Registering Ubuntu 16.04 and 18.04 Clients

Table of Contents

1. Add Software Channels
2. Check Synchronization Status
3. Root Access
4. Register Clients
5. Troubleshooting: Install spacecmd Ubuntu 18.04 Clients

This section contains information about registering Salt clients running Ubuntu 16.04 LTS, 18.04 LTS operating systems.

SUSE Manager supports Ubuntu 16.04 LTS, 18.04 LTS, and 20.04 LTS clients using Salt. For information about registering Salt clients running Ubuntu 20.04, see Registering Ubuntu 20.04 Clients.

Canonical does not endorse or support SUSE Manager.

Ubuntu is supported for Salt clients only. Traditional clients are not supported.

Bootstrapping is supported for starting Ubuntu clients and performing initial state runs such as setting repositories and performing profile updates. However, the root user on Ubuntu is disabled by default, so to use bootstrapping, you require an existing user with sudo privileges for Python.

1. Add Software Channels

Before you register Ubuntu clients to your SUSE Manager Server, you need to add the required software channels, and synchronize them.

The products you need for this procedure are:

Table 1. Ubuntu Products - WebUI
OS Version	Product Name
Ubuntu 16.04	Ubuntu 16.04
Ubuntu 18.04	Ubuntu 18.04

When using WebUI to add Ubuntu 18.04 channels, you also need to add ubuntu-1804-amd64-main and ubuntu-1804-amd64-main-updates channels using CLI, as described in Ubuntu Channels - CLI.

Ubuntu 16.04 is now at end-of-life, and the ISO images provided in the repository are out of date. Bootstrapping new Ubuntu 16.04 clients using these packages will fail. If you need to bootstrap new Ubuntu 16.04 clients, follow the troubleshooting procedure in Troubleshooting Clients.

Procedure: Adding Software Channels

In the SUSE Manager Web UI, navigate to Admin Setup Wizard Products.
Locate the appropriate products for your client operating system and architecture using the search bar, and check the appropriate product. This will automatically check all mandatory channels. Also all recommended channels are checked as long as the include recommended toggle is turned on. Click the arrow to see the complete list of related products, and ensure that any extra products you require are checked.
Click Add Products and wait until the products have finished synchronizing.

Alternatively, you can add channels at the command prompt. The channels you need for this procedure are:

Table 2. Ubuntu Channels - CLI
OS Version	Base Channel
Ubuntu 16.04	ubuntu-16.04-pool-amd64
Ubuntu 18.04	ubuntu-18.04-pool-amd64

Procedure: Adding Software Channels at the Command Prompt

At the command prompt on the SUSE Manager Server, as root, use the spacewalk-common-channels command to add the appropriate channels:
```
spacewalk-common-channels \
<base_channel_label>
<child_channel_label_1> \
<child_channel_label_2> \
... <child_channel_label_n>
```

Synchronize the channels:

spacewalk-repo-sync -p <base_channel_label>

Ensure the synchronization is complete before continuing.

Table 3. Ubuntu Channels - CLI
OS Version	Main Channel	Security Channel	Updates Channel
Ubuntu 16.04	ubuntu-1604-amd64-main	ubuntu-1604-amd64-security	ubuntu-1604-amd64-updates
Ubuntu 18.04	ubuntu-1804-amd64-main	ubuntu-1804-amd64-main-security	ubuntu-1804-amd64-main-updates

Channels added using this method do not synchronize regularly by default. You can configure a synchronization schedule using the SUSE Manager Web UI. Navigate to Software Manage Channels, click the channel you added, and select the Repositories Sync subtab. Set a daily or weekly synchronization schedule, and click Schedule.

The client tools channel provided by spacewalk-common-channels is sourced from Uyuni and not from SUSE.

2. Check Synchronization Status

Procedure: Checking Synchronization Progress from the Web UI

In the SUSE Manager Web UI, navigate to Admin Setup Wizard and select the Products tab. This dialog displays a completion bar for each product when they are being synchronized.
Alternatively, you can navigate to Software Manage Channels, then click the channel associated to the repository. Navigate to the Repositories tab, then click Sync and check Sync Status.

Procedure: Checking Synchronization Progress from the Command Prompt

At the command prompt on the SUSE Manager Server, as root, use the tail command to check the synchronization log file:
```
tail -f /var/log/rhn/reposync/<channel-label>.log
```
Each child channel generates its own log during the synchronization progress. You need to check all the base and child channel log files to be sure that the synchronization is complete.

Ubuntu channels can be very large. Synchronization can sometimes take several hours.

3. Root Access

The root user on Ubuntu is disabled by default for SSH access.

To be able to onboard using a regular user, you need to edit the sudoers file.

This issue happens with self-installed versions of Ubuntu. If the default user has been granted administrative privileges during installation time, a password is requiered to perform privilege escalation using sudo. With cloud instances this does not happen because cloud-init automatically creates a file under /etc/sudoers.d and grants privilege escalation through sudo without the need for a password.

Procedure: Granting Root User Access

On the client, edit the sudoers file:
```
sudo visudo
```
Grant sudo access to the user by adding this line at the end of the sudoers file. Replace <user> with the name of the user that is bootstrapping the client in the Web UI:
```
<user>  ALL=NOPASSWD: /usr/bin/python, /usr/bin/python2, /usr/bin/python3, /var/tmp/venv-salt-minion/bin/python
```

This procedure grants root access without requiring a password, which is required for registering the client. When the client is successfully installed it runs with root privileges, so the access is no longer required. We recommend that you remove the line from the sudoers file after the client has been successfully installed.

4. Register Clients

To register your Ubuntu clients, you need a bootstrap repository. By default, bootstrap repositories are automatically created, and regenerated daily for all synchronized products. You can manually create the bootstrap repository from the command prompt, using this command:

mgr-create-bootstrap-repo

For more information on registering your clients, see Client Registration Overview.

5. Troubleshooting: Install `spacecmd` Ubuntu 18.04 Clients

With default configuration settings, the installation of spacecmd may fail with:

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
    spacecmd : Depends: python3-rpm but it is not installable

python3-rpm is part of the Ubuntu universe repositories. To make this package available, enable universe repositories on the client.

Procedure: Enabling Universe Repositories

On the Ubuntu 18.04 client, open the /etc/apt/sources.list file, and uncomment the universe repositories.
Execute the command apt-get update.

Now spacecmd is installable.