Sun N1 Service Provisioning System User's Guide for OS Provisioning Plug-In 3.0

Runtime Issues

The following issues are known to exist when provisioning operating systems.

Windows Installations Switch to Interactive Mode on Multiboot Target Hosts (6360018)

Description: If you try to provision the Windows OS to a target host that is running the Solaris or Linux OS, and the free disk space on the system is not large enough for the Windows OS, the installation switches to the interactive mode.

Workaround: Choose one of the following workarounds.

Before you provision the target host, use the fdisk utility to remove the Solaris or Linux partitions on the target host.
If you encounter this issue during the installation, follow the instructions in the interactive screens to delete existing unknown partitions with the DOS FDISK utility.

Windows RIS Server Does Not Respond to DHCP PXE Requests (6333612)

Description: If the first interface on a Windows RIS server is not configured as the provisioning interface, the RIS server does not respond to DHCP PXE requests from target hosts. This issue occurs because the BINLSVC/RIS service on the Windows boot and install server listens on the first interface that is configured at the time of system boot. If the first interface is not configured as the provisioning interface, the RIS server cannot respond to DHCP PXE requests by target hosts. For additional information, see Issues Related to PXE/DHCP/BINLSVC.

The following error message is displayed.

CLIENT MAC ADDR: 00 09 3D 12 D4 16  GUID: DF5EF8FE E568 11D9 811E 0060B0B37D21
CLIENT IP: 172.0.0.1  MASK: 255.255.255.0  DHCP IP: 172.0.0.3
PXE-E55: ProxyDHCP service did not reply to request on port 4011.

PXE-M0F: Exiting Broadcom PXE ROM

Workaround: Choose one of the following workarounds.

On the Windows RIS server, enable the provisioning interface, and disable all other interfaces.
Change the order of the network connections to be accessed by network services on the Windows RIS server. Follow these steps.
1. On the Windows RIS server, open the Control Panel window from the Start menu.
2. In the Control Panel window, click Network Connections.
3. In the Network Connections screen, select the Advanced tab.
4. Click the Advanced Settings button.
5. Click on the Adapters and Bindings tab.
6. Change the order of connections to be accessed by the network services. Ensure that the provisioning interface is listed as the first interface.
7. Stop and restart the BINLSVC. You can perform this operation by running the Services GUI, or by typing the following commands in an MS-DOS command window.
  > net stop binlsvc > net start binlsvc

SPARC: Invalid Errors Displayed During Detailed Preflight of Solaris OS Provisioning Server Create Plan (6376733)

Description: If you create an OS Provisioning server on a SPARC based system that is running the Solaris 9 release, 16 invalid warning messages are displayed if you select the Run Detailed Preflight option for the plan.

The warning messages use the following format.

Error verifying native procedure during preflight for the command 
"/opt/SUNWn1sps_en/N1_Service_Provisioning_System/agent/data/systemcomps/com.sun.n1osp/pkgaddutil 
/opt/SUNWn1sps_en/N1_Service_Provisioning_System/agent/data/systemcomps/com.sun.n1osp 
adminfile package_name". (026084)
 User "root" does not have execute permissions for command 
"/opt/SUNWn1sps_en/N1_Service_Provisioning_System/agent/data/systemcomps/com.sun.n1osp/pkgaddutil".
(026079)

In the previous example, package_name refers to a package that the warning indicates cannot be added to the OS Provisioning server.

Workaround: Ignore the invalid error messages. The packages are added to the OS Provisioning server, and the server is created successfully.

TFTP Server Not Started Automatically on Linux Boot and Install Servers (6382810)

Description: While provisioning the Linux OS by using a Solaris boot and install server, the TFTP service is not automatically started. You need to manually start the TFTP service on the boot and install server to provision your target hosts.

Workaround: Perform these steps on the boot and install server, with the OS distribution media accessible.

Plumb the IP addresses.
Export the NFS shares.
Start the TFTP services.

See the system administration documentation for your Solaris release for more information about how to start TFTP services.

Cancelling OS Image Import and Provisioning Plans Does Not Cancel Plan (6379004)

Description: If you cancel an OS image Import plan or a Provision OS plan, the plan operations continue in the background. This issue occurs under the following circumstances.

OS Image Import - If you cancel an OS Image Import plan before the image is fully imported, the plan is cancelled, but the import operation continues in the background until the image is imported.
Provision OS - If you configure the OS Provisioning server to perform provisioning operations in the foreground, and then cancel a Provision OS plan before the OS is provisioned, the provisioning continues in the background.

Workaround: Kill the import or provisioning process manually on the OS Provisioning server or boot and install server.

Cannot View or Manage OS Provisioning Components After Upgrading the OS Provisioning Plug-In (6391643)

Description: If you upgrade to the OS Provisioning Plug-In 3.0, you cannot view or manage installed OS Provisioning components in the N1 SPS browser interface.

