Red Hat Satellite Installation or upgrade fails with the exception (Puppet::Error: Cannot determine basic system flavour)

Solution Verified - Updated

Environment

  • Red Hat Satellite/Capsule 6.x
  • puppet 4 and above

Issue

  • Installing or upgrading Red Hat Satellite server fails with the below error:

    Sep 20 15:42:06 satellite65.sysmgmt.lan systemd[1]: Starting puppetserver Service...
Sep 20 15:42:27 satellite65.sysmgmt.lan puppetserver[13270]: Failed to load feature test for posix: can't find user for 0
Sep 20 15:42:27 satellite65.sysmgmt.lan puppetserver[13270]: Cannot run on Microsoft Windows without the win32-process, win32-dir and win32-service gems: Win32API only supported on win32
Sep 20 15:42:27 satellite65.sysmgmt.lan puppetserver[13270]: Puppet::Error: Cannot determine basic system flavour
Sep 20 15:42:27 satellite65.sysmgmt.lan puppetserver[13270]: (root) at /opt/puppetlabs/puppet/lib/ruby/vendor_ruby/puppet/feature/base.rb:40
Sep 20 15:42:27 satellite65.sysmgmt.lan puppetserver[13270]: require at org/jruby/RubyKernel.java:1040

  • puppet service fails to start :

       [root@satellite ~]# systemctl start puppetserver.service -l
   Job for puppetserver.service failed because the control process exited with error code. See "systemctl status puppetserver.service" and "journalctl -xe" for 
   details.
   [root@satellite ~]# systemctl status puppetserver.service -l
   ● puppetserver.service - puppetserver Service
      Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/puppetserver.service; disabled; vendor preset: disabled)
      Active: activating (start) since Fri 2018-03-02 18:27:50 IST; 7s ago
     Control: 13622 (bash)
      CGroup: /system.slice/puppetserver.service
              ├─13622 bash /opt/puppetlabs/server/apps/puppetserver/cli/apps/start
              ├─13629 /usr/bin/java -Xms2g -Xmx2g -XX:MaxPermSize=256m -Djava.security.egd=/dev/urandom -XX:OnOutOfMemoryError=kill -9 %p -cp 
   /opt/puppetlabs/server/apps/puppetserver/puppet-server-release.jar clojure.main -m puppetlabs.trapperkeeper.main --config 
   /etc/puppetlabs/puppetserver/conf.d --bootstrap-config 
   /etc/puppetlabs/puppetserver/services.d/,/opt/puppetlabs/server/apps/puppetserver/config/services.d/ --restart-file 
   /opt/puppetlabs/server/data/puppetserver/restartcounter
              └─13660 sleep 1

   Mar 02 18:27:50 satellite.redhat.com systemd[1]: Starting puppetserver Service...
   Mar 02 18:27:50 satellite.redhat.com puppetserver[13622]: OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM warning: ignoring option MaxPermSize=256m; support was removed in 8.0

For more KB articles/solutions related to Red Hat Satellite 6.x Installation/Upgrade/Update Issues, please refer to the Red Hat Satellite Consolidated Troubleshooting Article for Red Hat Satellite 6.x Installation/Upgrade/Update Issues.

Resolution

  • Assign executable permission to /tmp

  • As per the US government standards or DISA, "/tmp" should be used with "noexec" permission. However, Puppet Server 4.x or above version will not function if, "noexec" bit is set on the temporary mount point that Java uses.

  • Following modifications need to be performed to use any other mount point that has "exec" bit set, which can then be used as a temporary mount point for Java - 

       # vim /etc/sysconfig/puppetserver

  • Add the following line in the above file and save the file:
    JAVA_ARGS="-Xms2G -Xmx2G -XX:MaxPermSize=256m -Djava.io.tmpdir=/var/tmp" ----> In this example, the mount point has been set to "/var/tmp"

     # systemctl restart puppetserver
 # systemctl status puppetserver ----> Ensure that the service is running
 # ps -ef | grep java.io.tmpdir | grep puppetlabs  ----> Ensure that new "tmp" partition is in effect

  • Refer below step in case the above step does not resolve the issue:

     # vim  /etc/foreman-installer/custom-hiera.yaml
  • Adding below line in the above file can also be used as a workaround for this issue:
    puppet::server_jvm_extra_args: '-XX:MaxPermSize=256m -Djava.io.tmpdir=/custom/dir/location'

Note:

  1. Either way, you’ll need to set the permissions of the directory to 1777. This allows the Puppet Server JRuby process to write a file to '/tmp' and then execute it. If permissions are set incorrectly, you’ll get a massive stack trace without much useful information in it.

  2. The changes in /etc/sysconfig/puppetserver file might get overwritten with Satellite upgrade. Hence it is recommended to make changes in /etc/foreman-installer/custom-hiera.yaml file.

  3. In Java 17 (Satellite/Capsule 6.16+), the option '-XX:MaxPermSize=256m' is not valid (Unrecognized VM option 'MaxPermSize=256m'), then remove it from the recommendation.

Root Cause

  • If /tmp is mounted with the option noexec, puppetserver assumes that it is running on a Windows server, because it cannot determine the basic system flavour.

Diagnostic Steps

  • Check permission on /tmp

  • Following error is observed in /var/log/message:

     satellite puppetserver: Caused by: org.jruby.exceptions.RaiseException: (Error) Cannot 
  determine basic system flavour
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