is unset. You can use the --nox option available in the rawhide version as well; we will be releasing official stable errata shortly that includes this option. Until then, make sure your DISPLAY variable is not set.
Code in CVS right now which makes this process a lot less painful. Am able to ssh into a machine which does not have X of any sort installed, and then issue up2date command line without any problems.