pdf_server error firefox execution - rhel6

[simonroberts2]

I'm having the same problem as described in http://splunk-base.splunk.com/answers/5306/pdf_server-error-execution-of-firefox-to-create-profile-f... :-

"An error occurred while generating a PDF of this report:
Failed to generate PDF: PDF server at https://localhost:8089/services/pdfserver/renderpdf returned error: Failed to generate a report using Firefox: Failed to start: Check that all Firefox dependencies are met"

I've successfully tested the firefox install as described in - run through the steps to test the firefox install as described in http://answers.splunk.com/questions/1218/why-does-pdf-server-fail-with-the-message-error-pdfhandler4...

[root@pdos-pri-s4 default]# /opt/splunk/etc/apps/pdfserver/bin/firefox-x86_64/firefox
Error: no display specified

According to the first link if you're using Ubuntu there are some extra packages that are required. Does anybody have any similar insight into how to get the pdf_server working in RHEL6 ?

[dbylertbg]

I had a similar issue on CentOS 6.4 (minimal install). Resolved it by running

yum install firefox

This installed tons of dependencies 39 dependencies plus firefox (40 packages in all). After this, the "included" version of firefox that pdfserver uses was able to run and generate reports.

[cfeskens · Accepted solution]

I was eventually able to get it working by installing enough 32-bit X libraries to make the provided firefox happy. We usually omit X from production systems), and yum doesn't always seem to add the 32-bit variant of a 64-bit package during install. Packages I ended up installing were:

xhost
libXrender
libXrender.i386
libXrender.i686
libXext.i686
libXxt.i686
libXt.i686
libXcursor.i686
libstdc++.i686
openssl1098e
openssl1098e.i686

Part of the issue seems to be the provided firefox doesn't work well with the default libraries for RHEL6. I attempted to use the 'force_platform' setting in the app's pdf_server.conf to force it to play with 64-bit. I also tried overriding the config to use RedHat's firefox package, but no such luck.

But with enough 32-bit packages I now seem to be able to generate pdf reports on RHEL6.

I'm still underwhelmed with the quality of the pdf reports, and the dependency on firefox as the rendering engine. Hopefully improvements are being made.

[Damien_Dallimor]

Bump..I'd like to know also. Currently running a dedicated PDF server on Ubuntu, but would like to get this working on RHEL 6 (64 bit).

[cfeskens]

I'm experiencing the same issue. Haven't been able to fully diagnose it yet.