Troubleshooting BMC Discovery Outpost connectivity issues

When you observe connectivity issues in BMC Discovery Outpost, use the troubleshooting steps described in this section to either resolve the problem or create a BMC Support case.

Scenario 1: Unable to connect BMC Discovery with Outpost

Issue symptom

You are unable to connect the discovery service and the BMC Discovery Outpost.

You have already performed the following steps:
1. Registered the BMC Discovery Outpost token on the discovery service.
2. Registered the BMC Discovery token on the BMC Discovery Outpost.
However, connection is not detected.

Issue scope

• BMC Discovery Outpost machine will have internet access
• No connectivity issue would be found on the BMC Discovery Outpost

Resolution

Perform the following steps to troubleshoot the issues:

1. Communication between the BMC Discovery Outpost and the BMC Discovery appliance is always sent over HTTPS, so port 443 should be open on the appliance. All TCP connections are bi-directional because packets flow in both directions.
   Communication between the BMC Discovery Outpost and the BMC Discovery appliance is always from the BMC Discovery Outpost to the BMC Discovery appliance. Communication is never initiated by the BMC Discovery appliance. For more details, see Firewall port summary.
2. If the problem persists, collect the outpost log files. 
3. Review the logs to identify the error messages.

You can also contact Customer Support and provide the results to all the checks performed.

Scenario 2: The BMC Discovery Outpost cannot connect to the appliance

Issue symptoms

• The BMC Discovery Outpost is registered with the appliance following the documented steps. However, just after registration, the BMC Discovery Outpost fails to connect with the appliance. 

• When checking the appliance details from Manage > Registrations in the BMC Discovery Outpost UI, the appliance address is localhost.

• During the registration, the appliance hostname is displayed correctly when the appliance token is pasted in the BMC Discovery Outpost UI. However, it changes to localhost automatically as soon as the user clicks on Add to complete the registration.

Issue scope

• BMC Discovery Outpost is unable to communicate with the appliance
• Internet failure would be shown

Resolution

Case 1: If the appliance address is set to localhost in the /usr/tideway/etc/cluster.conf file, as follows: 

<name>ABC_Appliance</name>
<address>localhost</address>
<state>NORMAL</state>

Solution for case 1: 

To resolve this issue, rename the /usr/tideway/etc/cluster.conf file and then either restart the cluster services or reboot. The file is recreated with the correct hostname or IP. Perform the following steps: 

1. Rename the file by running the following command:

   mv /usr/tideway/etc/cluster.conf /usr/tideway/etc/cluster.conf_old

2. Restart the services or reboot the appliance. For detailed information, see the BMC Communities article KA 000212492 .
3. After this, re-register the BMC Discovery Outpost with the appliance. 

Case 2: The connection is configured using host names, but DNS does not recognize the host names.

Solution for case 2:
Try using only IP addresses.

Case 3: The required HTTPS port 443 is not opened.

Solution for case 3:

As documented in Firewall port summary, check if the HTTPS port 443 is opened Inbound to Appliance. 

If the problem persists, collect the BMC Discovery Outpost log files. You can review the logs and try to identify the error messages. You can also contact Customer Support and provide the results to all the checks performed earlier.