ZCM Multicast imaging fails with Could not get local MAC address error

  • 7011963
  • 15-Mar-2013
  • 28-Oct-2013

Environment

Novell ZENworks Configuration Management 11.2.2 Imaging
Novell ZENworks Configuration Management 11.2.3 Imaging

Situation

When attempting to image a device using multicast, the device PXE boots loading the imaging environment and then errors out with "Could not get local MAC address".

ifconfig shows the NIC as being named em1 or pxpx instead of eth0 as expected.

hwinfo shows the NIC as being there but the Device File or name is not eth0 as expected.

Examples from hwinfo output:
65: None 01.0: 10701 Ethernet
  [Created at net.124]
  Unique ID: IQji.ndpeucax6V1
  Parent ID: WZJ3.9Nr3J9lh6CE
  SysFS ID: /class/net/em1
  SysFS Device Link: /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:19.0
  Hardware Class: network interface
  Model: "Ethernet network interface"
  Driver: "e1000e"
  Driver Modules: "e1000e"
  Device File: em1
  HW Address: xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx
  Link detected: yes
  Config Status: cfg=new, avail=yes, need=no, active=unknown
  Attached to: #22 (Ethernet controller)

58: None 00.0: 10701 Ethernet
  [Created at net.124]
  Unique ID: GSPa.ndpeucax6V1
  Parent ID: DnfJ.Ais0sUm0RPC
  SysFS ID: /class/net/p2p1
  SysFS Device Link: /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1c.4/0000:03:00.0
  Hardware Class: network interface
  Model: "Ethernet network interface"
  Driver: "r8169"
  Driver Modules: "r8169"
  Device File: p2p1
  HW Address: xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx
  Link detected: yes
  Config Status: cfg=new, avail=yes, need=no, active=unknown
  Attached to: #28 (Ethernet controller)


Resolution

This is fixed in version 11.2.4 - see KB 7012027 "ZENworks Configuration Management 11.2.4 - update information and list of fixes" which can be found at https://support.microfocus.com/kb/doc.php?id=7012027

Cause

In Linux kernel updates to the imaging environment, NICs can be named differently than eth0.

Additional Information

For more information on how NIC devices are named in Linux, please see the following link:
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/ConsistentNetworkDeviceNaming