Workaround: Use the Version History link on each Component Details page to view details about OS Provisioning components that were created in previous releases. For more information, see How to Access Previous Versions of a Component .

OS Profile Components Not Updated Properly After Upgrading the OS Provisioning Plug-In (6392983)

Description: If you recreate OS profile components after you upgrade to the OS Provisioning Plug-In 3.0, the component might include variable settings that are no longer included in the current plug-in version. The component variables are not properly updated after you recreate the component, and provisioning plans that reference this component might fail. An error that is similar to the following message is displayed.

The plan (or preflight) "/system/autogen/Solaris9_7_
sparc.standard-inst-provision_start-1141144282798" finished 
with 1 failed host(s). (017034)

Unable to find accessible variable in component referenced by 
substitution variable :[container:sysidcfg_network_interface_base_]. (04011

In the previous example, the plan fails because the OS Provisioning Plug-In 3.0 does not include the sysidcfg_network_interface_base_config_ variable in the Solaris OS profile component.

Workaround: Choose one of the following workarounds.

After you upgrade the OS Provisioning Plug-In, create a new OS profile component, rather than recreating the previous profile.
Delete the previous OS profile component and create a new OS profile with the valid variable settings.
Remove values for the deprecated variables from the old OS profile component.

Cannot Recreate Linux Image Server or Windows Image Server After Upgrading to OS Provisioning Plug-in 3.0 (6391832)

Description: If you try to recreate a Linux or Windows Image Server after you upgrade to the OS Provisioning Plug-in 3.0, and you change the value of the installPath variable, the recreation fails. An error similar to the following message is displayed.

Problems encountered during plan run or preflight

The plan (or preflight) "/com/sun/n1osp/untyped/LinuxServer-create"
 finished with 1 failed host(s). (017034)

This host has already been reserved or already exists. (011220)

Workaround: Choose one of the following workarounds.

If the installPath variable value from the older version of the image server is still valid, do not change the value for the installPath variable.
If you need to change the value of the installPath variable for the OS Image server, create a new OS Image server as described in the following procedures.
When you create the new OS Image server, change the following plan variable settings.
- Set the installPath variable to the valid value.
- Edit the linuxHost or windowsHost variable to rename the virtual host for this plan. For example, :[target:sys.hostName]-1-linux.

Provisioning Non-English Windows OS Image Fails (6400419)

Description: If you try to provision a Windows OS image for a language other than English, the installation fails. This failure occurs because by default, the Microsoft RIS service looks for the English OSChooser files. An error that is similar to the following message is displayed.

The system cannot find the path specified.

  An error occurred on the server. Please notify your administrator.
  E:\RemoteInstall\OSChooser\English\LOGIN.OSC

Workaround: Choose one of the following workarounds.

Modify the OSChooser files. Follow these steps.
1. Edit the multilng.osc file to list the language for the image as the first entry in the file.
2. In the multilng.osc file, add the following line before the <TITLE> tag.
  <META ACTION=AUTOENTER>
3. Copy the multilng.osc to the welcome.osc file in the same directory.
4. Edit the \OSChooser\language\welcome.osc to include the following text line before the <TITLE> tag.
  <META ACTION=AUTOENTER>
Copy the OSChooser files from the non-English language directory to the English directory.
% cd RemoteInstall\OSChooser % copy -r Language English

Solaris: Wrong Encryption of root Password Causes JumpStart Error (6245964)

Description: You see the following messages during installation and the installation becomes interactive:

root_password=Clz6pK2b6qw=
	syntax error  line 2 position 15

The password variable sysidcfg_root_password_base_conf in the Solaris OS profile has a encrypted value. However, the password that you supplied was not a Solaris-encrypted password..

Workaround: Use the Solaris tools to encrypt the password. The appropriate mechanism for a user to create an encrypted password is to create a user with a password. Look in the /etc/shadow file for the encrypted password and use it in as a value for the sysidcfg_root_password_base_conf variable.

Unable to Change Location of OS Provisioning Scripts on Windows Boot and Install Server (6251010)

Description: You cannot change the OS provisioning script location for a Windows boot and install server once the Windows boot and install server is created.

Workaround: Recreate a new Windows boot and install server that has a different name.

Warnings for DHCP Settings Are Not Reported to the User Interface (6248485)

Description: The provisioning operation fails because the DHCP settings are incorrect. There is no message shown in stdout or stderr.

Workaround: The incorrect settings cause the OS provisioning subnet to be created with wrong values. Look at the /var/adm/n1osp* log files on the OS provisioning server for the DHCP error.

Cannot View OS Installation Log by Host Provision Status in Non-EUC Locale (6255797)

Description: Installation log files are always in related EUC locale regardless of the specified locale for the OS installation. When the remote agent locale is different from this EUC locale, you cannot view the log file correctly through the Status Monitoring page because the locales do not match.

Workaround: Connect to service port or console (if applicable) with proper locale to view the log files directly.