Chapter 5. Release Information

These release notes highlight technology preview items, recommended practices, known issues, and deprecated functionality you must take into consideration when deploying this release of Red Hat Satellite 6. Notes for updates released during the support lifecycle of this Red Hat Satellite 6 release will appear in the advisory text associated with each update.

5.1. Major Changes

This release of Red Hat Satellite 6 features the following major changes:

Registry and port changes
Previously, the Satellite server used two registries, one on port 5000 and another on port 443. With 6.10, the registry on port 5000 is no longer used. The registry used on port 443 continues to apply for both Satellite and Capsule.

For a complete list of supported ports and firewall requirements, see:

Since the export-default and export-legacy commands are no longer available, there are export commands that simulate those commands.

The tables below map the available export and import commands:

Table 5.1. Export Commands

CommandSat 6.9 and beforeSat 6.10 and after

Complete Export of a content view version

hammer content-view version export –id=<version-id>

hammer content-view version export-legacy –id=<version-id>

hammer content-export complete version –id=<version-id>

Incremental Export of a content view version

* hammer content-view version export-legacy –id=<version-id> –since=<date>

* hammer content-export incremental version –id=<version-id>

Complete Export of a repository

hammer repository export –id=<repository id>

hammer content-export complete repository –id=<repository-id>

Incremental Export of a repository

hammer repository export –id=<repository id> –since=<date>

hammer content-export incremental repository –id=<repository-id>

Complete export of the default content-view version (library) of an org

N/A

hammer content-export complete library –organization-id=<org id>

Incremental export of the default content-view version (library) of an org

N/A

hammer content-export incremental library –organization-id=<org-id>

Complete export of all content across all orgs.

hammer content-view version export-default

N/A

Table 5.2. Import Commands

CommandSat 6.9 and beforeSat 6.10 and after

Import a content view version

hammer content-view version import –export-tar=<…​.> –organization-id=<organization-id>

hammer content-import version –path=<path> –organization-id=<organization-id>

Import a repository

N/A (can only sync)

hammer content-import repository –path=<path> –organization-id=<organization-id>

Import library version

N/A

hammer content-import library –path=<path> –organization-id=<organization-id>

5.2. Enhancements

This release of Red Hat Satellite 6 features the following enhancements:

Ability to support Azure GovCloud
Support has been added for client management using Azure GovCloud for isolated environments.
Satellite Air-Gapped and Disconnected

Satellite provides command-line utilities to support users in disconnected environments. Typically, this involves a Satellite at an internet-connected site and a Satellite at a disconnected site with no internet connectivity.

Satellite 6.10 provides a new command line to support moving content from the connected site to the disconnected site. The new interface provides several enhancements and improvements over previous support. The new command line continues to provide the ability to export content from a Satellite and then import it into another Satellite.

When exporting content, you can export the Library, a Content View Version, or a single repository and choose to export either fully or incrementally. The incremental option only exports content not previously exported. In addition, you can choose to have the content exported to a single file or multiple files of a limited size.

When importing content, the CLI also creates missing resources and associations based upon the exported content. This includes creation of repositories and content views.

Expose Ansible Collections for Sync Only on Connected Satellite

Satellite 6.10 introduces management of Ansible Collections in disconnected environments, where a Red Hat Automation Hub is also deployed.

In this deployment configuration, both a connected and disconnected site exist. Both sites have Satellite and an Automation Hub deployed. The connected site has internet connectivity and the disconnected site does not.

Satellite Ansible Collections support enables a user at the connected site to create a repository pointing to the Automation Hub at that site. They can then synchronize their collections to this repository. When synchronized, use the Satellite command-line interface to export the content in a format that can then be taken to the disconnected site. When at the disconnected site, use the Satellite command-line interface to import content into the disconnected Satellite. The Automation Hub at the disconnected site can then consume the content.

