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Chapter 2. Configuring Provisioning Contexts

This chapter defines some of the foundational elements required for your Satellite Server before you start provisioning new hosts. This includes defining placement strategies using a provisioning context.

2.1. Defining a Provisioning Context

A provisioning context defines the organization and location to use for a host and its associated resources. In other words, the combination of organization and location defines who owns the system and where it is located.

Organizations divide Red Hat Satellite 6 resources into logical groups based on ownership, purpose, content, security level, or other divisions. You can create and manage multiple organizations through Red Hat Satellite 6 and assign resources to each individual organization. This ensures the Satellite Server provisions hosts within a certain organization and only uses resources assigned to that organization. For more information about organizations, see Creating Organizations in the Content Management Guide.

Locations function similar to organizations in that they provide a method to group resources and assign hosts. The difference is that locations are based on physical or geographical setting. In addition, users can nest locations in a hierarchy. For example, consider the following location map:

  • United States

    • New York

      • Datacenter 1
      • Datacenter 2
      • Datacenter 3

    • San Francisco

      • Datacenter 4
      • Datacenter 5
      • Datacenter 6

  • Japan

    • Tokyo

      • Datacenter 7
      • Datacenter 8
      • Datacenter 9

This example uses nine data centers spread across three cities. The Satellite Server manages resources and provisions hosts in each data center.

This scenario uses a simple provisioning context. The Red Hat Satellite 6 Content Management Guide shows how to create an organization for ACME, which we also use for scenarios in this guide. This guide also shows how to create a location.

2.2. Creating an Organization

This procedure shows how to create an organization. This procedure is also contained in the Red Hat Satellite 6 Content Management Guide. If you followed the organization creation scenario in that guide and already have an organization, you do not need to follow this procedure. Note that some modifications to the organization are required, which require you to edit the organization’s properties.

For Web UI Users

Navigate to Administer > Organizations. This displays the list of organizations that your Satellite Server currently manages.

Click New Organization.

A creation wizard appears with three sections:

Create Organization

Provide the base details for the organization. This includes:

  • Name - A plain text name for the organization. For example: ACME.
  • Label - A unique identifier for the organization. This is used for creating and mapping certain assets, such as directories for content storage. Use letters, numbers, underscores, and dashes, but no spaces. For example: ACME.
  • Description - An optional plain text description for our organization. For example: Our example organization.
Select Hosts

All hosts should have an organization. However, in some circumstances, hosts might become orphaned. For example:

  • Deleting an old organization might orphan its hosts.
  • Hosts not provisioned but imported through Puppet.
  • Hosts not provisioned but registered through subscription-manager.

In these situations, you can assign orphaned hosts to your newly created organization if necessary. Choose Assign All to assign all orphaned hosts or Manually Assign to select which orphaned hosts to assign. In our scenario for ACME, no orphaned hosts should exist yet, so click Proceed to Edit to move to the Edit Properties section.

Edit Properties
This section allows us to assign certain infrastructure resources to our organization. This includes networking resources, installation media, kickstart templates, and other parameters. You can return to this screen at any time by navigating to Administer > Organization and then selecting an organization to edit.
Important

The ACME organization should have the following resources attached for this scenario:

  • Capsules: The Satellite Server’s integrated Capsule, which uses the same host name as the Satellite Server.
  • Media: The Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.2 kickstart tree synchronized from the Red Hat Satellite 6 Content Management Guide.
  • Provisioning Templates: All templates selected.
  • Partition Tables: All tables selected.
  • Domains: The domain this organization uses and manages.
  • Environments: All Puppet environments, including production and the ones created in the Red Hat Satellite 6 Content Management Guide.

Check each resource type in the Edit Properties section for these resources.

After completing your organization creation, click Submit.

For CLI Users

# hammer organization create --name "ACME" --label "ACME" \
--description "Our example organization"

This creates our example organization.

2.3. Creating a Location

This procedure shows how to create a location, which helps define the provisioning context for new hosts and their resources.

For Web UI Users

Navigate to Administer > Locations. This displays the list of locations that your Satellite Server currently manages.

Click New Location.

A creation wizard appears with three sections:

Create Organization

Provide the base details for the location. This includes:

  • Parent - Defines the parent location for this location. This creates a location hierarchy. Since the Satellite has no locations, leave this blank to create a top-level location.
  • Name - A plain text name for the location. For example: New York.
  • Description - An optional plain text description for our organization. For example: Our example location.
Select Hosts

All hosts should have a location. However, in some circumstances, hosts might become orphaned. For example,

  • Deleting an old location might orphan its hosts.
  • Hosts not provisioned but imported through Puppet.
  • Hosts not provisioned but registered through subscription-manager.

In these situations, you can assign orphaned hosts to your newly created location if necessary. Choose Assign All to assign all orphaned hosts or Manually Assign to select which orphaned hosts to assign. In our scenario for ACME, no orphaned hosts should exist yet, so click Proceed to Edit to move to the Edit Properties section.

Edit Properties
This section allows us to assign certain infrastructure resources to our location. This includes networking resources, installation media, kickstart templates, and other parameters. You can return to this screen at any time by navigating to Administer > Location and then selecting a location to edit.
Important

The New York location should have the following resources attached for this scenario:

  • Capsules: The Satellite Server’s integrated Capsule, which uses the same host name as the Satellite Server.
  • Media: The Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.2 kickstart tree synchronized from the Red Hat Satellite 6 Content Management Guide.
  • Provisioning Templates: All templates selected.
  • Partition Tables: All tables selected.
  • Domains: The domain this location uses and manages.
  • Environments: All Puppet environments, including production and the ones created in the Red Hat Satellite 6 Content Management Guide.
  • Organizations: The ACME organization.

Check each resource type in the Edit Properties section for these resources.

After completing your location creation, click Submit.

For CLI Users

# hammer location create --name "New York" \
--description "Our example location"

This creates our example location.

2.4. Setting the Context

Before provisioning in Red Hat Satellite 6, we must set the context. A context defines which organization and location to use for provisioning new systems. In addition, any new infrastructure resources are added to this context.

For Web UI Users

The Context menu is in the top-left corner of the screen. If you have not selected a context, the menu will say "Any Context". Hover over this menu, then select ACME for the Organization selector. This changes the context to our ACME organization. Next, hover over the context menu, then select New York for the Location selector. This changes the context to our example location.

Note

Each user can set their default context in their account settings. Navigate to the username in the top-right corner of the Web UI and select My account to edit your user account settings.

For CLI Users

If using the CLI, ensure to include either --organization or --organization-id and --location or --location-id as an option at the end of your command. For example: 

# hammer host list --organization "ACME" --location "New York"

This sets the context for each interaction through the CLI.

2.5. Chapter Summary

This chapter showed how to create new organizations and locations, and set them as our context for provisioning.

The next chapter explores some of the resources that compose the Red Hat Satellite 6 provisioning infrastructure.