Red Hat Training

A Red Hat training course is available for Red Hat Satellite

5.2. Red Hat Satellite Capsule Server Prerequisites

The Satellite Capsule's requirements are identical to the Satellite Server. These conditions must be met before installing Red Hat Satellite Capsule:
Base Operating System

Red Hat Satellite Capsule is supported on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.5 or later, as well as Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7. Install the operating system from disc, local ISO image, kickstart, or any other methods that Red Hat supports. Red Hat Satellite Capsule requires Red Hat Enterprise Linux installations with the @Base package group with no other package-set modifications, and without third-party configurations or software that is not directly necessary for the direct operation of the server. This restriction includes hardening or other non-Red Hat security software. If such software is required in your infrastructure, install and verify a complete working Red Hat Satellite Capsule first, then create a backup of the system before adding any non-Red Hat software.

When installing Red Hat Enterprise Linux from CD or ISO image, there is no need to select any package groups; Red Hat Satellite Capsule only requires the base operating system installation. When installing the operating system via kickstart, select the @Base package group.
  • There should be at least one networked host with the following minimum specifications:
    • 64-bit architecture
    • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.5 or later
    • A minimum of two CPU cores, but four CPU cores are recommended
    • A minimum of 8 GB memory but ideally 12 GB of memory for each Satellite instance. It is also recommended to use 4 GB of swap space where possible.
    • A minimum of 5 GB storage for the base install of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, 300 MB for the installation of Red Hat Satellite Capsule and at least 10 GB storage for each unique software repository to be synchronized in the /var file system.
      Packages that are duplicated in different channels are only stored once on the disk. Additional repositories containing duplicate packages will require less additional storage.

      Note

      The bulk of storage resides on the /var/lib/mongodb and /var/lib/pulp directories. These end points are not manually configurable. Ensure that storage is available on the /var file system to prevent storage issues.
    • No Java virtual machine installed on the system, remove any if they exist.
    • No Puppet RPM files installed on the system
    • No third-party unsupported yum repositories enabled. Third-party repositories may offer conflicting or unsupported package versions that may cause installation or configuration errors.
  • Administrative user (root) access
  • Full forward and reverse DNS resolution using a fully qualified domain name. Check that hostname and localhost resolve correctly, using the following commands: 
    # ping -c1 localhost
# ping -c1 `hostname -s` # my_system
# ping -c1 `hostname -f` # my_system.domain.com
  • Available subscriptions on the Red Hat Satellite Server.

Important

Make sure that the host system is fully updated before installing Red Hat Satellite. Attempts to install on host systems running Red Hat Enterprise Linux that are not fully updated may lead to difficulty in troubleshooting, as well as unpredictable results.
Application Specifications

Satellite application installation specifications are as follows:

It is recommended that a time synchronizer such as ntpd is installed and enabled on Satellite. Run the following command to start the ntpd service and have it persist across restarts: 
# service ntpd start; chkconfig ntpd on
Required Network Ports

The following conditions must be met before continuing with this task:

  • Port 443 for HTTPS (secure WWW) must be open for incoming connections.
  • Port 5671 must be open for SSL communication with managed systems.
  • Port 80 for HTTP (WWW) must be open to download the bootstrap files.
  • Port 8080 for TCP must be free for java connections.
  • Port 8140 must be open for incoming Puppet connections with the managed systems.
  • Port 9090 must be open for Foreman Smart Proxy connections with the managed systems.
Run the following commands to configure the firewall with the iptables command and to make these rules persistent during reboots:
  1. For Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6: 
    # iptables -I INPUT -m state --state NEW -p tcp --dport 443 -j ACCEPT \
&& iptables -I INPUT -m state --state NEW -p tcp --dport 5671 -j ACCEPT \
&& iptables -I INPUT -m state --state NEW -p tcp --dport 80 -j ACCEPT \
&& iptables -I INPUT -m state --state NEW -p tcp --dport 8140 -j ACCEPT \
&& iptables -I INPUT -m state --state NEW -p tcp --dport 9090 -j ACCEPT \
&& iptables -I INPUT -m state --state NEW -p tcp --dport 8080 -j ACCEPT \
# iptables-save > /etc/sysconfig/iptables
  2. For Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7: 
    # firewall-cmd --permanent --add-port="443/tcp" --add-port="5671/tcp" --add-port="80/tcp" --add-port="8140/tcp" --add-port="9090/tcp" --add-port="8080/tcp"
# firewall-cmd --complete-reload
Red Hat Satellite Server

The Satellite Server must have the Red Hat Software Collections repositories enabled and synchronized prior to the Capsule Server installation.

Important

Red Hat recommends that the Satellite Capsule system be a freshly provisioned system that serves no other function except as a Satellite Capsule.
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