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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 SUSE Manager server is working correctly, and that you can reach the SUSE Manager 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 SUSE Manager 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.