Discover Applicable Updates (DAU) fails with time out

  • 7002499
  • 29-Jan-2009
  • 07-Jun-2013

Environment

Novell ZENworks 10 Configuration Management
Patch Management

Situation

User and group ownership and permissions on directories are inexplicably not correct.
 
DAU vulnerability results not appearing correctly in the ZENWorks Configuration Console (ZCC).

From Message Detail Information Dialogue in the ZCC:

Message ID:  Pulsar.Patchlink.ReportAnalyze:ReportAnalyzeAction: Timed Out. {}

From zmd-messages.log on the failing workstation (Log level set to "Debug and above"):

[DEBUG][01/27/200909:27:28.972] [1700] [ZenworksWindowsService] [11] [] [ReportAnalyzeModule] [] [Unable to upload file: C:\Program Files\Novell\ZENworks\zpm\8b0e4720c0bee44d8f85db7e9833dd17.plron server: http://192.168.12.34/zenworks-fileupload/because of Exception: Novell.Zenworks.CloseException: Could not close destination file http://192.168.12.34/zenworks-fileupload/?type=patchlink&overwrite=true&filename=8b0e4720c0bee44d8f85db7e9833dd17.plr ---> System.Net.WebException: The remote server returned an error: (500) Internal Server Error.

From services-messages.log on the ZCM server:

[DEBUG][1/27/09 9:27:28 AM] [] [File Upload Servlet] [Error uploading file: /var/opt/novell/zenworks/collection/patchlink/8b0e4720c0bee44d8f85db7e9833dd17.plr][Error uploading file: /var/opt/novell/zenworks/collection/patchlink/8b0e4720c0bee44d8f85db7e9833dd17.plr] [] []
[DEBUG] [1/27/09 9:27:28 AM] [] [File Upload Servlet] [java.io.FileNotFoundException: /var/opt/novell/zenworks/collection/patchlink/8b0e4720c0bee44d8f85db7e9833dd17.plr.00000.ztmp (Permission denied)
    at java.io.FileOutputStream.open(Native Method)
    at java.io.FileOutputStream.<init>(FileOutputStream.java:179)
    at java.io.FileOutputStream.<init>(FileOutputStream.java:70)
    ...etc

Resolution

Manual steps to resolve: 
 
Both ends of the conversation could be seen by matching the timestamp (01/27/200909:27:28in the example, above) and file name (8b0e4720c0bee44d8f85db7e9833dd17.plr, above) in the workstation's zmd-messages.log and server's services-messages.log files.

Checking the /var/opt/novell/zenworks/collection/patchlink directory referred to in the "Permission denied" error showed that the owner was set to "root".  Setting the owner and group to "zenworks" allowed DAU vulnerability results to start appearing correctly in the ZCC.

An enhancement request has been raised to automatically check permissions.

Status

Reported to Engineering

Additional Information

The entire /var/opt/novell/zenworks structure was held on a separate partition, so it was possible that the permissions and ownership changed when this folder structure was moved.

Log file locations referred to in this TID

Windows server:  %ZENWORKS_HOME%\logs\services-messages.log
Linux server: /var/opt/novell/log/zenworks/services-messages.log

Windows workstation: %ZENWORKS_HOME%\logs\LocalStore\zmd-messages.log
Windows server:  %ZENWORKS_HOME%\logs\LocalStore\zmd-messages.log
Linux server:  /opt/novell/zenworks/logs/LocalStore/zmd-messages.log

See also KB 3418069 - Enable debug logging for ZENworks 10 Configuration Management - https://www.novell.com/support/search.do?searchString=3418069