Chapter 1. Preparing your Environment for Installation
Before you install Satellite, ensure that your environment meets the following requirements.
1.1. System Requirements
The following requirements apply to the networked base operating system:
- x86_64 architecture
- 4-core 2.0 GHz CPU at a minimum
- A minimum of 20 GB RAM is required for Satellite Server to function. In addition, a minimum of 4 GB RAM of swap space is also recommended. Satellite running with less RAM than the minimum value might not operate correctly.
- A supported operating system installed with all available updates applied
- A unique host name, which can contain lower-case letters, numbers, dots (.) and hyphens (-)
- A current Red Hat Satellite subscription
- Administrative user (root) access
- A system umask of 0022
- Full forward and reverse DNS resolution using a fully-qualified domain name
Satellite only supports UTF-8 encoding. If your territory is USA and your language is English, set en_US.utf-8 as the system-wide locale settings. For more information about configuring system locale in Red Hat Enterprise Linux, see Configuring the system locale in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 Configuring basic system settings.
Your Satellite must have the Red Hat Satellite Infrastructure Subscription manifest in your Customer Portal. Satellite must have satellite-capsule-6.x repository enabled and synced. To create, manage, and export a Red Hat Subscription Manifest in the Customer Portal, see Creating and managing manifests for a connected Satellite Server in Subscription Central.
Satellite Server and Capsule Server do not support shortnames in the hostnames. When using custom certificates, the Common Name (CN) of the custom certificate must be a fully qualified domain name (FQDN) instead of a shortname. This does not apply to the clients of a Satellite.
Before you install Satellite Server, ensure that your environment meets the requirements for installation.
Satellite Server must be installed on a freshly provisioned system that serves no other function except to run Satellite Server. The freshly provisioned system must not have the following users provided by external identity providers to avoid conflicts with the local users that Satellite Server creates:
- apache
- foreman
- foreman-proxy
- postgres
- pulp
- puppet
- qdrouterd
- qpidd
- redis
- tomcat
Certified hypervisors
Satellite Server is fully supported on both physical systems and virtual machines that run on hypervisors that are supported to run Red Hat Enterprise Linux. For more information about certified hypervisors, see Certified Guest Operating Systems in Red Hat OpenStack Platform, Red Hat Virtualization, Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization and Red Hat Enterprise Linux with KVM.
SELinux Mode
SELinux must be enabled, either in enforcing or permissive mode. Installation with disabled SELinux is not supported.
FIPS mode
You can install Satellite on a Red Hat Enterprise Linux system that is operating in FIPS mode. You cannot enable FIPS mode after the installation of Satellite. For more information, see Installing a RHEL 8 system with FIPS mode enabled in Red Hat Enterprise Linux Security hardening.
Satellite supports DEFAULT and FIPS crypto-policies. The FUTURE crypto-policy is not supported for Satellite and Capsule installations.
Inter-Satellite Synchronization (ISS)
In a scenario with air-gapped Satellite Servers, all your Satellite Servers must be on the same Satellite version for ISS Export Sync to work. ISS Network Sync works across all Satellite versions that support it. For more information, see Synchronizing Content Between Satellite Servers in Managing Content.
1.2. Storage Requirements
The following table details storage requirements for specific directories. These values are based on expected use case scenarios and can vary according to individual environments.
The runtime size was measured with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6, 7, and 8 repositories synchronized.
Table 1.1. Storage Requirements for a Satellite Server Installation
| Directory | Installation Size | Runtime Size |
|---|---|---|
| /var/log | 10 MB | 10 GB |
| /var/lib/pgsql | 100 MB | 20 GB |
| /usr | 5 GB | Not Applicable |
| /opt/puppetlabs | 500 MB | Not Applicable |
| /var/lib/pulp | 1 MB | 300 GB |
| /var/lib/qpidd | 25 MB |
For external database servers: /var/lib/pgsql with installation size of 100 MB and runtime size of 20 GB.
For detailed information on partitioning and size, see Partitioning reference in the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 System Design Guide.
1.3. Storage Guidelines
Consider the following guidelines when installing Satellite Server to increase efficiency.
