June 9, 2006
The issues included in this document were identified when Novell® ZENworks® Linux Management - Dell* Edition was initially released.
For installation instructions, see the Novell ZENworks Linux Management - Dell Edition Installation Guide.
For administration concepts and tasks, see the Novell ZENworks Linux Management - Dell Edition Administration Guide.
For troubleshooting information, see the Novell ZENworks Linux Management - Dell Edition Troubleshooting Guide.
This section contains information about the issues that might occur when you install and use ZENworks 7 Linux Management - Dell Edition.
This section contains information about the issues that might occur when you install ZENworks Linux Management - Dell Edition.
If you run zlm-create-client-iso from a machine that does not have gettext installed, you receive the following error message:
./zlm-create-client-iso: line 3: gettext.sh: No such file or directory.
If you receive this error message, install the gettext package and then create the iso again. The gettext package is included on the product CD in the following location: data/packages/distribution/distribution/gettext-version.architecture.rpm.
This section contains information about the issues that might occur when you perform administrative tasks using ZENworks Linux Management - Dell Edition.
When using the Item Name field in the Select Objects dialog box to search for a specific object in the list, you must append * to the name. For example, if you are looking for a bundle named Bundle1, you must enter Bundle1*.
On some distributions of SUSE LINUX Enterprise Server 9, the ZENworks Linux Management man pages might not work. This is an issue with the operating system overwriting the MANPATH during user login.
To resolve this issue, you can add the following paths to the MANPATH:
/opt/novell/zenworks/share/man /usr/share/man
If you move a ZENworks Server object from one folder to another folder in the ZENworks Control Center, for example from the /Devices/Servers folder into a subfolder, the LDAP search won't be able to find the server and the settings lookup fails for the zenloader running on that server (zenloader runs but does not receive updated settings). To remedy this problem, move the server back to its original folder.
This section contains information about the issues that might occur when you install and use the ZENworks Linux Management - Dell Edition Agent.
If you delete a system variable from the ZENworks Control Center (Configuration tab > System Variables or Devices tab > device details > Settings tab > System Variables), the system variable is not removed from managed devices. You can work around this issue by deleting the system variable and adding another system variable. In this case, the deleted system variable is correctly removed (and the new one added) when the managed devices refresh.
This section contains information about the issues that might occur when you use the Package Management features of ZENworks Linux Management - Dell Edition.
If you plan to manage Dell PowerEdge servers using ZENworks Linux Management - Dell Edition, the Dell PowerEdge Software Support Matrix lets you identify operating systems and Dell OpenManage software that your PowerEdge system supports. You can download the Support Matrix directly from the Dell Support site. Click the latest OpenManage version and the Support Matrix will be downloadable.
In our testing, we distributed a bundle containing a service pack update (320 MB with 18 packages) to 500 devices and noticed performance and memory issues.
The following sections contain information to improve package delivery in a scaled environment. We recommend that you first follow the instructions in the Performance Tuning section. If the issues persist, follow the instructions in the next section, Memory Tuning.
Performance Tuning: To achieve greater speed in deployment of large package sets, you can temporarily downgrade the level of security provided by the connection between the client and the server. Lowering the strength of the cipher suite from the default of 256 bits to 128 bits reduces the workload of the client, speeding up the resulting streaming of the packages to it.
The preferred cipher downgrade option is to set the ciphers="SSL_RSA_WITH_RC4_128_SHA" attribute in the <Connector/> tag for port 443 in the /etc/opt/novell/zenworks/tomcat/base/server.xml file.
Setting this attribute instructs the server to offer RC4 encryption at 128 bits as the only available cipher suite; the client will comply as part of the SSL negotiation.
Memory Tuning: When distributing packages in a scaled environment, you might encounter an Out of Memory error on the ZENworks Agent and the distribution fails. Changing Agent settings resolves this problem.
