salt-minion crashes with [ERROR] module 'pkg_resources' has no attribute 'iter_entry_points'

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Environment

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP3
SUSE Manager 4.2 Server

Situation

The salt-minion service crashes with the following error message:

admin@system:~> salt-minion -l trace 2>&1 | tee /tmp/salt-minion-trace.log

admin@system:~> cat /tmp/salt-minion-trace.log
[DEBUG   ] Reading configuration from /etc/salt/minion
[DEBUG   ] Including configuration from '/etc/salt/minion.d/susemanager.conf'
[DEBUG   ] Reading configuration from /etc/salt/minion.d/susemanager.conf
[DEBUG   ] Using cached minion ID from /etc/salt/minion_id: devhana2020.snp.ag
[ERROR   ] module 'pkg_resources' has no attribute 'iter_entry_points'
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/lib/python3.6/site-packages/salt/utils/parsers.py", line 212, in parse_args
    mixin_after_parsed_func(self)
  File "/usr/lib/python3.6/site-packages/salt/utils/parsers.py", line 882, in __setup_extended_logging
    log.setup_extended_logging(self.config)
  File "/usr/lib/python3.6/site-packages/salt/log/setup.py", line 417, in setup_extended_logging
    providers = salt.loader.log_handlers(opts)
  File "/usr/lib/python3.6/site-packages/salt/loader.py", line 607, in log_handlers
    base_path=os.path.join(SALT_BASE_PATH, "log"),
  File "/usr/lib/python3.6/site-packages/salt/loader.py", line 153, in _module_dirs
    for entry_point in pkg_resources.iter_entry_points(
AttributeError: module 'pkg_resources' has no attribute 'iter_entry_points'
Usage: salt-minion [options]

salt-minion: error: Error while processing <function LogLevelMixIn.__setup_extended_logging at 0x7f3f2f189048>: Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/lib/python3.6/site-packages/salt/utils/parsers.py", line 212, in parse_args
    mixin_after_parsed_func(self)
  File "/usr/lib/python3.6/site-packages/salt/utils/parsers.py", line 882, in __setup_extended_logging
    log.setup_extended_logging(self.config)
  File "/usr/lib/python3.6/site-packages/salt/log/setup.py", line 417, in setup_extended_logging
    providers = salt.loader.log_handlers(opts)
  File "/usr/lib/python3.6/site-packages/salt/loader.py", line 607, in log_handlers
    base_path=os.path.join(SALT_BASE_PATH, "log"),
  File "/usr/lib/python3.6/site-packages/salt/loader.py", line 153, in _module_dirs
    for entry_point in pkg_resources.iter_entry_points(
AttributeError: module 'pkg_resources' has no attribute 'iter_entry_points'

Resolution

Using following steps there is a chance to identify what is causing such issue:

1. Verify the integrity of python3 related packages on top of affected salt minion system:

for i in `rpm -qa | grep python3`; do echo $i;rpm -V $i;echo "---------------------------------";done

2. Check where python is loading "pkg_resources" from and double check if something can be observed there:

python3
Python 3.6.15 (default, Sep 15 2021, 14:20:42) [GCC] on linux
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> import pkg_resources
>>> pkg_resources
>>> pkg_resources.__path__
>>> pkg_resources.iter_entry_points
>>> Ctrl+D to exit

3. When the mentioned "Traceback" occurs, there is a high chance to fix that by reinstalling python3-setuptools on top of affected salt minion system:

zypper in -f python3-setuptools

Cause

The reason for this error message is a corrupted python3-setuptools package.

Disclaimer

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