-
If you mount the
/tmpdirectory as a separate file system, you must use theexecmount option in the/etc/fstabfile. If/tmpis already mounted with thenoexecoption, you must change the option toexecand re-mount the file system. This is a requirement for thepuppetserverservice to work. -
Because most Satellite Server data is stored in the
/vardirectory, mounting/varon LVM storage can help the system to scale. -
The
/var/lib/qpidd/directory uses slightly more than 2 MB per Content Host managed by thegoferdservice. For example, 10 000 Content Hosts require 20 GB of disk space in/var/lib/qpidd/. -
Use high-bandwidth, low-latency storage for the
/var/lib/pulp/directories. As Red Hat Satellite has many operations that are I/O intensive, using high latency, low-bandwidth storage causes performance degradation. Ensure your installation has a speed in the range 60 – 80 Megabytes per second.
You can use the storage-benchmark script to get this data. For more information on using the storage-benchmark script, see Impact of Disk Speed on Satellite Operations.
File System Guidelines
- Do not use the GFS2 file system as the input-output latency is too high.
Log File Storage
Log files are written to /var/log/messages/, /var/log/httpd/, and /var/lib/foreman-proxy/openscap/content/. You can manage the size of these files using logrotate.
For more information, see How to use logrotate utility to rotate log files.
The exact amount of storage you require for log messages depends on your installation and setup.
SELinux Considerations for NFS Mount
When the /var/lib/pulp directory is mounted using an NFS share, SELinux blocks the synchronization process. To avoid this, specify the SELinux context of the /var/lib/pulp directory in the file system table by adding the following lines to /etc/fstab:
nfs.example.com:/nfsshare /var/lib/pulp nfs context="system_u:object_r:var_lib_t:s0" 1 2
If NFS share is already mounted, remount it using the above configuration and enter the following command:
# restorecon -R /var/lib/pulp
Duplicated Packages
Packages that are duplicated in different repositories are only stored once on the disk. Additional repositories containing duplicate packages require less additional storage. The bulk of storage resides in the /var/lib/pulp/ directory. These end points are not manually configurable. Ensure that storage is available on the /var file system to prevent storage problems.
Symbolic links
You cannot use symbolic links for /var/lib/pulp/.
Synchronized RHEL ISO
If you plan to synchronize RHEL content ISOs to Satellite, note that all minor versions of Red Hat Enterprise Linux also synchronize. You must plan to have adequate storage on your Satellite to manage this.
1.4. Supported Operating Systems
Satellite Server is supported on the latest versions of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 that are available at the time when Satellite Server is installed. Previous versions of Red Hat Enterprise Linux including EUS or z-stream are not supported.
You can install the operating system from a disc, local ISO image, kickstart, or any other method that Red Hat supports.
The following operating systems are supported by the installer, have packages, and are tested for deploying Satellite:
Table 1.2. Operating Systems supported by satellite-installer
| Operating System | Architecture | Notes |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 | x86_64 only |
Before you install Satellite, apply all operating system updates if possible.
Satellite Server requires a Red Hat Enterprise Linux installation with the @Base package group with no other package-set modifications, and without third-party configurations or software not directly necessary for the direct operation of the server. This restriction includes hardening and other non-Red Hat security software. If you require such software in your infrastructure, install and verify a complete working Satellite Server first, then create a backup of the system before adding any non-Red Hat software.
Install Satellite Server on a freshly provisioned system.
Red Hat does not support using the system for anything other than running Satellite Server.
1.5. Supported Browsers
Satellite supports recent versions of Firefox and Google Chrome browsers.
The Satellite web UI and command-line interface support English, Portuguese, Simplified Chinese Traditional Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Italian, Spanish, Russian, French, and German.
1.6. Ports and Firewalls Requirements
For the components of Satellite architecture to communicate, ensure that the required network ports are open and free on the base operating system. You must also ensure that the required network ports are open on any network-based firewalls.
