My Red Hat Satellite server version 5.5 or earlier is EOL on 29-May-2015. What are my upgrade options?

Your upgrade options

On May 29, 2015, all Red Hat Satellite versions 5.5 and earlier will be End of Life (EOL), in accordance with the Red Hat Satellite and Proxy Server Life Cycle. See also the End-of-Life (EOL) notification for Red Hat Satellite 5.5 and older versions.

Red Hat Satellite and Proxy 5.6 and newer will be supported until January 31, 2018. An Extended Lifecycle Support (ELS) stream will be made available for Satellite/Proxy 5.8[1], which ends January 31, 2020. See the Red Hat Satellite Lifecycle Page for details and updates.

[1] As seen on the Lifecycle page, there is a Satellite 5.8 release being planned whose only feature will be the addition of CDN support which allows Satellite 5.8 to consume content directly from the Content Delivery Network (cdn.redhat.com), and Satellite 5 End-of-Life to be decoupled from the Red Hat Network (RHN) Classic Hosted backend End-of-Life, providing additional time for Satellite 5 customers to migrate to Satellite 6.

IMPORTANT!

• If you have an external Oracle database, and intend to keep that configuration, you cannot use this article to install the upgrade. See the current documents in /etc/sysconfig/rhn/satellite-upgrade/doc/ (provided as part of the run-upgrade package and installed as part of the upgrade).
• If you have an embedded Oracle database, the directions in this article will work for you, and the database will be converted to pgsql as part of the upgrade.
• You can upgrade directly from any earlier supported 5.x version of satellite to 5.7

NOTES:

• Be sure to review the Satellite [5.7] Release Notes and Hardware/Software Requirements or the 5.6 Release Notes and Hardware/Software Requirements.
• See also: Frequently Asked Questions about Satellite Certificates.
• All references to scripts are intended to be run as root.

Before you begin

Prerequisites

See instructions in /etc/sysconfig/rhn/satellite-upgrade/doc/preparations.txt for a detailed list of pre-requisites.

Take these steps to prepare for the Satellite upgrade.

Step 1. View the README file and hardware/software requirements.

• /etc/sysconfig/rhn/satellite-upgrade/README is part of the rhn-upgrade package.
• See Satellite 5.7 or 5.6 Hardware/Software Requirements.

Step 2. Get a new Satellite 5 certificate.

• Go to the self-service Satellite Certificate tool on the Customer Portal to get a new certificate.

Step 3. Get a Red Hat Satellite 5.7 or 5.6 ISO.

• Download the Satellite ISO from Downloads on the Customer Portal.
  Be sure to download the version and architecture for the Satellite to which you will be upgrading.

Step 4. Get current upgrade documentation and scripts.

• Install the rhn-upgrade package on your Satellite.

  NOTE:
  If you are upgrading from Satellite 5.x to version 5.6 and not 5.7, be sure to download and install the rhn-upgrade package for version 5.6 and correct architecture.

Step 5. Bring your system up-to-date.

• Run this script:

  # yum upgrade
  

  WARNING: If the upgrade updated the kernel or glibc, reboot the server.

Step 6. Get upgrade estimates.

• Run this script from the rhn-upgrade package:

  # /etc/sysconfig/rhn/satellite-upgrade/scripts/satellite-upgrade-estimates
  

  This script estimates how long the upgrade procedure should take and how much disk space is needed (including the disk space requirements for the database migration, where applicable).

Step 7. Check the system character encoding.

• The system character encoding must be UTF-8.
  This is the only supported character encoding for the Satellite 5 servers (BOTH for the server on which Satellite will be installed and for the server on which the database is installed, if different).

  Check that you have . . .	Example . . .
  A line similar to this on all relevant servers in /etc/sysconfig/i18n:	If your language is English and your location is the United States, your LANG setting should be:
  LANG=[language_TERRITORY].UTF-8 (language and TERRITORY must be two-letter codes)	LANG=en_US.UTF-8

  ---

  WARNING: If you need to change this setting to use UTF-8, reboot the machine before continuing with your installation.

Step 8. Check for entitlement issues.

• Run this script:

  # cd /etc/sysconfig/rhn/satellite-upgrade/scripts
  # ./entitlement-check.py --rhn-cert=~/new.cert
  

  ~/new.cert is the path to the new entitlement certificate to use during the upgrade. You should have gotten this certificate in Step 2.

  NOTE:
  This script checks your entitlement usage and organizational distributions to ensure that the upgrade goes smoothly. If you have an issue, the script will provide instructions for correcting the issue. You may need to contact Red Hat Support

STOP!

• If you get the following warning: "You do not have enough entitlements in the base org," and you do not correct the problems, you will not be able to activate your upgraded server. Your Satellite may also stop working. See Satellite certificate activation error: "You do not have enough entitlements in the base org." for the most common issue.

• The script may detect guest systems that are using physical entitlements but are not currently recognized as guests (for example, a VMware guest registered on RHEL 5.1). Then, you must run the following script. It converts all guests as they are discovered.

  # /etc/sysconfig/rhn/satellite-upgrade/scripts/recognize_guests.py
  

• After running this, re-run entitlement-check.py to re-test the new certificate.

Step 9. Check your kickstart profile names.

They must meet Satellite 5.6 or 5.7 standards:

• Red Hat Satellite 5.3 and beyond allow only the following characters in a kickstart profile label:

  • alphanumeric characters
  • dash symbol: "-"
  • underscore symbol: "_"

• You can convert your kickstart profiles (if needed) manually in the Satellite webui or use the following script:

  # /etc/sysconfig/rhn/satellite-upgrade/scripts/update-ks-profiles.py
  

Step 10. Make a current backup, if you don't have one.

Here are the backup procedures for all current versions of Satellite.

How to upgrade

NOTE:
These steps are for reference and guidance only. They cannot replace the steps in /etc/sysconfig/rhn/satellite-upgrade/doc/, which was provided in the latest rhn-upgrade package.

1. Mount the Satellite ISO from earlier:

   # mkdir /mnt/sat
   # mount -o loop /path/to/iso /mnt/sat
   

2. Disable all services on the Satellite server:

   # /usr/sbin/rhn-satellite stop
   

3. Start Oracle:

   # service oracle start
   

4. Begin the upgrade:

   # /mnt/sat/install.pl --upgrade
   

5. Upgrade the database:

   # /usr/bin/spacewalk-schema-upgrade
   

6. Activate the Satellite with the NEW certificate:

   # rhn-satellite-activate --rhn-cert [PATH-TO-NEW-CERT] --ignore-version-mismatch
   

7. Rebuild search indexes with the following command:

   #  service rhn-search cleanindex
   

8. Restart Satellite services:

   # /usr/sbin/rhn-satellite restart
   

9. Remove Oracle database packages and database files:

   # service oracle stop
   # yum remove oracle-instantclient-jdbc oracle-rhnsat-selinux oracle-server-admin oracle-server-admin oracle-server-scripts oracle-server-i386 oracle-server-x86_64 oracle-server-s390x spacewalk-java-oracle spacewalk-backend-sql-oracle -y
   

10. Remove Oracle database files:

    # rm -rf /opt/apps/oracle
    

11. Restart Satellite services:

    # /usr/sbin/rhn-satellite restart
    

For problems or questions, contact Red Hat Support. You should have a current sosreport and a spacewalk-debug available to attach to the newly opened case.