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Right now I'm just testing the process for some desktop machines I'll be managing so I have a fresh install of Ubuntu 12.04.04 LTS. We have a non-satellite spacewalk server that I'd like to have available for the main admins for these machines to use to manage these machines. I'm trying to follow the install guide and I'm running into trouble getting the client to install.

The guide says "All core clients packages are already in Debian and Ubuntu." and to run an update followed by an install of two packages. The update works without issue but the install fails.

Given how simple the problem is, I'm almost positive it's operator error. I know nothing about Ubuntu (or Debian in general) so it's possible I'm just misinterpreting the guide somehow.

Is there something analogous to a yum repo that I need to enable to get access?

Bratchley
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3 Answers3

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Here is a full explanation I wrote about how to get Ubuntu (all releases) working with Spacewalk. Also with full Errata support

http://www.devops-blog.net/spacewalk/registering-ubuntu-and-debian-servers-with-spacewalk

pHiL
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It looks as if those packages just aren't available to 12.04 LTS (Precise). Searching via Ubuntu Packages seems to bear this out.

excerpt Exact hits - Package apt-transport-spacewalk

       ss #1

Since you're probably comfortable rolling your own RPMs I might be inclined to roll my own .deb file here, taking the package files from a newer or older version of Ubuntu/Debian and using the build tools to built these for 12.04.

As to why these are missing I have no idea. I did find several pages inquiring about them missing as well, such as this one, titled: Bug 1012064 - Ubuntu-packages listed as "Extra Packages" although they are very well known.

slm
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  • I was actually able to install from the upstream debian repos but ran into another snag that's probably a bug in the package itself. Posted a longer answer to this. – Bratchley Apr 08 '14 at 23:32
  • @JoelDavis - good sleuthing on it. I'd of helped more but have been buried with work the last 2 weeks 8-) – slm Apr 09 '14 at 00:21
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Partial success. I was able to get the system to register to spacewalk by manually adding the upstream sources to my /etc/apt/sources.list:

deb http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian sid main

Importing the GPG key:

gpg --keyserver pgpkeys.mit.edu --recv-key 8B48AD6246925553
gpg -a --export 8B48AD6246925553 | apt-key add -

Then I did an apt-get update for good measure (I don't know if it was really necessary). I then installed the spacewalk client:

apt-get install apt-transport-spacewalk rhnsd

and since spacewalk needs to query for hardware information before it generates a system ID I installed hal:

apt-get install hal

And finally registered the system to spacewalk:

rhnreg_ks --activationkey=1-a1244f16f60d06275bc842087c632db3

The rhnsd runs without issue and the system shows in spacewalk's list of registered systems, but I can't run an rhn_check because apparently /etc/sysconfig/rhn/systemid was never created. I'll update this answer as I progress.

Bratchley
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