15.0 Preboot Services Troubleshooting Strategies

This section provides solutions to problems you might encounter when using Novell ZENworks Linux Management Preboot Services:

The zislnx service fails to shut down on a RHEL 3 device

Source: ZENworks 7.3 Linux Management; Preboot Services
Possible Cause: RHEL 3 does not follow Linux Standard Base (LSB) standards, and therefore the zislnx service fails to shut down when you run the following command:

/etc/init.d/novell-zislnx stop

Action: None.

After restoring RHEL 5 image, the device does not boot

Source: ZENworks 7.3 Linux Management; Preboot Services
Explanation: When you try to restore an image on RHEL 5, the grub command fails to load the bootable files.
Possible Cause: Due to incompatible staging files in the latest Imaging distro.
Action: Do the following:
  1. Edit the image file by using Image Explorer, replace the files e2fs_stage1_5, stage2 and message under boot folder with the files available in TID 7006480 at Novell Support.

  2. Save the image.

  3. Restore the image on the device.

  4. Before rebooting the device, run the following commands:

    mount <active partition> <mount directory>

    For example: mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/

    grub-install.unsupported --root-directory=<mount directory> --recheck <hard disk>

    For example: grub-install.unsupported --root-directory=/mnt --recheck /dev/sda

  5. Reboot the device.

How to take and restore the image on RHEL 6 devices with ext3 file system

Source: ZENworks 7.3 Linux Management; Preboot Services
Explanation: You cannot restore an image on RHEL 6 device, because RHEL uses GUIDs to identify the partitions in the device, which will modify the GUID of the partition while restoring the image.
Possible Cause: RHEL 6 assigns GUID to access the mount directories instead of partitions.
Action 1: Before taking an image, do the following:
  1. Edit the files /boot/grub/menu.lst and /etc/fstab, replace the GUIDs in the files with appropriate mount partition.

    /boot/grub/menu.lst

    Replace the entry root=<GUID> with root=<active partition>.

    For example: Replace root=UUID=873fd0f0-9a0b-4d09-bbfb-3b82a2e46f71 with root=/dev/sda1.

    /etc/fstab

    Replace the entry <GUID> with <active partition>.

    For example: Replace UUID=d6196feb-eba6-4798-a11b-45a6b1e940fd with /dev/sda1.

    NOTE:If there are many mount points defined in /etc/fstab with GUIDs, replace them appropriately with the partitions.

  2. Take and restore the image.

  3. Reboot the device.

Action 2: After taking an image without modifying /boot/grub/menu.lst and /etc/fstab, do the following:
  1. Edit the image file by using Image Explorer.

  2. Extract the files /boot/grub/menu.lst and /etc/fstab, and edit the files.

    /boot/grub/menu.lst

    Replace the entry root=<GUID> with root=<active partition>.

    For example: Replace root=UUID=873fd0f0-9a0b-4d09-bbfb-3b82a2e46f71 with root=/dev/sda1.

    /etc/fstab

    Replace the entry <GUID> with <active partition>.

    For example: Replace UUID=d6196feb-eba6-4798-a11b-45a6b1e940fd with /dev/sda1.

    NOTE:If there are many mount points defined in /etc/fstab with GUIDs, replace them appropriately with the partitions.

  3. Replace the files and save the image file.

  4. Restore the image and reboot the device.