[Spacewalk-list] Processes involved in package delivery from spacewalk server to spacewalk client

[Michael Mraka]

William Muriithi wrote:
% Hey guys,
% 
% I am trying to push packages from the spacewalk server to spacewalk
% client and its failing with a rather generic error unfortunately
% 
% Fatal error in Python code occured [[6]]
% 
% As you can see, the above could almost mean anything.  I am certain
% the server communicate the clients fine as I can ping them from the
% spacewalk management interface and I see the ping logged on the osad
% log file.  I have looked around on the logs and I don’t see any error,
% well with exception of the apache complaining about the key
% 
% [Mon Nov 26 04:16:17 2012] [error] Exception KeyError:
% KeyError(139936736331744,) in <module 'threading' from
% '/usr/lib64/python2.6/threading.pyc'> ignored
% [Mon Nov 26 04:17:17 2012] [error] Exception KeyError:
% KeyError(139936736331744,) in <module 'threading' from
% '/usr/lib64/python2.6/threading.pyc'> ignored

This is rather harmless warning (of mod_wsgi) than actual error when
httpd server is shutting down.

% Is apache involved with package delivery?  Thought this was all yum
% stuff?  I had set up my repository without GPG keys and disabled the
% use for GPG check from the client (yum client).  That don’t seem to
% help.

Yes, apache on server is involved - yum on the client downloads package
from http(s)://spacewalk/getPackage/package.rpm.
 
% Worse, I don’t seem to have an ability of updating the GPG details on
% the channel after creation so I may have to create and download all
% the package again this time making certain I include the GPG key
% details
% 
% Was wondering, before setting up another channel, would anybody here
% know of the top of their head what happen in the background when one
% hit the “confirm” button and schedule a package installation?
% 
% Would help as I can go backward verifying if every piece of the puzzle
% is working correctly
% 
% >From what I know, it looks like this
% 
% Browser  -> ?? > osa-dispatcher > osad > yum
% 
% Is the above correct?

Using osad or not - it's always rhn_check process which does package
download and installation (using yum libraries). So to debug
installation issue try:
- schedule package installation on server (check as soon as possible, click
confirm)
- on client from commandline run 'rhn_check -vv' (or even -vvv)

% Is yum configuration on the client done through /etc/sysconfig/rhn/up2date
% 
% Up2date is not installed so I assumed spacewalk is using that as
% configuration for yum for historical reasons
% 
% Thanks in advance for your help
% 
% William

Regards,

--
Michael Mráka
Satellite Engineering, Red Hat