Impossible to register NOWS SBE using the administration web frontend after initial installation

  • 3952573
  • 03-Mar-2008
  • 27-Apr-2012

Environment

Novell Open Workgroup Suite Small Business Edition (NOWS SBE)

Situation

It is not possible to register or re-register the product through "Manage License Keys" of the administration web frontend

https://:8181/sbs/admin.sb

after the initial installation is done. Using the web frontend keeps producing the ERROR: "Could not reach authentication server. Please check internet connection."

Registration / re-registration is required either because it was not done during initial installation or because a different license key should be used (e.g. replacing a evaluation license key with a real one).

Resolution

Case 1: You have not registered any license key yet

The following commands should be issued as user root on the command line:

  1. rug sa https://update.novell.com/data
  2. rug act -V <license_key> <email@address>
  3. rug sub oes
  4. rug pin --entire-channel oes

Make sure to use the same e-mail address that has been used for the registration of the Novell account.

The above commands will register the product and also check for available updates and offer them for installation (which should be accepted).

Case 2: You want to re-register the product to use a different license key

Same procedure as above. Only that you will first have to un-register your
previously registered license key:

rug sd Novell_Update_Server

This will remove the currently configured update source. Double check thatthere is no update source configured. "rug sl" should only list one installation source ("Local cache of NOWS DVD"). Then follow the same steps as described for Case 1.

Status

Reported to Engineering

Additional Information

The command

rug pin --entire-channel oes
can be used to update the system on the command line at any given time once the system is successfully registered.