Foreman_webhooks replaces foreman_hooks
Satellite 6.10 replaces the foreman_hooks plugin with foreman_webhooks to simplify integration with external systems to Satellite through their APIs. When specific events occur in Satellite, a user-defined webhook is triggered. An example would be the use of a webhook to populate the Ansible Automation Platform (AAP) inventory on completion of host provisioning, or triggering an Ansible job in AAP, after the repository has been synchronized in Satellite.
Personal Access Tokens
Personal Access Tokens are a means of authentication introduced in a previous version of Satellite. In this release, a new UI has been added so you can create PATs easily, expire them, or monitor their last use time. You can find the UI in your account settings under the Personal Access Tokens tab.
Playbook Signatures
From Satellite 6.10, remediation playbooks originating from console.redhat.com contain additional signatures that are verified by Satellite before their execution. The remediation is not performed if the signature is invalid. This provides an additional layer of security.
Satellite Convert2RHEL support
Satellite adds support to automate the Convert2RHEL operation for non-Red Hat Enterprise Linux hosts that you want to convert to a supported version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
Satellite 6.10 Server works with Satellite 6.9 Capsules
Satellite 6.10 can function with Satellite 6.9 Capsules. However, customers are encouraged to upgrade their Capsules as soon as possible to ensure the best performance and scale.
Ability to visually represent systems registered and in sync with Insights
Satellite now has user interface indicators to show when your hosts are both registered and in sync with Red Hat Insights.
Ability to configure Pulp timeouts
Satellite now has the ability to define how long it will hold a connection to a URL during synchronization of content before timing out. If users experience timeout errors while syncing content they can increase this value in the settings to match the availability of remote resources. Setting the value too high can prevent Satellite from automatically detecting when a remote resource is not releasing the connection. If this occurs the synchronization can take a considerable time.
Red Hat Insights Plugin removed
Functionality that was available under the Insights menu option has now been directly integrated into the Hosts > All Hosts user interface to unify the experience of recommending and remediating actions for the hosts managed in Satellite.
Ability to verify if required packages are installed as part of the pre-upgrade check
Satellite can now verify if the satellite or satellite-capsule packages are present on the server during the pre-upgrade check.
Ability to unset environmental variables when the installer is running
Satellite now unsets the http_proxy environmental variables within the installer environment for the duration of the installation process.
Ability to turn backups on and off when cleaning up tasks from database

Satellite no longer backs up tasks by default. You can now enable or disable tasks backup by setting satellite-installer --foreman-plugin-tasks-backup to true or false.

Note

For upgrades, task backups are enabled by default. You can disable the task backups with the following command: 

# satellite-installer --foreman-plugin-tasks-backup false
Advanced options when registering a host
Satellite user interface under Hosts > Register Host now allows more fine-grained settings for the host registration command and displays inherited values.

5.3. Known Issues

These known issues exist in Red Hat Satellite 6 at this time:

Information from host group is not completely inherited when provisioning a discovered host in the Satellite web UI

When you provision a discovered host, after selecting a host group and trying to customize the host entry, many critical pieces of information are missing. This results in a failed deployment attempt.

As a workaround, perform one of the following actions:

  • Provision the host using hammer: 

    # hammer discovery provision --name discovered_host_name \
--hostgroup-id your_hostgroup_id \
--organization-id your_organization_id \
--location-id your_location_id \
--new-name new_host_name\
--build true

    For more information, see hammer discovery provision in Hammer CLI Guide.

  • Configure discovery rules and enable auto-provisioning so that no manual intervention is required to provision a discovered host. For more information, see Creating Discovery Rules in Provisioning Guide.

BZ#(2069324)

Upgrade considerations concerning Pulp migration and future RHEL
See Upgrade paths in the Upgrading and Updating Red Hat Satellite guide.
RHEL8 systems with OSPP applied cannot install the katello-ca_consumer package from Satellite 6.5

When you apply the OSPP security policy to a Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 system during provisioning, the katello-ca-consumer package cannot be installed from Satellite Server. As a result, the system cannot be registered as a content host. As a workaround, after the system is provisioned, install katello-ca-consumer with the following command and then register the system manually: 

# rpm -Uvh --nodigest --nofiledigest http://satellite.example.com/pub/katello-ca-consumer-latest.noarch.rpm

BZ#1713401

Increased use of memory by Pulp 3 workers during repository synchronization

During repository synchronization, Pulp 3 workers exhibit higher memory use when compared to Pulp 2 workers. As a result, Out of Memory or heavy swapping can occur when syncing several large repositories concurrently.

BZ#1994397

Pulp - Syncing repositories with HTTPS proxy set ends with warning

Syncing repositories with HTTPS proxy set ends with warning Katello::Errors::Pulp3 Error Only HTTP proxies are supported. A workaround is to use plain HTTP proxy or an HTTP proxy that is upgraded to HTTPS using the HTTP CONNECT method.

BZ#1993917

Content View promotion performance

Promoting a Content View with filters for a large repository may take noticeably longer than under Pulp 2.

BZ#1995232

5.4. Deprecated Functionality

The items in this section are either no longer supported, or will no longer be supported in a future release.

