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Appendix B. Importing Content ISOs into a Disconnected Satellite

In high security environments where hosts are required to function in a closed network disconnected from the Internet, the Satellite Server can provision systems with the latest security updates, errata, and packages. To accomplish this, download the Content ISOs for Red Hat Satellite from the Red Hat Customer Portal and import them into the Satellite Server.

Important

This section is not required if your Satellite Server is connected to the Internet.

Download the product ISO from the Red Hat Customer Portal, as follows:

  1. Go to Downloads (at the very top of the window) and select Red Hat Satellite.
  2. Open the Content ISOs tab. All products in your subscription are listed here.
  3. Click the link for the product name, such as Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 Server (x86_64) to download the ISO.
  4. Copy all of the Satellite Content ISOs to a directory the Satellite can access. This example uses /root/isos.
  5. Create a local directory that will be shared through httpd on the Satellite. This example uses /var/www/html/pub/sat-import/.

    # mkdir -p /var/www/html/pub/sat-import/
  6. Mount and recursively copy the contents of the first ISO to the local directory:

    # mkdir /mnt/iso
    # mount -o loop /root/isos/first_iso /mnt/iso
    # cp -ruv /mnt/iso/* /var/www/html/pub/sat-import/
    # umount /mnt/iso
    # rmdir /mnt/iso
  7. Repeat the above step for each ISO until you have copied all the data from the Content ISOs into /var/www/html/pub/sat-import/.
  8. Ensure the SELinux contexts for the directory are correct:

    # restorecon -rv /var/www/html/pub/sat-import/
  9. The Satellite Server now contains the content from the Content ISOs. However, the Satellite Server needs to point to this location as the CDN URL. In the Satellite Web UI, navigate to Content > Red Hat Subscriptions. .
  10. Click Manage Manifest.
  11. On the Subscription Manifest information screen, select the Actions tab.
  12. Scroll to Red Hat Provider Details. Click the edit icon on the Red Hat CDN URL and change the URL to the Satellite host name with the newly created directory, for example:

    http://server.example.com/pub/sat-import/

  13. Click Save and then upload your manifest using Section 3.4, “Importing a Subscription Manifest into the Satellite Server”.

The Satellite is now acting as its own CDN with the files located in http://server.example.com/pub/sat-import/. This is not a requirement. The CDN can be hosted on a different machine inside the same disconnected network as long as it is accessible to the Satellite Server using HTTP.

If your environment changes from disconnected to connected, you can reconfigure a disconnected Satellite to pull content directly from Red Hat Customer Portal:

  1. In the Satellite Web UI, navigate to Content > Red Hat Subscriptions.
  2. Click Manage Manifest.
  3. On the Subscription Manifest information screen, select the Actions tab.
  4. Scroll to Red Hat Provider Details. Click the edit icon on the Red Hat CDN URL and change the URL to the Red Hat CDN URL:

    https://cdn.redhat.com

  5. Click Save

The Satellite Server pulls content directly from Red Hat Customer Portal on the next synchronization.