Modify the following settings:
Use the rug utility to change these settings. The commands are:
/opt/novell/zenworks/bin/rug set-prefs refresh-interval=604800/opt/novell/zenworks/bin/rug set-prefs max-retries=23/opt/novell/zenworks/bin/rug set-prefs retry-delay=300000
To automate the process of changing the Agent settings, you can include the rug commands in a pre-distribution script for the RPM package bundle. You can also define a Remote Execute policy that includes the rug commands and then run the Remote Execute policy prior to the distribution of the RPM package.
After distribution of the package you should change the settings back to the defaults. Otherwise, when the user does a manual refresh of the agent, the agent appears to hang. You can use a post-distribution script to change the settings back to their defaults. You can also use a Remote Execute policy to change the settings back to their defaults
If you receive a java.lang.NullPointerException error
while synchronizing service packs from a remote YaST server, you
can remedy the problem by adding an empty <Folder></Folder> element
in the XML configuration file for each catalog. When you run zlmmirror
conf-generate filename.xml to
generate an XML configuration file for the mirroring session, an
empty <Folder></Folder> element already exists in
the file in the <CatalogConf> section. For more information,
see Mirroring
Software
in the Novell
ZENworks 7 Linux Management - Dell Edition Administration Guide.
During mirroring operations using zlmmirror, file are copied to the temporary directory of the package repository (/var/opt/novell/zenworks/pkg-repo/tmp). When mirroring operations complete, the files in the tmp directory are not deleted. To remedy this situation, you should manually delete the contents of this directory on a periodic basis after performing mirroring operations.
ZENworks Linux Management - Dell Edition does not support static mirroring of Dell Update Packages using the <Type>Static</Type> element in the mirroring configuration file.
When mirroring YaST Online Updates, patch-9974 does not install and should be excluded from any mirroring operation. Installation of this patch blocks all patches that depend upon it because it fails to install. To exclude this patch, add <ExcludeBundle>patch-9974</ExcludeBundle> to the configuration file. This patch is an optional update that should be installed only if a particular SDK is installed; if the SDK is not installed, the patch fails.
If the client refreshes while in the process of removing a bundle, the ZENworks Management Daemon (zmd) may hang. If this occurs, you must stop the zmd process and then restart it.
This section contains information about the issues that might occur when you use the Policy Management features of ZENworks Linux Management - Dell Edition.
After you install the ZENworks Agent using the -x option (zlm-install -a -x), the device's Event Log in the ZENworks Control Center displays the following messages:
The enforcer executable, /opt/novell/zenworks/lib/zmd/modules/policymanager/enforcers/nldenf, could not be located.
The enforcer executable, /opt/novell/zenworks/lib/zmd/modules/policymanager/enforcers/gconfenf, could not be located.
The enforcer executable, /opt/novell/zenworks/lib/zmd/modules/policymanager/enforcers/firefoxenf, could not be located.
The enforcer executable, /opt/novell/zenworks/lib/zmd/modules/policymanager/enforcers/epienf, could not be located.
The enforcer executable, /opt/novell/zenworks/lib/zmd/modules/policymanager/enforcers/evoenf, could not be located.
The -x option causes the installation program to not install any packages that require the X Window System*. Therefore, the Generic GNOME policy, Novell Linux Desktop policy, Firefox policy, Epiphany policy, and Evolution policy enforcers are not installed on the device, causing the above messages to be generated. You can ignore the messages.
If two or more users are using the same device concurrently, they should not log in at the same time. When logging in, each user should wait for a few seconds after the previous user has logged in. Otherwise, enforcement of policies for some users might fail.
This section contains information about the issues that might occur when you use the Imaging features of ZENworks Linux Management - Dell Edition.
The Imaging engine does not support double-byte characters in image filenames. The ZENworks Control Center allows you to enter a double-byte character, but the Imaging Server does not recognized it. Therefore, do not use double-byte characters in the names of image files.
The Imaging engine does not correctly identify Red Hat Logical Volumes, causing them to appear as unknown.
