Release Notes
Product notes, new features, and known bugs for Red Hat Satellite.
Red Hat Satellite Documentation Team
satellite-doc-list@redhat.comAbstract
Chapter 1. Introduction
Red Hat Satellite is a system management solution that enables you to deploy, configure, and maintain your systems across physical, virtual, and cloud environments. Satellite provides provisioning, remote management and monitoring of multiple Red Hat Enterprise Linux deployments with a single, centralized tool.
Red Hat Satellite Server synchronizes the content from Red Hat Customer Portal and other sources, and provides functionality including fine-grained life cycle management, user and group role-based access control, integrated subscription management, as well as advanced GUI, CLI, or API access.
Red Hat Satellite Capsule Server mirrors content from Red Hat Satellite Server to facilitate content federation across various geographical locations. Host systems can pull content and configuration from the Capsule Server in their location and not from the central Satellite Server. The Capsule Server also provides localized services such as Puppet Master, DHCP, DNS, or TFTP. Capsule Servers assist you in scaling Red Hat Satellite as the number of managed systems increases in your environment.
1.1. Satellite 6 Component Versions
Red Hat Satellite is a combination of a number of upstream projects. For the full details of the major projects included, and the version of those projects included in each major and minor release of Red Hat Satellite, see Satellite 6 Component Versions.
1.2. Red Hat Satellite and Proxy Server Life Cycle
For an overview of the life cycle phases for Red Hat Network Satellite and Red Hat Satellite and the status of support for these products, see Red Hat Satellite and Proxy Server Life Cycle.
1.3. Red Hat Satellite FAQ
For a list of frequently asked questions about Red Hat Satellite 6, see Red Hat Satellite 6 FAQ.
Chapter 2. Content Delivery Network Repositories
This section describes the repositories required to install Red Hat Satellite 6.7.
You can install Red Hat Satellite 6.7 through the Content Delivery Network (CDN). To do so, configure subscription-manager to use the correct repository for your operating system version and variant.
Run the following command to enable a CDN repository:
# subscription-manager repos --enable=reponameRun the following command to disable a CDN repository:
# subscription-manager repos --disable=reponameThe following sections outline the repositories required by Red Hat Satellite 6.7. When one of these repositories is required to install a package, the steps to enable the required repositories are included in the documentation.
2.1. Red Hat Satellite, Capsule, and Maintenance
The following table lists the repositories for Satellite Server, Capsule Server, and Satellite Maintenance.
Table 2.1. Red Hat Satellite, Capsule, and Maintenance
| Repository Name | Repository Label |
|---|---|
| Red Hat Satellite 6.7 (for RHEL 7 Server) (RPMs) | rhel-7-server-satellite-6.7-rpms |
| Red Hat Satellite 6.7 (for RHEL 7 Server) (ISOs) | rhel-7-server-satellite-6.7-isos |
| Red Hat Satellite Capsule 6.7 (for RHEL 7 Server) (RPMs) | rhel-7-server-satellite-capsule-6.7-rpms |
| Red Hat Satellite Maintenance 6 (for RHEL 7 Server) (RPMs) | rhel-7-server-satellite-maintenance-6-rpms |
2.2. Red Hat Satellite Tools
The following tables list the repositories for Red Hat Satellite Tools.
