Replacing Satellite 6.6.2 Server with 6.10 Server

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I have a Satellite 6.6.2 server in our production environment. Since 6.6.2 is longer supported we are moving to a Satellite 6.10 server. I have already previsioned a vm RHEL 7.6 server and installed Satellite 6.10 on it. I exported the manifest from Redhat.com and imported it to the 6.10 satellite server

I am confused on how to move the satellite clients over to the new satellite without causing a disruption. What are the steps to start with a test RHEL server to move it over to the new satellite 6.10 server? Would I just re-subscribe the client to the Satellite 6.10 server or are there other steps that are required?

I have already secured a new ssl cert but when I applied it on the server I was able continue access the satellite server via the i.p. address but could not access the satellite server through the dns name.

Also I want to verify that the curl kello portion will not be a problem. I thought that the virt-who server would be a concern for the hypervisor but it appears that there are no steps need for virt-who consideration from a satellite 6.6.2 to
a satellite 6.10 server

I don't see a lot of info on this process but because we only have 60+/- clients we chose to spin up a new satellite server and then migrate the clients as oppose to upgrading for each release of Satellite server to get to the current version

I know that there was a bootstrap process but I believe it is now depricated

Any help and suggestions on the subject would be greatly appreciated

DM
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Responses

SW Red Hat Guru 4584 points
5 August 2022 8:35 PM

Hi, unsubscribing the Content Hosts from the old Satellite just before subscribing to the new one would help you keep track of what you still need to do.

While bootstrap.py should still work the new global registration service, using the curl command, is being improved all the time.

Using the DNS name is important for many functions within Satellite Server as they depend on certificate authentication so I would concentrate on getting that working. Once you have that working, you will be ready to upgrade to Sat6.11 for all its speed improvements.

RC Active Contributor 232 points
9 August 2022 1:55 PM

6.10 has a pretty easy-to-use 'curl-command' generator (in the UI, Hosts->Register Host) that I recently used with great success to import a few external RHEL7 servers into Satellite as content hosts. It requires that you have activation keys configured. It seems well-suited for doing a handful of servers at a time, 60+ could be slightly arduous. As mentioned above, the content hosts need to be unsubscribed from the existing Satellite server. I also removed each content host's 'katello-ca-consumer' package as well, since the curl command will install one for your new Satellite 6.10 server.

DM Community Member 50 points
9 August 2022 5:58 PM

Thank you for the input. Great tips and suggestions on a direction to move forward on this project. BTW after restoring the Satellite 6.10 server and applying the ssl again I'm able to access the server via it's DNS name. I'm going to try and move one or more clients over to the new Satellite 6.10 server using one or more of the suggestions above

DM Community Member 50 points
15 August 2022 10:48 PM

I appear to be still having issues with this Satellite 6.10 server replacing the Satellite RHEL 6.6.2 server. I have exported the manifest from the sat 6.6.2 server and imported it into the new Sat 6.10 server.

Under subscriptions the contract number, and start date/en dates are NA for 3 of the subscriptions. Where as on the 6.6.2 server the contract field and start and end date are actually populated.

Also under the old server under the activation keys I see 3 keys which are :

dev-key 13 out of Unlimited Development Redhat View Lib-key 1 out of Unlimited Library Default Organization View prod-key 33 out of Unlimited Production Redhat View test-key 15 out of Unlimited Test Redhat View

On the new server I was only able to add the activation keys under

Lib-key 1 out of Unlimited Library Default Organization View

I am not sure of what the exact steps are to get the replacement satellite server issues resolved so that the replacement server has similar or exact settings as the old satellite server. This is my 1st attempt at going through this process so any help would be greatly appreciated

SW Red Hat Guru 4584 points
16 August 2022 7:52 AM

Hi, not sure what you mean by exporting the manifest, never been able to do that myself. I think you should create a new manifest for the new Satellite in your account in the Red Hat customer portal and leave the old one as is for the moment. If required, you could reduce the entitlements for the old manifest as you move systems across.

DM Community Member 50 points
16 August 2022 4:35 PM

Hi Stephen, So I am following the Installing Satellite Server from a Connected Network guide. Exporting and importing the Manifest is step "3.8. IMPORTING A SUBSCRIPTION MANIFEST INTO SATELLITE SERVER". When comparing the license from the old satellite server to the new satellite sever there are some differences. However I am mostly struggling with the unregister the clients from the old Satellite server to the new Satellite server as well It is not too clear of how this process is carried out

RC Active Contributor 232 points
16 August 2022 5:00 PM

Are those subscriptions still allocated to your old Satellite server? If so, I would think that they would not be available to be applied to the new server.

Un-registering is mostly a matter of running 'subscription-manager unregister' on the hosts and then removing their 'katello-ca-consumer' certificate package (yum remove katello-ca-consumer-your_old_satellite_uri) which is pointing them to the old satellite as a subscription/content provider. Once you do that you should be able to install the certificate package from your new satellite server (yum install katello-ca-certificate-your_new_satellite_uri) and then register them with subscription-manager, specifying the activation key. The curl command utility I mentioned above largely automates registering the content hosts.

DM Community Member 50 points
17 August 2022 12:59 AM

We have secured a temporary license for this project as well as moving our RHEL clients from one environment to another

I am attempting to move a client over to the new satellite server that is not currently registered to satellite but I feel that the activation key issue need to be resolved 1st. I guess I'm confused on how this activation key is created on the old server which I have a lib-key, dev-key, prod-key, whereas on the new server I seem to only be able to create a lib-key with only one environment of "Library". When I attempted to publish a new version for the Content View a new version was created but there were no packages listed for the categories of Packages, Erratas, Module Stream. After publishing a new view There were no package list/updates (content view > Redhat view>publish new version)

SW Red Hat Guru 4584 points
17 August 2022 8:13 AM

Hi, take a look at the Creating a Content View section of the Content Management Guide . You say there were no packages in your Content View, I wonder did you, as per step 2, "Add one or more repositories that you want to the Content View"? Did you sync some repos after adding the manifest? See Enabling Red Hat Repositories in the same guide.

RC Active Contributor 232 points
17 August 2022 2:33 PM

Presumably you've added the repositories needed for your CV (since you were able to use them in a CV), make sure you synchronize them with RH CDN; they don't automatically sync when you add them. If you haven't already, set up a sync plan to keep your local repos synchronized automatically.

DM Community Member 50 points
17 August 2022 9:43 PM

Thank you Rob. I manually syncd the repositories. As of yesterday morning I have the repositories on a sync of daily at 8PM and weekly scheduled at 8PM and am surprised that this morning the status was still showing never sync'd for the repositories. I checked the status of the daily sync and it had successfully completed yesterday evening

After the sync I see the view now is updated with packages, Errata and Module Streams. I'm still having an issue with activation keys and environments and as a result because I do not have environments such as dev/test/prod but will set these lifecycles up next and then promote the content view to the previously mentioned environments