A registered client system disappeared from SUSE Manager

This document (7012170) is provided subject to the disclaimer at the end of this document.

Environment

SUSE Manager 3
SUSE Manager 2.1

Situation

A client system disappeared from the list of the registered systems in SUSE Manager (i.e. it is not longer registered) after the registration of another client. Sometimes the behaviour does not imply the "original" system being removed, but rather the "newer" system simply not being added to SUSE Manager.

Typically this is a problem when working with clones from a template within a virtualization environment (such as VMWare).

Resolution

First of all it is necessary to find out the client system which has the same Novell Customer Center (NCC) credentials of the disappeared one. For information about the NCC see below NOTE (*).

On SLES 11, NCC credentials are saved in file "/etc/zypp/credentials.d/NCCcredentials". See the example below:

# cat /etc/zypp/credentials.d/NCCcredentials
username=c1a5967a48fe45499750bd42245c437e
password=a5e562a1f2914dbb87fbc040b64990d1

For SLES 12 the same file exists in the same path with the name SCCcredentials.

On SLES 10 systems, NCC credentials are saved in the files /etc/zmd/deviceid and /etc/zmd/secret.
Please note that these files might still exist in a SLES 11 system (specially, but not only, if it was migrated from SLES 10).

Once the client system with the duplicated NCC credentials is found, make the following steps for fixing the issue:

Remove the client systems in SUSE Manager using the web interface.
Run "mgr-ncc-sync" or "mgr-sync refresh" on the SUSE Manager server from command line.
On SLES 11 client systems, move "/etc/zypp/credentials.d/NCCcredentials", "/var/cache/SuseRegister/lastzmdconfig.cache" and "/etc/sysconfig/rhn/systemid" to "/tmp", or simply delete them (on SLES 10 client systems, remove /etc/zmd/deviceid and /etc/zmd/secret, then restart zmd).
On SLES 11, check if /etc/zmd/deviceid and /etc/zmd/secret exist and delete them anyway, even if those files are legacy ones from SLES 10.
On SLES 12, remove "/etc/SUSEConnect"
In addition, the problem explained in TID 7017994: "Attempt to bootstrap a client to a SUSE Manager 3 Server returns "Internal Server Error" could exist.
Please remove the machine-id for dbus and regenerate it again as explained in that TID.
Run the bootstrap script on the client systems again.
Run again "mgr-ncc-sync" or "mgr-sync refresh" on the SUSE Manager server from command line.

(*) NOTE:
The Novell Customer Center (NCC) and nu.novell.com are not available anymore. SLE10 and SLE11 Systems still registered to the Novell Customer Center (NCC) can be migrated to the SUSE Customer Center (SCC) as outlined at: https://www.suse.com/support/kb/doc/?id=000019508

Cause

The cause of the issue is that a new client system has been registered using the same NCC credentials of an existing one, causing the override of it. Most likely the two systems were cloned.

Disclaimer

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