Foreman Hooks
Foreman Hooks functionality has been deprecated and will be removed in a future release. The functionality will be replaced by the new Foreman Webhooks feature that will be documented with its release.
Provisioning on Red Hat Virtualization
The integration of Red Hat Virtualization (RHV) with Satellite is deprecated and will be removed in a future release. All the existing compute resources of RHV type will be removed and the hosts associated with RHV will be disconnected.
environment_id parameter
The environment_id parameter is deprecated for promoting a content view with API. The new environment_ids replaces it.
Bootstrap.py
The bootstrap.py script that was used to register a host to Satellite Server or Capsule Server has been replaced with the curl command created with the global registration template.
Katello-agent
Katello-agent is deprecated in this version and will be removed in the next release. Transition your workloads to use the remote execution feature.
katello-ca-consumer Package
The katello-ca-consumer package is deprecated in this version and will be removed in a future release. Use the global registration template for registering a host to Satellite.
Puppet Run API
The puppet run API endpoint /api/hosts/:id/puppetrun, the built in apidoc, and the CLI command are deprecated in this version of Satellite. They will be removed in the next version.
Content ISOs on the CDN
Content ISOs previously hosted at redhat.com for import into Satellite Server have been deprecated in this version and will be removed in the next version of Satellite. Export and Import of synchronized content is improved as part of Satellite 6.10. Red Hat recommends that this be used instead of Content ISOs.

5.5. Removed functionality

RHEV API V3
The RHEV API v3 was deprecated in Satellite 6.9. It has been removed in this version of Satellite.
pulp-puppet-module Builder

Puppet Content Management and pulp-puppet-module builder were deprecated in Satellite 6.9. They have been removed in this version of Satellite. Existing synchronized Puppet repositories will be removed from Satellite. Upon upgrade to Satellite 6.10, Puppet repositories will be deleted if any of the following conditions are met:

OSTree and Puppet Content Type

The following management operations of OSTree and Puppet content types were deprecated in Satellite 6.9 and have been removed in this version of Satellite:

  • Creating OSTree and Puppet repositories.
  • Synchronizing OSTree and Puppet repositories.
  • Adding repositories of OSTree and puppet content types to content view.
  • Publishing and promoting the content views containing repositories of OSTree and Puppet content types across life cycle environments.
Delta RPM (drpm) Support
Delta RPM (drpm) support was deprecated in Satellite 6.9. It has been removed in this version of Satellite.
Red Hat Access Insights plugin
The Red Hat Access Insights plugin was deprecated in Satellite 6.9. It has been removed in this version of Satellite.
Background Download Policy for Repositories
The option to set Download Policy = Background has been removed in this release. If you use this setting, the upgrade process updates those repositories to Download Policy = Immediate. As a result, repository synchronizations might take longer. This is because a synchronization will not be considered complete until all content has been downloaded.
Foreman Hooks
Foreman Hook functionality was deprecated in Satellite 6.9. It has been removed in this version of Satellite.
Generic and Host Bootdisks
Generic and host bootdisks were deprecated in Satellite 6.9. They have been removed in this version of Satellite and are disabled in both UI and CLI. Use Full Host Bootdisk, which is based on SYSLINUX/Grub2 bootloaders and works on all RHEL certified hardware. The VMWare auto bootdisk attaching feature now also uses Full Host Disk.
hammer content-view version export and hammer content-view export-legacy

As part of the Satellite Air Gapped and Disconnected enhancements, there are changes to the Satellite command-line interface, including the removal of commands.

The commands removed are:

  • hammer content-view version export

    In Satellite 6.10, this command has been replaced with hammer content-export complete version and hammer content-export incremental version.

  • hammer content-view version export-legacy

    In Satellite 6.10, this command has been removed.

    A replacement command to generate exported content in the same format does not exist. However, the command-line enables content export content from a Satellite and import to another Satellite. For more information on functionality provided by Satellite 6.10, see Synchronizing Content Between Satellite Servers

MongoDB
In Satellite 6.10, Pulp 2 has been upgraded to Pulp 3 and as a result, MongoDB has been removed from Satellite in favor of PostgreSQL.
Squid
Squid has been deprecated and uninstalled in Satellite 6.10, as this functionality is now provided as part of pulpcore-content, a component of Pulp 3.
Generic & Host Boot Disks
The generic and host boot disks have been removed and disabled in both UI and CLI. Instead, use Full Host Bootdisk, which is based on SYSLINUX/Grub2 bootloaders and works on all RHEL certified hardware. Additionally, the VMWare auto bootdisk attaching feature now also uses Full Host Bootdisk.