Red Hat Satellite 6 Getting Started Video Series has begun
Hi folks,
My name is Dan Macpherson and I'm a Senior Technical Writer at Red Hat. A while back I was in discussions with some people on the Satellite forums and asked how people were using their Satellite. Based on these discussions, I started developing an idea to make some videos that looked at Satellite 6's features. What I wanted to do was create a set of successive videos, each building upon the previous one, that shows how to get started with using Satellite 6.
I'm excited to report that the first four videos in this series are now live on the Customer Portal:
- Part 1 - Defining the Architecture
- Part 2 - Installation and Configuration
- Part 3 - Synchronizing Content
- Part 4 - Creating an Application Lifecycle
This is only just the beginning. I have plans to make further videos that look at more features such as system provisioning and Puppet configuration.
Also, I want to hear from you! If anyone has any suggestions for improvements or suggestions for future video topics, please let me know in this thread. I'm very keen to produce more videos about topics that require more info.
Thanks and I hope you enjoy the videos!
Responses
Dan,
I am really keen to hear the explanation for this (from the Satellite 6.0 User Guide)
10.4. Registration
10.4.1. Registering a Host
These steps show how to register hosts in Red Hat Satellite Server. Hosts provisioned by Satellite Server appear on the All Hosts page accessible through Hosts → All hosts. Hosts registered to the Satellite Server via Red Hat Subscription Manager, which can occur either during the post phase of a kickstart or through the terminal, will appear on the Content Hosts page accessible through Hosts → Content Hosts.
Why does 'All Hosts' not include 'Content Hosts'?
Dan,
Thanks for the thorough response, much appreciated.
Even with this response in mind, I have trouble following why this level of complexity is introduced to the UI/management. Essentially they are all just managed hosts with varying levels of management. Content hosts only access content (eg. Yum) and 'hosts' access configuration management information as well as content. This could be presented as a single list of hosts with 'features' or 'capabilities' associated with them.
It appears the major assumption made is that Satellite 6 will be the single life cycle management tool on site for Linux. Take for an example when a customer has a single provisioning life cycle management/deployment tool for both Windows/Linux.
I am currently running through a PoC of 6.1 and the result appears to be the same. In a situation where the requirement is to build a Red Hat host using an external life cycle management tool, but register it against Satellite for patching (Yum) and config management (Puppet), how should this be approached? Should I be using the API/hammer to create a host in 'all hosts' to associate with my 'content host' that is created in the kickstart post?
I will take a look at the hammer CLI as I should be able to fetch the MAC from the provisioning tool and the IP from IPAM before registration, thanks for the suggestion.
Dan,
To clarify,
The only way to manage configure a host with Puppet using Satellite 6.x is by creating a host profile for the host? ie. If I want to deploy Puppet configuration to an existing host I must use 'New Host' to make a profile for the host in Satellite 6.x to associate Puppet classes to this host?
-edit-
The user guide filled the gaps that were missing, this is how I registered an existing host:
1. Create 'New Host' record including details such as MAC etc. with disabled build mode
2. Register host with subscription manager
3. Subscribe to Satellite 6 tools channel using subscription manager (to access Katello and Puppet rpms)
4. Install and start katello-agent
5. Install, Configure and start Puppet
6. Create Puppet certificate signing request on Satellite server from host
7. Sign certificate in Satellite Web UI
8. Run Puppet remediation on node
So the process is clumsy, but works, it's just getting step 1. to happen in an automated manner... which is what I am looking at the API / Hammer for.
The videos are really nice Danial; thanks.
What is the different between ticking "Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 Server RPMs x86_64 7Server" and ticking "Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 Server RPMs x86_64 7.X" while syncing Red Hat content (under Content/Red Hat Repos & RPMs tab)?
I think content views and composite content views needs some attention, either with videos or additional documentation. Having just defined a work process for patching with content views/composite views/life cycles, some of the items that appear straight forward / trivial in documentation lead to major complexity in management.
Dan,
I started putting together a scenario in this discussion but I think it was going a bit off topic for this video thread, so have created a new discussion here:
https://access.redhat.com/discussions/2114791
Very interested to work through/discuss the finer points in the above discussion thread. The result can perhaps make up a case study or example in future Satellite documentation that you're putting together.
Thanks Daniel.
Although I choose 7.1 as the "Release Version" for a host, it's updated to 7.2. when I do a "yum update"; is this the expected behaviour? If we want a host to stay on a minor version, are we exptected to use "content views"?