Use this information to configure any network-based firewalls. Note that some cloud solutions must be specifically configured to allow communications between machines because they isolate machines similarly to network-based firewalls. If you use an application-based firewall, ensure that the application-based firewall permits all applications that are listed in the tables and known to your firewall. If possible, disable the application checking and allow open port communication based on the protocol.
Integrated Capsule
Satellite Server has an integrated Capsule and any host that is directly connected to Satellite Server is a Client of Satellite in the context of this section. This includes the base operating system on which Capsule Server is running.
Clients of Capsule
Hosts which are clients of Capsules, other than Satellite’s integrated Capsule, do not need access to Satellite Server. For more information on Satellite Topology and an illustration of port connections, see Capsule Networking in Satellite Overview, Concepts, and Deployment Considerations.
Required ports can change based on your configuration.
The following tables indicate the destination port and the direction of network traffic:
Table 1.3. Satellite Server incoming traffic
| Destination Port | Protocol | Service | Source | Required For | Description |
| 53 | TCP and UDP | DNS | DNS Servers and clients | Name resolution | DNS (optional) |
| 67 | UDP | DHCP | Client | Dynamic IP | DHCP (optional) |
| 69 | UDP | TFTP | Client | TFTP Server (optional) | |
| 443 | TCP | HTTPS | Capsule | Red Hat Satellite API | Communication from Capsule |
| 443, 80 | TCP | HTTPS, HTTP | Client | Global Registration | Registering hosts to Satellite Port 443 is required for registration initiation, uploading facts, and sending installed packages and traces
Port 80 notifies Satellite on the |
| 443 | TCP | HTTPS | Red Hat Satellite | Content Mirroring | Management |
| 443 | TCP | HTTPS | Red Hat Satellite | Capsule API | Smart Proxy functionality |
| 443, 80 | TCP | HTTPS, HTTP | Capsule | Content Retrieval | Content |
| 443, 80 | TCP | HTTPS, HTTP | Client | Content Retrieval | Content |
| 1883 | TCP | MQTT | Client | Pull based REX (optional) | Content hosts for REX job notification (optional) |
| 5646, 5647 | TCP | AMQP | Capsule | Katello agent | Forward message to Qpid dispatch router on Satellite (optional) |
| 5910 – 5930 | TCP | HTTPS | Browsers | Compute Resource’s virtual console | |
| 8000 | TCP | HTTP | Client | Provisioning templates | Template retrieval for client installers, iPXE or UEFI HTTP Boot |
| 8000 | TCP | HTTPS | Client | PXE Boot | Installation |
| 8140 | TCP | HTTPS | Client | Puppet agent | Client updates (optional) |
| 9090 | TCP | HTTPS | Red Hat Satellite | Capsule API | Smart Proxy functionality |
| 9090 | TCP | HTTPS | Client | OpenSCAP | Configure Client (if the OpenSCAP plugin is installed) |
| 9090 | TCP | HTTPS | Discovered Node | Discovery | Host discovery and provisioning (if the discovery plugin is installed) |
Any managed host that is directly connected to Satellite Server is a client in this context because it is a client of the integrated Capsule. This includes the base operating system on which a Capsule Server is running.
A DHCP Capsule performs ICMP ping or TCP echo connection attempts to hosts in subnets with DHCP IPAM set to find out if an IP address considered for use is free. This behavior can be turned off using satellite-installer --foreman-proxy-dhcp-ping-free-ip=false.
Some outgoing traffic returns to Satellite to enable internal communication and security operations.