Table 2.2. Red Hat Satellite Tools for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5
| Repository Name | Repository Label |
|---|---|
| Red Hat Satellite Tools 6.7 (for RHEL 5 Server - ELS) (RPMs) | rhel-5-server-els-satellite-tools-6.7-rpms |
| Red Hat Satellite Tools 6.7 (for RHEL 5 for System Z - ELS) (RPMs) | rhel-5-for-system-z-els-satellite-tools-6.7-rpms |
Table 2.3. Red Hat Satellite Tools for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6
| Repository Name | Repository Label |
|---|---|
| Red Hat Satellite Tools 6.7 (for RHEL 6 Desktop) (RPMs) | rhel-6-desktop-satellite-tools-6.7-rpms |
| Red Hat Satellite Tools 6.7 (for RHEL 6 Server) (RPMs) | rhel-6-server-satellite-tools-6.7-rpms |
| Red Hat Satellite Tools 6.7 (for RHEL 6 Server - AUS) (RPMs) | rhel-6-server-aus-satellite-tools-6.7-rpms |
| Red Hat Satellite Tools 6.7 (for RHEL 6 Workstation) (RPMs) | rhel-6-workstation-satellite-tools-6.7-rpms |
| Red Hat Satellite Tools 6.7 (for RHEL 6 for System Z) (RPMs) | rhel-6-for-system-z-satellite-tools-6.7-rpms |
| Red Hat Satellite Tools 6.7 (for RHEL 6 for IBM Power) (RPMs) | rhel-6-for-power-satellite-tools-6.7-rpms |
| Red Hat Satellite Tools 6.7 (for RHEL 6 for Scientific Computing) (RPMs) | rhel-6-for-hpc-node-satellite-tools-6.7-rpms |
Table 2.4. Red Hat Satellite Tools for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7
| Repository Name | Repository Label |
|---|---|
| Red Hat Satellite Tools 6.7 (for RHEL 7 Desktop) (RPMs) | rhel-7-desktop-satellite-tools-6.7-rpms |
| Red Hat Satellite Tools 6.7 (for RHEL 7 Server) (RPMs) | rhel-7-server-satellite-tools-6.7-rpms |
| Red Hat Satellite Tools 6.7 (for RHEL 7 Server - EUS) (RPMs) | rhel-7-server-eus-satellite-tools-6.7-rpms |
| Red Hat Satellite Tools 6.7 (for RHEL 7 Server - Update Services SAP Solutions) (RPMs) | rhel-7-server-e4s-satellite-tools-6.7-rpms |
| Red Hat Satellite Tools 6.7 (for RHEL 7 Server - TUS) (RPMs) | rhel-7-server-tus-satellite-tools-6.7-rpms |
| Red Hat Satellite Tools 6.7 (for RHEL 7 Server - AUS) (RPMs) | rhel-7-server-aus-satellite-tools-6.7-rpms |
| Red Hat Satellite Tools 6.7 (for RHEL 7 Workstation) (RPMs) | rhel-7-workstation-satellite-tools-6.7-rpms |
| Red Hat Satellite Tools 6.7 (for RHEL 7 for System Z) (RPMs) | rhel-7-for-system-z-satellite-tools-6.7-rpms |
| Red Hat Satellite Tools 6.7 (for RHEL 7 for System Z - EUS) (RPMs) | rhel-7-for-system-z-eus-satellite-tools-6.7-rpms |
| Red Hat Satellite Tools 6.7 (for RHEL 7 for IBM Power) (RPMs) | rhel-7-for-power-satellite-tools-6.7-rpms |
| Red Hat Satellite Tools 6.7 (for RHEL 7 for IBM Power - EUS) (RPMs) | rhel-7-for-power-eus-satellite-tools-6.7-rpms |
| Red Hat Satellite Tools 6.7 (for RHEL 7 for IBM Power LE) (RPMs) | rhel-7-for-power-le-satellite-tools-6.7-rpms |
| Red Hat Satellite Tools 6.7 (for RHEL 7 for IBM Power LE - EUS) (RPMs) | rhel-7-for-power-le-eus-satellite-tools-6.7-rpms |
| Red Hat Satellite Tools 6.7 (for RHEL 7 for IBM Power LE - Update Services SAP Solutions) (RPMs) | rhel-7-for-power-le-e4s-satellite-tools-6.7-rpms |
| Red Hat Satellite Tools 6.7 (for RHEL 7 for Scientific Computing) (RPMs) | rhel-7-for-hpc-node-satellite-tools-6.7-rpms |
| Red Hat Satellite Tools 6.7 (for RHEL 7 for Scientific Computing - EUS) (RPMs) | rhel-7-for-hpc-node-eus-satellite-tools-6.7-rpms |
Table 2.5. Red Hat Satellite Tools for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8
| Repository Name | Repository Label |
|---|---|
| Red Hat Satellite Tools 6.7 for RHEL 8 x86_64 (RPMs) | satellite-tools-6.7-for-rhel-8-x86_64-rpms |
| Red Hat Satellite Tools 6.7 for RHEL 8 s390x (RPMs) | satellite-tools-6.7-for-rhel-8-s390x-rpms |
| Red Hat Satellite Tools 6.7 for RHEL 8 ppc64le (RPMs) | satellite-tools-6.7-for-rhel-8-ppc64le-rpms |