Thanks a lot Daniel. Here's another question for you.
When I provision a host I see that puppet service is enabled and started after the installation but relevant puppet actions are not taken due to certificate problem. I have to manually sign the host certificate (Infrastructure/Capsules/Certificates) although I used "Autosign Entires". At first I thought wildcards were not honored (like *.example.com) but it not work when I entered fqdn, too. Is there any method to automate the provisioning process without manual intervention?
Alpaslan,
I covered the issue of fully automated registration of hosts in this discussion, it may assist in answering your question: https://access.redhat.com/discussions/1528223
Pixel, Dan, thanks a lot.
After updating autosign.conf which service should be restarted? I'd like to try wild cards some more. katello-service restart takes too long,
Hey Daniel,
Awesome videos, thank you so much! Any plans for doing more videos on RH satellite 6? Quick question, why am I getting "rhel-7-server-satellite-6.0-rpms does not match a valid repository ID"? When I do "subscription-manager repos --list | grep 'satellite' " all I get is satellite-tools rpms but not actual server-satellite-6.0 rpm.
Thanks
Thanks Daniel for quick response. Yup you were correct, I had auto-attach on subscription manager, however not when I do subscription-manager list --consumed I do not see under Provides "satellite repos" :/ ... And on the portal when I click subscription I get following: Internal Server Error - Read
The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request. Reference #3.4e89fea5.1496326788.1b55e905
so when run subscription-manager list --available Subscription Name: Red Hat Enterprise Linux Developer Suite
I apologize for being ignorant, I have downloaded RH7.3 enterprise and trying to get satellite repos. Am I doing it wrong? How do I change Subscription name to "Rad Hat Satellite" ...Please help
Subscription Name: Red Hat Enterprise Linux Developer Suite
Provides: Red Hat Software Collections (for RHEL Server)
Red Hat Container Development Kit MRG Realtime
Red Hat EUCJP Support (for RHEL Server) - Extended Update Support
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - Extended Update Support Red Hat Beta
Oracle Java (for RHEL Server) - Extended Update Support
Red Hat Enterprise Linux High Performance Networking (for RHEL Compute Node)
Red Hat Enterprise Linux High Performance Networking (for RHEL Server) - Extended Update Support
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Resilient Storage (for RHEL Server)
Oracle Java (for RHEL Server)
Red Hat Container Images
Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Real Time
dotNET on RHEL (for RHEL Server)
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Atomic Host
Red Hat S-JIS Support (for RHEL Server) - Extended Update Support
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Scalable File System (for RHEL Server)
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Resilient Storage (for RHEL Server) - Extended Update Support
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Atomic Host Beta
Red Hat Enterprise Linux High Availability (for RHEL Server) - Extended Update Support
Red Hat Container Images Beta
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Scalable File System (for RHEL Server) - Extended Update Support
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Load Balancer (for RHEL Server) - Extended Update Support
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server
Red Hat Enterprise Linux High Availability (for RHEL Server)
Red Hat Software Collections Beta (for RHEL Server)
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Load Balancer (for RHEL Server)
Red Hat Enterprise Linux High Performance Networking (for RHEL Server)
Red Hat Developer Toolset (for RHEL Server)
SKU: RH2262474
Contract: Pool ID: 8a85f9815c45d9b7015c45dbc565035e
Provides Management: Yes
Available: 98
Suggested: 1
Service Level: Self-Support
Service Type: L1-L3
Subscription Type: Standard
Ends: 05/25/2018
System Type: Virtual
This is great. Since Ansible is now part of the Red Hat family, how about videos showing how to better combine Satellite and Ansible?
Great videos Dan. Looking forward to a couple of things. Your (brief but on the head) description of the capsule concept was great to clarify the difference between a v6 capsule and a v5 proxy (definitely not the same). Would appreciate updating the slides to show the change in WebUI which has changed a lot since 6.0 through 6.3.3 and again now in the 6.4 beta. Also some discussion on issues faced in large corporates where you may not have: - dns control - dhcp control - vm farm control - no PXE capabaility and effectively all deployments become bare metal boot using kick start URL
Thanks again for your efforts!
Maybe talk about Katello-execution vs non-katello-execution. I've ran into an age old bug which has never been resolved. Their solution is not use katello-execution. Basically allow root login access. Well that's a no-no in some environments including PCI.
Honestly there are so many bolts and gears within Satellite that these sessions would be helpful.
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