Currently, the Dell-DTK menu item does not find any Preboot Service work to do for a device that is booted to the PXE menu and you select the Dell-DTK menu option. If the device is just booted and uses PXE without displaying the PXE menu, Preboot Service work is found and performed as expected.
Workaround: Do not boot to the PXE menu in order to select the Dell-DTK menu option to perform Preboot Service work. Instead, allow the device to boot with PXE without displaying the PXE menu.
On Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 (RHEL 3) devices, using the /etc/init.d/novell-zislnx stop command fails to shut the service down. At some later time, the device then fails to respond to a soft reboot, and must be cold-booted.
The error message displayed when running /etc/init.d/novell-zislnx stop is incorrect, because RHEL 3 does not follow LSB standards.
Workaround: Do not use the /etc/init.d/novell-zislnx stop command. Normally, you would not run this command, because when /etc/init.d/novell-zislnx is run from either a bash prompt or at boot-up, it runs once then stops itself.
If you create an imaging job for a 25 device session, but then boot more than 25 devices that are assigned to the Multicast bundle, only the first 25 receive a multicast session ID and are imaged. The other devices are in the state they PXE-booted into before the image would have been applied.
Workaround: Physically check each device to see whether it had the multicast image applied. If not, reboot the device. If it's within the first 25 for the next session, it will have the bundle applied. If not, repeat rebooting until it succeeds.
The scenario where the server running the multicast bundle needs to access a different server for the image file is not currently supported.
Workaround: Make sure Multicast bundle files are contained on the same server running the multicast session.
For devices that boot using lilo, add-on images update the MBR, but cause grub errors.
Workaround: None.
The DHCP server provides an IP address to a device during PXE boot. When the device is being imaged, the DHCP server is incorrectly requested by the device to release that IP address. When another device is imaged and requests an IP address, it might be assigned the previously used IP address, which can cause the first device to crash. This is because the device should not have requested the DHCP server to release the IP address.
Workaround: Insert the following line in your settings.txt file:
/sbin/dhcpcd -B
This section contains information about the issues that might occur when you use the Remote Management features of ZENworks 7 Linux Management - Dell Edition.
If you select the Remote Login operation from the Remote Management dialog box, the launched session shows only a gray screen with an X cursor because XDMCP is not enabled on the managed device.
To work around this issue, you can manually enable XDMCP by running /opt/novell/zenworks/bin/novell-rm-fixrl.sh with the required options. Use novell-rm-fixrl.sh -help to view the options.
If you use the -restartdm option, make sure that all applications are closed, then run the script from the text console.
For example, if you use the gdm display manager with the configuration file that is located at /etc/opt/gnome/gdm/gdm.conf, you can enable XDMCP using the following command:
#/opt/novell/zenworks/bin/novell-rm-fixrl.sh -dm gdm -cf /etc/opt/gnome/gdm/gdm.conf enable
If CoRRE encoding is selected in the Remote Management Viewer window, the Remote Control session fails.
On Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS release 4, ensure that all applications are closed before running the novell-rm-fixrl.sh script with the -r option. Alternatively, run novell-rm-fixrl.sh without the -r option to enable XDMCP and restart gdm manually.
To work around this issue, kill all the running browser sessions and open the browser again.
This section contains information about the issues that might occur when you use the Reporting features of ZENworks Linux Management - Dell Edition.
If you are using an Oracle* database for your ZENworks Data Store and you receive the following error message when generating a report, you need to increase the size of the Oracle TEMP datafile:
java sql exception -- ORA-01652 unable to extend temp segment by 128 in tablspace TEMP
Refer to your Oracle documentation for instructions and size recommendations for the TEMP datafile.
If you export a large amount of data to HTML and receive a java.lang.OutofMemoryError message, you can increase the amount of memory for Java or you can use the filtering options to decrease the amount of data exported. Exporting a large amount of data to XML or CSV is not a problem.
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