Chapter 1. Introduction

This best practices guide is intended to help customers of RHN Satellite Server and RHN Proxy Server configure their client systems more easily.

By default, all Red Hat Network client applications are configured to communicate with central Red Hat Network Servers. When connecting clients to RHN Satellite Server or RHN Proxy Server instead, many of these settings must be altered. Altering client settings for a system or two may be relatively simple. A large enterprise environment, containing hundreds or thousands of systems, will likely benefit from the mass reconfiguration steps described here.

Due to the complexity of this undertaking, customers may utilize a pre-populated script that automates many of the tasks necessary to access their Satellite or Proxy server; refer to Chapter 5, Using RHN Bootstrap for details. Red Hat believes that understanding the implications of these changes is helpful and therefore describes the manual steps for reconfiguration in the opening chapters. Use your best judgement in determining the ideal solution for your organization.

Although many of the commands provided within this guide can be applied as they appear, it is impossible to predict all potential network configurations adopted by customers. Therefore, Red Hat encourages you to use these commands as references that must take into account your organization's individual settings.