Registering Alibaba Cloud Linux Clients

This section contains information about registering traditional and Salt clients running Alibaba Cloud Linux operating systems.

The traditional stack is available on Alibaba Cloud Linux 2 but it is not supported. Alibaba Cloud Linux 2 clients are only supported as Salt clients.

Some Alibaba Cloud Linux 2 instances will need two tries to register successfully.

1. Add Software Channels

Before you register Alibaba Cloud Linux clients to your Uyuni Server, you need to add the required software channels, and synchronize them.

In the following section, descriptions often default to the x86_64 architecture. Replace it with other architectures if appropriate.

The channels you need for this procedure are:

Table 1. Alibaba Cloud Linux Channels - CLI
OS Version Core Channel Updates Channel Client Channel

Alibaba Cloud Linux 2

alibaba-2

alibaba-2-updates

alibaba-2-uyuni-client
Procedure: Adding Software Channels at the Command Prompt

  1. At the command prompt on the Uyuni Server, as root, use the spacewalk-common-channels command to add the appropriate channels:

    spacewalk-common-channels \
<base_channel_label> \
<child_channel_label_1> \
<child_channel_label_2> \
... <child_channel_label_n>

  2. If automatic synchronization is turned off, synchronize the channels:

    spacewalk-repo-sync -p <base_channel_label>

  3. Ensure the synchronization is complete before continuing.

The client tools channel provided by spacewalk-common-channels is sourced from Uyuni and not from SUSE.

2. Check Synchronization Status

Procedure: Checking Synchronization Progress from the Web UI

  1. In the Uyuni Web UI, navigate to Software  Manage  Channels, then click the channel associated to the repository.

  2. Navigate to the Repositories tab, then click Sync and check Sync Status.

Procedure: Checking Synchronization Progress from the Command Prompt

  1. At the command prompt on the Uyuni Server, as root, use the tail command to check the synchronization log file:

    tail -f /var/log/rhn/reposync/<channel-label>.log

  2. Each child channel generates its own log during the synchronization progress. You need to check all the base and child channel log files to be sure that the synchronization is complete.

3. Create an Activation Key

You need to create an activation key that is associated with your Alibaba Cloud Linux channels.

For more information on activation keys, see Activation Keys.

4. Register Clients

To register your clients, you need a bootstrap repository. By default, bootstrap repositories are automatically created, and regenerated daily for all synchronized products. You can manually create the bootstrap repository from the command prompt, using this command:

mgr-create-bootstrap-repo

For more information on registering your clients, see Client Registration.

Some Alibaba Cloud Linux 2 instances will fail to register on the first try.

This is due to a to a known bug in the Alibaba Cloud Linux 2 image.

The python-urlgrabber3 package is provided both as a Python pip package and an RPM package, which can cause a conflict on the first attempt to register.

If your instance is based on one of the affected image versions, the client should register correctly on the second registration attempt.