Satellite 6 - Incremental Content ISOs
I am currently going through the process of configuring a disconnected Satellite 6 server and was surprised to find that there are no Incremental Content ISOs available for RHEL 6 / RHEL 7 in the Satellite 6 downloads page.
Users are provided with the message:
Incremental Content ISOs are not available for this product.
The base content ISOs end at 2015-09-29, which is now over two months old. Is there a reason for the lack of incremental Content ISOs for Satellite 6? what solution should disconnected sites be using? The documentation I have read still references incremental Content ISOs.
Responses
I see the base channels are from August 18th. There was some severe consternation we had to work with Red Hat support to acquire the base channels for RHEL 6 systems for satellite 5.7 (not 6.x), and also earlier this year, we suffered some great delays with incremental channel updates as well. We had to "put quite a lot of focus" on the cases we submitted on the importance on the incremental and base channels for Satellite 5.7 (not 6.x). I bring this up knowing you are seeking Incremental channels for 6.x. - and that perhaps a similar issue is plaguing timely incremental updates for satellite 6.x as well as satellite 5.x. We had to really get involved with the cases we submitted with Red Hat and express the priority/need for this, and elevate the case. We had a significant delay (I am understating this matter). They finally did resolve it. I hope your incrementals come soon.
I am in a similar situation. We will be going into production with a disconnected satellite server in the next month and I will need either a synchost (that works and is supported), a satellite with export functionality or base plus incrementals for 5, 6 and 7 with incrementals on a weekly or at a minimum of a biweekly basis. This is required for security compliance.
We chose to set up a synchost since it was apparent that Red HAt was not providing timely content ISOs and was not providing incrementals.
Diane, Red Hat did agree to us (and others) to provide base/incremental channels. That being said, they've had some serious delays on occasion we had to put focus on with some cases with them with a few different accounts for multiple customers. They had an internal bug they were plagued with with satellite 5.x ISO channel dumps for rhel 5/6/7 channels. They did finally fix the ISO Channel Dumps for satellite 5,x, for rhel 5/6/7, but I wouldn't be surprised if some issue is causing a similar current delay with Satellite 6 incrementals. I would highly recommend placing a priority case with them explaining in inescapably clear terms the priority and urgency. We did that (I'm understating this) and raised the issue with phone calls on occasion for at least two separate incidents. At one time, we were able to download new fresh incremental channels about every 2 to 3 weeks.
You may already have your process down for downloading/ingesting satellite ISO channel dumps. This discussion I'm linking to here was a response for a procedure to download/ingest ISO channel dumps for Satellite 5.x . Also, this next link has some of the pain we faced with an incremental set being issued somewhat recently is documented here, showing to "measure twice, cut once" with incremental channels which should only take you to the same minor release of RHEL as the Base channel from which it is built from (and not exceed it).
PixelDrift,
While they still don't have incremental channels at this link, they DO have base channels from a channel dump of January 2016 for rhel5/6/7.
What I find annoying, is unlike satellite 5.x, where you download one set of base/incrementals covering both workstation & server, they've segregated workstation & server for each major release of Linux for satellite 6.x.
Thanks for the good info PixelDrift,
Your info in these forums (not just limited to satellite 6, but speaking of satellite 6) has certainly been useful to us (more like highly valuable (in all regards))... We have one of our Satellite servers at 6 at the moment, with one of our customers yet I'm holding out on our more populated satellite servers for reasons such as you have mentioned...
I checked again today, we have one Satellite 6 server, and there's yet another base channel dump but for 1/29/2016, and no incremental dump. Oddly, the base channel dump was made available a day after I wrote my 1/28/2016 reply. Meanwhile, they've been producing RHEL 5 & 6 incremental channels for satellite 5.7 like once a week or less lately.
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