Procedure 1.1. Creating User Accounts

1. Navigate to the Satellite web server page, and click the Users tab on the navigation bar.
2. On the right side of the page, click create new user to open the Create User page.
3. Complete all of the required fields.

   Note

   The login value must be at least five characters long, and may only contain alphanumeric, hyphen, underscore, comma, period, and commercial at (@) characters.
4. Click Create Login to create the new user. An email will be sent to the user, using the address specified during creation, to inform them of the new account details. This will include the password in plain text.
5. When the account has been successfully created, you will be redirected to the User List page. To change permissions and set options for the new user, select their name from the displayed list to display the User Details page, and navigate to the appropriate tabs to make your changes.

Procedure 1.2. Deleting User Accounts

1. Navigate to the Satellite web server page, and click the Users tab on the navigation bar.
2. Click the user name of the account that you want to delete from the Username list. The User Details page displays.
3. Ensure that the user account is not a Satellite administrator.
   If the user is a Satellite administrator, clear the associated check box, and click Submit.
   If the user is not a Satellite administrator, continue to the next step.
4. Click Delete User. The Confirm User Deletion page displays.
5. Ensure that you want to completely delete this user account, and click Delete User.

Procedure 1.3. Activating and Deactivating Users

1. Select the user's name from the list in the Users tab, to display the User Details page.
2. Check to see if the user is a Satellite administrator.
   If the user is a Satellite administrator, uncheck the box next to that role, and click Submit.
   If the user is not a Satellite administrator, continue to the next step.
3. Click Deactivate User.
   You will be asked to confirm this action, by clicking it again. Check the details, and then click Deactivate User again to confirm.
4. Once the account has been successfully deactivated, the user's name will not appear in the Active Users list. Click the Deactivated link from the User List menu to view deactivated user accounts.
5. To reactivate the user account, view the Deactivated list, check the box next to the user to be reactivate, and click Reactivate.

1. Open the rhn.conf file of Red Hat Satellite in a text editor.
2. Edit the file with the required content. To enter content that spans multiple lines escape every new line with a backslash character. Backslashes themselves can be escaped but HTML is not escaped.

   Note

   Red Hat Satellite does not currently support UTF-8 encoding for rhn.conf.
   • To customize the header edit java.custom_header with the required content.
   • To customize the footer edit java.custom_footer with the required content.
   • To customize the login banner edit java.login_banner with the required content.
3. Restart Satellite for the changes to take effect.

Procedure 3.4. To Clone a Satellite Server with an Embedded Database:

1. Install Red Hat Satellite with an embedded database on a base install of Red Hat Enterprise Linux on a separate machine. That is, a machine separate from your primary Red Hat Satellite server. Omit the SSL Certificate generation step.
2. Back up the primary server's database daily using the commands described in Section 3.2.2.1, “Performing an Offline Backup”. This ensures that only changes made the day of the failure are lost.
3. Establish a mechanism to copy the backup to the secondary server. Keep these repositories synchronized using a file transfer program such as rsync. Copying is not necessary if using a Storage Area Network (SAN).
4. Use the db-control restore command to import duplicate data.
5. If the primary server fails, transfer the SSL key pair RPM package in /root/ssl-build from the primary to the secondary server, and install that package. This ensures that Red Hat Satellite clients can authenticate with and securely connect to the secondary server.
6. Update your DNS to reference the secondary server, or configure your load balancer appropriately.

Procedure 3.5. To Create a Redundant Satellite with an External Database:

1. Install Red Hat Satellite on a separate machine, but omit the database configuration, database schema, SSL certificate, and bootstrap script generation steps. Include the same Red Hat Network account and database connection information provided during the initial Satellite installation.
2. Register the new Satellite server. See the Red Hat Satellite Installation Guide for more information.
3. If your original SSL certificate does not take your high-availability solution into account, create a new one with a more appropriate Common Name value (see The SSL Maintenance Tool in the Red Hat Satellite Client Configuration Guide). In this case, generate a new bootstrap script (as defined in Generating Bootstrap Scripts in the Red Hat Satellite Client Configuration Guide) that captures this new value. Ensure the Common Name value represents the combined Satellite solution, not a single machine's host name.
4. After installation, copy the following files from the primary server to the secondary:
   • /etc/rhn/rhn.conf
   • /etc/tnsnames.ora (Oracle database only.)
5. Copy the server-side SSL certificate RPMs from the primary server and install them on the secondary server.
   If, during the installation process, you generated a new SSL certificate that included a new Common Name value, copy the SSL certificate RPMs from the secondary to the primary server and redistribute the client-side certificate. If you also created another bootstrap script, use it to install the certificate on all client systems.
6. • If you created a new bootstrap script, copy the contents of /var/www/html/pub/bootstrap/ to the primary server.
   • If you did not create a new bootstrap script, copy the contents of /var/www/html/pub/bootstrap/ from the primary server to the secondary server.
7. Run the following command on the secondary server to stop the Red Hat Network Task Engine service:

