Software update fails on RHEL. python3. No such file or directory

Products

• IT Management Suite
• Patch Management Solution

Issue/Introduction

Installing updates on RedHat client requires python package to be installed.

Following events are logged when python cannot be found:

 

INFO 2023-10-16 14:00:19.146   1274037  140289201141504  SWUAgent-LibSmfRepo > Running command  /opt/altiris/notification/swuagent/lib/exec/aex-launcher -c '/opt/altiris/notification/swuagent/lib/exec/aex-smf-tsresolver-dnf -t -c /opt/altiris/notification/swuagent/var/repo/smf-yum-repository.conf -i nss-softokn-3.79.0-11.el8_7.x86_64 nss-sysinit-3.79.0-11.el8_7.x86_64 nss-util-3.79.0-11.el8_7.x86_64 nss-3.79.0-11.el8_7.x86_64'
ERRO 2023-10-16 14:00:19.190   1274037  140289201141504  SWUAgent-SWUJobImpl > Failed to process Yum transaction. /bin/env: ‘python3’: No such file or directory

Environment

Release : 8.7

Cause

Product requirement.

Resolution

It is possible to deploy RHEL in minimal configuration without installed python. Administrator has to deploy python3 package to make software update working.

In addition to this python requires additional modules (DNF, SYS, LOGGING), which should be already be available as part of OS (YUM and DNF use platform-python)
To verify successful software update you may test requirements by launching python and importing modules:

python3
import dnf
import sys
import logging

If above test is successful, client is ready for use by Patch Management for Linux