| Red Hat Satellite Tools 6.7 for RHEL 8 aarch64 (RPMs) | satellite-tools-6.7-for-rhel-8-aarch64-rpms |
| Red Hat Satellite Tools 6.7 for RHEL 8 x86_64 - Extended Update Support (RPMs) | satellite-tools-6.7-for-rhel-8-x86_64-eus-rpms |
| Red Hat Satellite Tools 6.7 for RHEL 8 IBM z Systems - Extended Update Support (RPMs) | satellite-tools-6.7-for-rhel-8-s390x-eus-rpms |
| Red Hat Satellite Tools 6.7 for RHEL 8 Power, little endian - Extended Update Support (RPMs) | satellite-tools-6.7-for-rhel-8-ppc64le-eus-rpms |
| Red Hat Satellite Tools 6.7 for RHEL 8 ARM 64 - Extended Update Support (RPMs) | satellite-tools-6.7-for-rhel-8-aarch64-eus-rpms |
| Red Hat Satellite Tools 6.7 for RHEL 8 x86_64 - Update Services SAP Solutions (RPMs) | satellite-tools-6.7-for-rhel-8-x86_64-e4s-rpms |
| Red Hat Satellite Tools 6.7 for RHEL 8 Power, little endian - Update Services SAP Solutions (RPMs) | satellite-tools-6.7-for-rhel-8-ppc64le-e4s-rpms |
Chapter 3. Key Changes to the Documentation Set
The following notable changes were made to the Red Hat Satellite documentation set for this release:
- Configuring Virtual Machine Subscriptions in Red Hat Satellite
- Configuring Virtual Machine Subscriptions in Red Hat Satellite has replaced the Virtual Instances Guide. The content has been reworked to improve readability and ease-of-use when using virt-who to manage host-based subscriptions.
- Content Management Guide
A new section on specifying HTTP proxies for individual repositories has been added:
- Managing Hosts
A new chapter on using report templates to monitor hosts has been added:
Using Report Templates to Monitor Hosts
The Running Jobs on Hosts section has been reworked for readability and to add information about how Satellite selects Capsules for remote execution:
Chapter 4. Technology Preview Features
Technology Preview features are not supported with Red Hat production service-level agreements (SLAs) and might not be functionally complete. Red Hat does not recommend using them for production. These features provide early access to upcoming product features, enabling customers to test functionality and provide feedback during the development process. For more information, see Red Hat Technology Preview Features Support Scope.
The following features are available as Technology Previews in Red Hat Satellite:
- Container-native Virtualization plug-in
- Provisioning virtual machines with Container-native Virtualization.
- Kernel execution (kexec) template
- Kernel execution template for PXE-less boot methods.
- Tracer
- Integration with the Tracer tool, which monitors running processes and identifies if they need to be restarted due to package updates or similar activities.
- Common Access Card (CAC) authentication
- CAC authentication in Satellite through Red Hat Single Sign-On.
Chapter 5. Release Information
These release notes highlight technology preview items, recommended practices, known issues, and deprecated functionality to be taken 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. Enhancements
This release of Red Hat Satellite 6 features the following enhancements:
- BZ#1201146
- With the introduction of Azure provisioning support, you can create a compute resource for Azure and provision new hosts on Azure from the Satellite web UI, API, or Hammer CLI.
- BZ#1215390
- If your Satellite deployment includes more than 5000 hosts, you can now use satellite-installer to configure Satellite with predefined tuning profiles to improve the performance of Satellite. Note that you cannot use tuning profiles on Capsule.
- BZ#1378442
- Support has been added for uploading the SRPM file type content using the Satellite API or Hammer CLI.