   # service taskomatic stop

   You can use custom scripting or other means to establish automatic start-up/failover of the Red Hat Network Task Engine on the secondary server. Regardless, you need to ensure that it starts in the event of a failure.
8. Share channel package data (by default located in /var/satellite) and cache data (by default located in /var/cache/rhn) between the primary and secondary servers over some type of networked storage device. This eliminates data replication and ensures a consistent store of data for each server.
9. Make the various servers available on your network using a suitable Common Name and a method that suits your infrastructure. Options include round-robin DNS, a network load balancer, and a reverse-proxy setup.

Procedure 3.6. To Automate Satellite Server Database Backups:

#!/bin/bash
{
/usr/sbin/rhn-satellite stop
d=db-backup-$(date "+%F");
mkdir -p /tmp/$d;
db-control backup /tmp/$d
/usr/sbin/rhn-satellite start
} &> /dev/null

1. Create a new file called move-files.sh containing the following script. This script will use rsync to move the backup files to a directory to be stored:

   #!/bin/bash
   rsync -avz /tmp/db-backup-$(date "+%F") <destination> &> /dev/null
   

   Replace <destination> with the path to the backup directory.
   Alternatively, use the following script to achieve the same goal:

   #!/bin/bash
   scp -r /tmp/db-backup-$(date "+%F") <destination> &> /dev/null

2. Switch to the root user, and open the crontab file in a text editor:

   # crontab -e

   Note

   The crontab file opens in vi by default. To change this behavior, change the EDITOR variable to the name of the text editor you prefer.
3. Create a suitable job definition to schedule the backup scripts to run:

   0 3 * * * backup-db.sh
   0 6 * * * move-files.sh
   

   This crontab entry will run the backup at 03:00, and transfer the backup files at 06:00. Other options can be included as needed. You can also include a clean up script to remove older backup directories and prevent the backup storage from filling up.
4. Exit the editor to save the crontab file. The new rules take effect immediately.

Procedure 7.1. To View Software Failures for a Single Client:

1. Log in to the Red Hat Satellite Web UI.
2. Click Systems → system_name → Software → Software Crashes to see the list of software failures that occurred on the registered system.
3. Click the required failure to display its details and the files captured for this software failure report.

Procedure 7.2. To view similar software failures across clients

1. Log into your Red Hat Satellite Web UI.
2. Click Systems → Software Crashes to see a list of all software failures across all registered systems.
3. Click the on a Crash UUID to see the systems affected by the software failure.
4. Click on a specific system to see details and the files captured for the individual software failure report.

Procedure 7.3. To Change the Organization-wide Settings for Software Failures:

1. In the Satellite Web UI, click Admin → <organization_name> → Configuration.
2. Modify the desired organization-wide and upload size settings, and then click Update Organization.

Procedure 9.1. Creating a Schedule Template

1. Log in to Satellite as the Organization Administrator.
2. Click Admin → Task Schedules → Create Schedule.
3. Complete the following fields:
   • Schedule Name: must begin with a letter and contain only lowercase characters, hyphens, periods, underscores, or numerals.
   • Bunch: the default bunch of administrative tasks the administrator can choose from.
   • Frequency
     The following frequency options are available:
     • Disable Schedule: only recommended for administrators who have advanced knowledge of the scheduled tasks and their consequences. Disabling schedules can change Satellite behavior.
     • Daily: creates a daily schedule for a specific time of day.
     • Weekly: creates a weekly schedule for a specific day and time of day.
     • Monthly: creates a monthly schedule for a specific day and time of day.
     • Custom Quartz Format: this format relies on cron expressions to define the schedule. For more information about this format, see the crontab man page (man 5 crontab.)
4. Click Create Schedule.

Procedure 9.2. Editing Schedule Templates

1. Log in to Satellite as the Organization Administrator.
2. Click Admin → Task Schedules.
3. Click the schedule that you want to modify.
4. Change the Frequency type as required.
5. Click Edit Schedule.