Red Hat Training

A Red Hat training course is available for Red Hat Satellite

1.4. Summary of Steps

A functional Red Hat Network Satellite requires more than installing software and a database. Client systems require configuration to use the Satellite. Creation of custom channels for custom packages is recommended. Since these tasks extend beyond the basic installation, they are covered in detail in other guides, as well as this Red Hat Network Satellite Installation Guide. For a full list of the necessary technical documents, refer to Chapter 2, Requirements.
For this reason, this section seeks to provide a definitive list of all required and recommended steps, from evaluation through custom package deployment. They should take place in this order:
  1. Obtaining Satellite

    1. After an evaluation, contact your Red Hat sales representative to purchase Red Hat Network Satellite.
    2. Receive a Red Hat Network Entitlement Certificate and login information for Red Hat Network from your sales representative.
    3. Log into the Red Hat Network website (rhn.redhat.com) and download the distribution ISOs for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 or 6 and Red Hat Network Satellite. These can be found within the Downloads tab of the respective Channel Details pages. Refer to the Red Hat Network Reference Guide for instructions.
    4. While still logged into the Red Hat Network website, download the Channel Content ISOs to be served by your Satellite, also available through the Downloads tab of your Satellite's Channel Details page. These Channel Content ISOs differ from the distribution ISOs previously mentioned in that they contain metadata necessary for parsing and serving packages by Satellite.
  2. Preparing Satellite

    1. Check your software requirements. See Section 2.1, “Software Requirements”.
    2. If installing a Stand-Alone Database, check your hardware fits the requirements in Section 2.2, “Stand-Alone Database Requirements” and prepare your database instance using the formula provided in Section 2.2.3, “Database Requirements for Stand-Alone Database Installations”.
    3. If installing an Embedded Database, check that your hardware fits the requirements in Section 2.3, “Embedded Database Requirements”.
  3. Installing Satellite

    1. Install Red Hat Enterprise Linux on the machine to be the Satellite.
    2. Check any pre-installation steps before installing Red Hat Network Satellite.
    3. Mount the Red Hat Network Satellite installation media and run the script.
    4. Follow the prompts as outlined in the installation instructions.
    5. Open the Satellite's hostname in a web browser and create the first user account. This will be the Satellite Administrator's (also referred to as the Organization Administrator) account.
    6. Finalize Satellite with any post-installation steps.
  4. Initial Use

    1. Use the Red Hat Network Satellite Synchronization Tool to import the channels and associated packages into the Satellite.
    2. Register a representative machine for each distribution type or channel (such as Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 or 6) to the Satellite.
    3. Copy (using scp) rhn_register configuration files from the /etc/sysconfig/rhn/ directory of each machine individually to the /pub/ directory on the Satellite. The rhn-org-trusted-ssl-cert-*.noarch.rpm will already be there.
    4. Download and install from the Satellite the configuration files and rhn-org-trusted-ssl-cert-*.noarch.rpm on the remaining client systems of the same distribution type. Repeat this and the previous step until all distribution types are complete.
    5. Through the Satellite's website, create an Activation Key for each distribution aligned to the appropriate base channel. At this point, system groups and child channels may also be predefined.
    6. Run the Activation Key from the command line (rhnreg_ks) of each client system. Note that this step can be scripted to batch register and reconfigure all remaining client systems in a distribution.
    7. Record all relevant usernames, passwords and other login information and store in multiple secure places.
    8. Now that the Satellite is populated with standard Red Hat channels and packages and all clients are connected to it, you may begin creating and serving custom channels and packages. Once the custom RPMs are developed, you can import them into the Satellite using Red Hat Network Push and add custom channels in which to store them through the Satellite's website. Refer to the Red Hat Network Channel Management Guide for details.