Table 1.4. Satellite Server outgoing traffic
| Destination Port | Protocol | Service | Destination | Required For | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ICMP | ping | Client | DHCP | Free IP checking (optional) | |
| 7 | TCP | echo | Client | DHCP | Free IP checking (optional) |
| 22 | TCP | SSH | Target host | Remote execution | Run jobs |
| 22, 16514 | TCP | SSH SSH/TLS | Compute Resource | Satellite originated communications, for compute resources in libvirt | |
| 53 | TCP and UDP | DNS | DNS Servers on the Internet | DNS Server | Resolve DNS records (optional) |
| 53 | TCP and UDP | DNS | DNS Server | Capsule DNS | Validation of DNS conflicts (optional) |
| 53 | TCP and UDP | DNS | DNS Server | Orchestration | Validation of DNS conflicts |
| 68 | UDP | DHCP | Client | Dynamic IP | DHCP (optional) |
| 80 | TCP | HTTP | Remote repository | Content Sync | Remote yum repository |
| 389, 636 | TCP | LDAP, LDAPS | External LDAP Server | LDAP |
LDAP authentication, necessary only if external authentication is enabled. The port can be customized when |
| 443 | TCP | HTTPS | Satellite | Capsule | Capsule Configuration management Template retrieval OpenSCAP Remote Execution result upload |
| 443 | TCP | HTTPS | Amazon EC2, Azure, Google GCE | Compute resources | Virtual machine interactions (query/create/destroy) (optional) |
| 443 | TCP | HTTPS | console.redhat.com | Red Hat Cloud plugin API calls | |
| 443 | TCP | HTTPS | cdn.redhat.com | Content Sync | |
| 443 | TCP | HTTPS | api.access.redhat.com | SOS report | Assisting support cases filed through the Red Hat Customer Portal (optional) |
| 443 | TCP | HTTPS | cert-api.access.redhat.com | Telemetry data upload and report | |
| 443 | TCP | HTTPS | Capsule | Content mirroring | Initiation |
| 443 | TCP | HTTPS | Infoblox DHCP Server | DHCP management | When using Infoblox for DHCP, management of the DHCP leases (optional) |
| 623 | Client | Power management | BMC On/Off/Cycle/Status | ||
| 5000 | TCP | HTTPS | OpenStack Compute Resource | Compute resources | Virtual machine interactions (query/create/destroy) (optional) |
| 5646 | TCP | AMQP | Satellite Server | Katello agent | Forward message to Qpid dispatch router on Capsule (optional) |
| 5671 | Qpid | Remote install | Send install command to client | ||
| 5671 | Dispatch router (hub) | Remote install | Forward message to dispatch router on Satellite | ||
| 5671 | Satellite Server | Remote install for Katello agent | Send install command to client | ||
| 5671 | Satellite Server | Remote install for Katello agent | Forward message to dispatch router on Satellite | ||
| 5900 – 5930 | TCP | SSL/TLS | Hypervisor | noVNC console | Launch noVNC console |
| 7911 | TCP | DHCP, OMAPI | DHCP Server | DHCP |
The DHCP target is configured using
ISC and |
| 8443 | TCP | HTTPS | Client | Discovery | Capsule sends reboot command to the discovered host (optional) |
| 9090 | TCP | HTTPS | Capsule | Capsule API | Management of Capsules |
1.7. Enabling Connections from a Client to Satellite Server
Capsules and Content Hosts that are clients of a Satellite Server’s internal Capsule require access through Satellite’s host-based firewall and any network-based firewalls.
Use this procedure to configure the host-based firewall on the system that Satellite is installed on, to enable incoming connections from Clients, and to make the configuration persistent across system reboots. For more information on the ports used, see Ports and Firewalls Requirements.
Procedure
To open the ports for client to Satellite communication, enter the following command on the base operating system that you want to install Satellite on:
# firewall-cmd \ --add-port="53/udp" --add-port="53/tcp" \ --add-port="67/udp" \ --add-port="69/udp" \ --add-port="80/tcp" --add-port="443/tcp" \ --add-port="5647/tcp" \ --add-port="8000/tcp" --add-port="9090/tcp" \ --add-port="8140/tcp"
Make the changes persistent:
# firewall-cmd --runtime-to-permanent
Verification
Enter the following command:
# firewall-cmd --list-all
For more information, see Using and Configuring firewalld in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 Securing networks.
1.8. Verifying DNS resolution
Verify the full forward and reverse DNS resolution using a fully-qualified domain name to prevent issues while installing Satellite.
