free-ipa-server install fails

[Aaron Thomas]

clean install ubuntu 16.04, kernel 4.4.0-79, running ipa-server-install after installing freeipa-server always fails. It successfully gets through all 46 previous steps, and fails on pki-tomcatd:

Configuring certificate server (pki-tomcatd). Estimated time: 3 minutes 30 seconds
  [1/28]: creating certificate server user
  [2/28]: configuring certificate server instance
ipa.ipaserver.install.cainstance.CAInstance: CRITICAL Failed to configure CA instance: Command '/usr/sbin/pkispawn -s CA -f /tmp/tmpIHv1S_' returned non-zero exit status 255
ipa.ipaserver.install.cainstance.CAInstance: CRITICAL See the installation logs and the following files/directories for more information:
ipa.ipaserver.install.cainstance.CAInstance: CRITICAL /var/log/pki/pki-tomcat
  [error] RuntimeError: CA configuration failed.
ipa.ipapython.install.cli.install_tool(Server): ERROR CA configuration failed.
ipa.ipapython.install.cli.install_tool(Server): ERROR The ipa-server-install command failed. See /var/log/ipaserver-install.log for more information

CA configuration failed. Something is certainly wrong when the software can't be installed on a newly installed ubuntu box.

Namely, the script seems to choke when trying to write out the config file:

2017-06-16T07:09:49Z DEBUG args=/usr/sbin/pkispawn -s CA -f /tmp/tmpIHv1S_
2017-06-16T07:09:49Z DEBUG Process finished, return code=255
2017-06-16T07:09:49Z DEBUG stdout=ERROR: File '/etc/pki/default.cfg' is either missing or is NOT a regular file!

usage: pkispawn [-s <subsystem>] [-h] [-v] [-p <prefix>] [-f <file>]

PKI Instance Installation and Configuration

There's nowhere in the documentation, in the script, in the packages, anywhere, that says I should first create a /etc/pki/default.cfg file, nor what that file should contain (it appears the script is trying to generate that file itself but doesn't). A fix would be appreciated.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 16.04
Package: freeipa-server 4.3.1-0ubuntu1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 4.4.0-79.100-generic 4.4.67
Uname: Linux 4.4.0-79-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.20.1-0ubuntu2.6
Architecture: amd64
Date: Fri Jun 16 00:12:29 2017
InstallationDate: Installed on 2017-05-05 (41 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu-Server 16.04.2 LTS "Xenial Xerus" - Release amd64 (20170215.8)
ProcEnviron:
 TERM=xterm-color
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=<set>
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: freeipa
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[Aaron Thomas (athomas-work)]

Note, this is a VM running on VMware. It was cloned from a template generated last month.

[Aaron Thomas (athomas-work)]

Also, if I touch /etc/pki/default.cfg, it still fails, because /etc/pki/pki.conf doesn't exist and isn't created by anything. If pki is supposed to be configured prior to installing ipa, as a stand alone server separate from ipa, having that documented might be a good idea. As it is it appears ipa needs to configure the service to manage it, and it doesn't appear to actually be doing that.

[Aaron Thomas (athomas-work)]

I wiped and did a reinstall. Looks like /etc/pki has contents this time, so it seems something wiped out the /etc/pki folder without replacing its contents.

I'll close this for now, until I run into the next issue.

[Aaron Thomas (athomas-work)]

no new info