Troubleshooting Bare Metal Systems

If a bare metal system on the network is not automatically added to the Systems list, check these things first:

  • You must have the pxe-default-image package installed.

  • File paths and parameters must be configured correctly. Check that the vmlinuz0 and initrd0.img files, which are provided by pxe-default-image, are in the locations specified in the rhn.conf configuration file.

  • Ensure the networking equipment connecting the bare metal system to the Uyuni server is working correctly, and that you can reach the Uyuni server IP address from the server.

  • The bare metal system to be provisioned must have PXE booting enabled in the boot sequence, and must not be attempting to boot an operating system.

  • The DHCP server must be responding to DHCP requests during boot. Check the PXE boot messages to ensure that:

    • the DHCP server is assigning the expected IP address

    • the DHCP server is assigning the the Uyuni server IP address as next-server for booting.

  • Ensure Cobbler is running, and that the Discovery feature is enabled.

If you see a blue Cobbler menu shortly after booting, discovery has started. If it does not complete successfully, temporarily disable automatic shutdown to help diagnose the problem. To disable automatic shutdown:

  1. Select pxe-default-profile in the Cobbler menu with the arrow keys, and press the Tab key before the timer expires.

  2. Add the kernel boot parameter spacewalk-finally=running using the integrated editor, and press Enter to continue booting.

  3. Enter a shell with the username root and password linux to continue debugging.

Due to a technical limitation, it is not possible to reliably distinguish a new bare metal system from a system that has previously been discovered. Therefore, we recommended that you do not power on bare metal systems multiple times, as this results in duplicate profiles.