I followed the installation guide, but the Client controller fails to start

Issue

I followed CloudBees Core on traditional platforms installation guide, but the Client controller fails to start
A brand new Client controller fails to start and the error reads

Jul 17, 2019 7:21:52 PM hudson.util.BootFailure publish
SEVERE: Failed to initialize Jenkins
hudson.util.AWTProblem: java.lang.NullPointerException

Environment

CloudBees CI (CloudBees Core) on traditional platforms - Client controller

Description

I followed CloudBees Core on traditional platforms installation guide. The install process has completed successfully

Downloading packages:
cloudbees-core-cm-2.176.2.3-1.1.noarch.rpm                                                                                                                                                                             | 338 MB  00:00:33
Running transaction check
Running transaction test
Transaction test succeeded
Running transaction
  Installing : cloudbees-core-cm-2.176.2.3-1.1.noarch                                                                                                                                                                                     1/1
  Verifying  : cloudbees-core-cm-2.176.2.3-1.1.noarch                                                                                                                                                                                     1/1
Installed:
  cloudbees-core-cm.noarch 0:2.176.2.3-1.1

Complete!

However, the Client controller fails to start. The log file /var/log/cloudbees-core-cm/cloudbees-core-cm.log reports the following error

INFO: Winstone Servlet Engine v4.0 running: controlPort=disabled
Jul 17, 2019 7:21:52 PM hudson.util.BootFailure publish
SEVERE: Failed to initialize Jenkins
hudson.util.AWTProblem: java.lang.NullPointerException
	at hudson.WebAppMain.contextInitialized(WebAppMain.java:193)
	at com.cloudbees.jenkins.ha.HAWebMain.promote(HAWebMain.java:87)
	at com.cloudbees.jenkins.ha.singleton.HASingleton.reactToPrimarySwitch(HASingleton.java:215)
	at com.cloudbees.jenkins.ha.singleton.HASingleton$3$1.run(HASingleton.java:135)
	at java.util.concurrent.Executors$RunnableAdapter.call(Executors.java:511)
	at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.run(FutureTask.java:266)
	at java.util.concurrent.ScheduledThreadPoolExecutor$ScheduledFutureTask.access$201(ScheduledThreadPoolExecutor.java:180)
	at java.util.concurrent.ScheduledThreadPoolExecutor$ScheduledFutureTask.run(ScheduledThreadPoolExecutor.java:293)
	at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1149)
	at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:624)
	at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:748)
Caused by: java.lang.NullPointerException

Resolution

You have already validated that java -version is installed on the host, and the output was similar to

java -version
openjdk version "1.8.0_212"
OpenJDK Runtime Environment (build 1.8.0_212-b04)
OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM (build 25.212-b04, mixed mode)

Most likely, the java-1.8.0-openjdk : OpenJDK Runtime Environment 8 is not installed on the host, and you are running the OpenJDK Headless Runtime Environment 8, i.e. java-1.8.0-openjdk-headless-1.8.0.212.b04-0.el7_6.x86_64. For a RHEL/CentOS flavour, run rpm -qa | grep java to confirm the OpenJDK Runtime Environment package is installed on the host. If you are on a Debian/Ubuntu distribution, the corresponding command would be dpkg -l | grep java.

This article is part of our Knowledge Base and is provided for guidance-based purposes only. The solutions or workarounds described here are not officially supported by CloudBees and may not be applicable in all environments. Use at your own discretion, and test changes in a safe environment before applying them to production systems.