Why can I no longer log into Viewpoint after an OS update?


Symptom:

After applying using "yum update" to apply updates to the Viewpoint server, the user is no longer able to authenticate.

 

Issue:

The "tomcat" process may be running as the user "tomcat" (default for most intalls) instead of as "root", which prevents it from accessing PAM.

 

Affected version:

9.1.3, possibly others

 

Solution:

In the Viewpoint Quick Start Guide, section 1.1 (Viewpoint Prerequisites), step 3, it has the following:

3. If you are using PAM authentication, check that Apache Tomcat is running as root. If it is not, perform the following steps:

A. Edit /usr/lib/systemd/system/tomcat.service and change the line User=tomcat to User=root

B. Save it and then run the command systemctl daemon-reload.

C. Then restart Tomcat using the command systemctl restart tomcat. It takes Tomcat a few minutes to start up.

Side effects:

In at least once case, jobs that completed during the time Tomcat was running as the wrong user were not properly removed, and showed up days later as "blocked" jobs. If that happens, do the following:

  1. Make sure the jobs are, in fact, no longer in Moab (checkjob <job-ID>)
  2. Use this script, with the correct value for <job-ID>, to remove the job: /opt/insight/utils/delete-objects-from-db.py --object_type job <job-ID>
  3. You will likely have to confirm removal of the job(s)

 

Tags: job deletion fails
Last update:
2021-08-02 23:01
Author:
Rob Greenbank
Revision:
1.0
Average rating:0 (0 Votes)

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