- BZ#1474311
- For improved task management and monitoring, a number of web UI enhancements have been added to the Monitor > Tasks window in the Satellite web UI. To help identify and track potential issues with long-running tasks, a Duration column has been added (BZ#1474311). Buttons have been added to allow for bulk cancelling or resuming of tasks (BZ#1269673, BZ#1777908).
- BZ#1568046
- You can now select an HTTP proxy policy for individual repositories. The proxy policy specifies whether to use no proxy, the globally configured proxy, or a specific proxy.
- BZ#1597246
- You can now choose to randomize the order in which remote execution jobs are executed on hosts, helping to reduce the load when running a large number of remote execution jobs on a large number of hosts.
- BZ#1607550
- This release includes a new reports API to improve the performance of Ansible Tower inventory integration.
- BZ#1662492
- You can use the new Entitlements report template to monitor which entitlements are consumed by hosts that you manage with Satellite.
- BZ#1694093
- To improve performance, if Event and Monitor tasks stop for any reason, they are restarted automatically. If the automatic restart fails, an alert is triggered. Furthermore, if multiple instances of the Event and Monitor tasks are running, they now stop automatically and only one instance of each task runs.
- BZ#1698154
- You can now import and export templates in the Satellite web UI at Hosts > Sync Templates. After you click Submit, the web UI displays a new page with the status of the import or export.
- BZ#1698158
- You can now set System Purpose attributes in an activation key, so that hosts registered using that activation key have their System Purpose set automatically.
- BZ#1698181
- You can now access a Red Hat Enterprise Linux host’s Web Console directly from the Satellite web UI. Navigate to Hosts > All Hosts, click the name of the host, then click Web Console. The host’s Web Console opens and automatically authenticates using SSH. Note that you must first enable Web Console access using satelliter-installer.
- BZ#1718077
- The template editor UI has been updated with usability improvements.
- BZ#1718988
- You can now create content view filters based on AppStreams, and incrementally update a content view with AppStreams and its dependencies.
- BZ#1721848
- Support has been added to the Google Compute Engine (GCE) compute resource for Hammer CLI and API endpoints.
- BZ#1732056
-
Satellite 6.7 uses separate settings to configure default download policies for Red Hat and custom repositories:
Default Red Hat Repository download policyandDefault Custom Repository download policy. The default value for theDefault Red Hat Repository download policysetting ison_demand. The default value for theDefault Custom Repository download policysetting isimmediate. These settings affect newly synchronized repositories. To review the default settings after an upgrade, in the Satellite web UI, navigate to Administer > Settings and click the Content tab. - BZ#1734808
- For improved Ansible performance and stability, ansible-runner is now the only available Ansible implementation. The ansible-playbook implementation is no longer available.
- BZ#1814595
Previously, password hashing in Satellite used SHA1. As part of this release, new installations of Satellite 6.7 use bcrypt for password hashing.
Users who upgrade from Satellite 6.6 to 6.7 continue to have SHA1 for password hashing until users change their passwords. As part of your upgrade to Satellite, consider enforcing password updates for all users.
To change the bcrypt cost value that you want to use for password hashing, in the Satellite web UI, navigate to Administer > Settings, click the Authentication tab, and edit the BCrypt password cost setting.
Changes to the bcrypt cost value are implemented after the next password change. Note that while higher values are safer, higher bcrypt cost values have a performance impact on API and UI logins.
5.2. Technology Preview
The items listed in this section are provided as Technology Previews. For further information on the scope of Technology Preview status, and the associated support implications, refer to https://access.redhat.com/support/offerings/techpreview/.
- BZ#1571210
- Technology Preview support has been added for Common Access Cards (CAC) authentication in Satellite through Red Hat Single Sign On.
5.3. Known Issues
These known issues exist in Red Hat Satellite 6 at this time:
- BZ#1619274
- UEFI HTTP boot is currently not supported in Satellite. The templates may appear in the Satellite UI as functionality is added, but these should not be used until the feature is supported.
- BZ#1713401
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. Therefore, the system cannot be registered as a content host. As a workaround, after the system is provisioned, install the 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#1720369
Entering the following command can lead to broken symlinks for repository metadata. Do not enter this command until BZ#1720369 is resolved.
