Red Hat Training

A Red Hat training course is available for Red Hat Satellite

3.4. Kickstarting through Cloned or Custom Channels

There are two methods to install a system from cloned or custom channels:
  1. Kickstart a system from a Red Hat Enterprise Linux channel with @Base mentioned under %packages. Under the same kickstart, specify an activation key to subscribe to the cloned or custom channels. Also mention the packages to install from the cloned or custom channel under packages section of the activation key. Kickstarting a system through this method initially installs from Red Hat Enterprise Linux Base channel with minimal packages and then registers the system to the cloned channel on the Satellite 5 server using the activation key. After registration, update the system through the kickstart.
  2. Alternatively, if you aim to kickstart the system directly from your cloned or custom channel, create a distribution tree for the channel. An example procedure is outlined below.

Procedure 3.14. Creating a Distribution Tree for a Cloned Channel

  1. Copy your cloned channel. For example, for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.6: 
    # cd /var/satellite/rhn/kickstart/
# mkdir custom-distro-rhel-6.6
# cd custom-distro-rhel-6.6
# cp -rpv ../ks-rhel-x86_64-server-6-6.6/* .
  2. Set the permissions for all files in the tree to be 644 with apache:apache as the ownership. 
    # find . -type f -print0 | xargs -0 chmod 644
# find . -type f -print0 | xargs -0 chown apache:apache
    Set the permissions for all directories in the tree to be 755 with apache:root as the ownership. 
    # find . -type d -print0 | xargs -0 chmod 755
# find . -type d -print0 | xargs -0 chown apache:root
  3. Login to the Satellite 5 server web UI and navigate to Systems → Kickstart → Distribution → create new distribution
  4. Set the following values:
    • Distribution Label: custom-distro-rhel-6.6
    • Tree Path: /var/satellite/rhn/kickstart/custom-distro-rhel-6.6/
    • Installer Generation: 6
    When complete, click Create Kickstart Distribution.
This creates a kickstart profile with the base channel set to your cloned channel and kickstart tree.

Note

For Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 systems, registering and subscribing kickstarted cloned channel systems requires an activation key that uses the cloned channel as the base channel. Add this activation key to the cloned channel kickstart. The newly kickstarted system registers and subscribes to same cloned channel from which it kickstarted.