Procedure
Ensure that the host name and local host resolve correctly:
# ping -c1 localhost # ping -c1 `hostname -f` # my_system.domain.com
Successful name resolution results in output similar to the following:
# ping -c1 localhost PING localhost (127.0.0.1) 56(84) bytes of data. 64 bytes from localhost (127.0.0.1): icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=0.043 ms --- localhost ping statistics --- 1 packets transmitted, 1 received, 0% packet loss, time 0ms rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 0.043/0.043/0.043/0.000 ms # ping -c1 `hostname -f` PING hostname.gateway (XX.XX.XX.XX) 56(84) bytes of data. 64 bytes from hostname.gateway (XX.XX.XX.XX): icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=0.019 ms --- localhost.gateway ping statistics --- 1 packets transmitted, 1 received, 0% packet loss, time 0ms rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 0.019/0.019/0.019/0.000 ms
To avoid discrepancies with static and transient host names, set all the host names on the system by entering the following command:
# hostnamectl set-hostname name
For more information, see the Changing a hostname using hostnamectl in the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 Configuring and managing networking.
Name resolution is critical to the operation of Satellite. If Satellite cannot properly resolve its fully qualified domain name, tasks such as content management, subscription management, and provisioning will fail.
1.9. Tuning Satellite Server with Predefined Profiles
If your Satellite deployment includes more than 5000 hosts, you can use predefined tuning profiles to improve performance of Satellite.
Note that you cannot use tuning profiles on Capsules.
You can choose one of the profiles depending on the number of hosts your Satellite manages and available hardware resources.
The tuning profiles are available in the /usr/share/foreman-installer/config/foreman.hiera/tuning/sizes directory.
When you run the satellite-installer command with the --tuning option, deployment configuration settings are applied to Satellite in the following order:
-
The default tuning profile defined in the
/usr/share/foreman-installer/config/foreman.hiera/tuning/common.yamlfile -
The tuning profile that you want to apply to your deployment and is defined in the
/usr/share/foreman-installer/config/foreman.hiera/tuning/sizes/directory -
Optional: If you have configured a
/etc/foreman-installer/custom-hiera.yamlfile, Satellite applies these configuration settings.
Note that the configuration settings that are defined in the /etc/foreman-installer/custom-hiera.yaml file override the configuration settings that are defined in the tuning profiles.
Therefore, before applying a tuning profile, you must compare the configuration settings that are defined in the default tuning profile in /usr/share/foreman-installer/config/foreman.hiera/tuning/common.yaml, the tuning profile that you want to apply and your /etc/foreman-installer/custom-hiera.yaml file, and remove any duplicated configuration from the /etc/foreman-installer/custom-hiera.yaml file.
- default
Number of managed hosts: 0 – 5000
RAM: 20G
Number of CPU cores: 4
- medium
Number of managed hosts: 5001 – 10000
RAM: 32G
Number of CPU cores: 8
- large
Number of managed hosts: 10001 – 20000
RAM: 64G
Number of CPU cores: 16
- extra-large
Number of managed hosts: 20001 – 60000
RAM: 128G
Number of CPU cores: 32
- extra-extra-large
Number of managed hosts: 60000+
RAM: 256G
Number of CPU cores: 48+
Procedure
Optional: If you have configured the
custom-hiera.yamlfile on Satellite Server, back up the/etc/foreman-installer/custom-hiera.yamlfile tocustom-hiera.original. You can use the backup file to restore the/etc/foreman-installer/custom-hiera.yamlfile to its original state if it becomes corrupted:# cp /etc/foreman-installer/custom-hiera.yaml \ /etc/foreman-installer/custom-hiera.original
-
Optional: If you have configured the
custom-hiera.yamlfile on Satellite Server, review the definitions of the default tuning profile in/usr/share/foreman-installer/config/foreman.hiera/tuning/common.yamland the tuning profile that you want to apply in/usr/share/foreman-installer/config/foreman.hiera/tuning/sizes/. Compare the configuration entries against the entries in your/etc/foreman-installer/custom-hiera.yamlfile and remove any duplicated configuration settings in your/etc/foreman-installer/custom-hiera.yamlfile. Enter the
satellite-installercommand with the--tuningoption for the profile that you want to apply. For example, to apply the medium tuning profile settings, enter the following command:# satellite-installer --tuning medium