# foreman-rake katello:delete_orphaned_content RAILS_ENV=production
If you have broken symlinks, regenerate the yum repository metadata.
- BZ#1814361
If you have changed a Satellite hostname by running the
satellite-change-hostnamecommand with the--skip-dnsoption and then try to change the hostname again, the operation fails. This happens because thesatellite-change-hostnamecommand expects that the dynamic DNS files contain the current hostname, however running thesatellite-change-hostnamecommand with the--skip-dnsoption does not change the dynamic DNS files.To fix this issue, after changing the hostname once with the
--skip-dnsoption, change the hostname again to the initial hostname that matches the DNS record without the--skip-dnsoption. Then, change the hostname with the--skip-dnsoption again.- BZ#1816699
- If all of a Red Hat account’s organizations include both custom subscriptions and Red Hat subscriptions, and you added the custom subscriptions first, the "Configure Cloud Connector" Ansible playbook will not detect the account number and will fail to configure a Cloud Connector for that account. To work around this issue, add the Red Hat subscriptions before adding the custom subscriptions.
- BZ#1821256
-
If a remote execution job fails with the error message "The only applicable Capsule is down", run
katello-service restarton Satellite Server and run the job again.
5.4. Deprecated Functionality
The items in this section are either no longer supported, or will no longer be supported in a future release.
- BZ#1789834
- The background download policy is deprecated and will be removed in a future release. At removal time, repositories that are set to the background download policy will be converted to the immediate download policy.
- BZ#1789838
The following management operations of OSTree and Puppet content types are deprecated and will be removed in a future release:
- 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.
- BZ#1789845
- Smart Variables are deprecated and will be removed in a future release. Smart Variables were introduced as a workaround before parameterized Puppet classes existed. You must use Smart Class Parameters with parameterized Puppet classes to pass values from Satellite to Puppet.
- BZ#1791654
-
The
/api/config_templates/API endpoint is deprecated in Satellite 6.7 and will be removed in Satellite 6.8. Use the/api/provisioning_templates/API endpoint instead. - BZ#1791656
-
The
/api/hosts/:id/statusAPI endpoint is deprecated in Satellite 6.7 and will be removed in Satellite 6.8. To get the configuration status for hosts, use the more specific/api/hosts/:id/status/configurationAPI endpoint instead. - BZ#1791658
-
The
/api/reports/API endpoint is deprecated in Satellite 6.7 and will be removed in Satellite 6.8. Use the/api/config_reports/API endpoint instead. - BZ#1791659
-
The API parameter
use_puppet_defaultthat is used with smart class parameters and overrides is deprecated in Satellite 6.7 and will be removed in Satellite 6.8. Use theomitAPI parameter instead. - BZ#1791663
-
The API parameters
nameandresource_typethat is used with the/api/permissions/API endpoint are deprecated in Satellite 6.7 and will be removed in Satellite 6.8. Use the thesearchparameter withname = my_permission_nameorresource_type = my_resource_typevalues instead. - BZ#1791665
-
The
uuidAPI parameter that is used with the/api/compute_resources/API endpoint is deprecated in Satellite 6.7 and will be removed in Satellite 6.8. Use thedatacenterAPI parameter instead.
- BZ#1713222
-
The
--environmentand--environment-idoptions of thehammercommand are deprecated because of confusion between lifecycle and Puppet environments. Use the--lifecycle-environmentor--puppet-environmentoptions instead. - BZ#1798154
- The Katello agent is deprecated and will be removed in a future release. Transition your workloads to using the remote execution feature.
5.5. Removed Functionality
- BZ#1591908
-
To improve performance and prevent the storage of unnecessary data, which led to reported problems with disk overflow, the
cp_eventstable has been removed from the Candlepin database. The corresponding Events tab that was located in the Satellite web UI at Hosts > Content Hosts > hostname > Subscriptions has been removed. - BZ#1806548
-
The
katello-removecommand that uninstalled Satellite and Capsule Servers has been removed.
