Chapter 2. Managing Organizations

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, then divide and assign your Red Hat subscriptions to each individual organization. This provides a method of managing the content of several individual organizations under one management system. Here are some examples of organization management:

Single Organization
A small business with a simple system administration chain. In this case, you can create a single organization for the business and assign content to it.
Multiple Organizations
A large company that owns several smaller business units. For example, a company with separate system administration and software development groups. In this case, you can create organizations for the company and each of the business units it owns. This keeps the system infrastructure for each separate. You can then assign content to each organization based on its needs.
External Organizations
A company that manages external systems for other organizations. For example, a company offering cloud computing and web hosting resources to customers. In this case, you can create an organization for the company’s own system infrastructure and then an organization for each external business. You can then assign content to each organization where necessary.

A default installation of Red Hat Satellite 6 has a default organization called Default_Organization.

New Users

If a new user is not assigned a default organization, their access is limited. To grant systems rights to users, assign them to a default organization. The next time the user logs on to Satellite, the user’s account has the correct system rights.

2.1. Creating an Organization

Use this procedure to create an organization.

Procedure

To create an organization, complete the following steps:

  1. In the Satellite web UI, navigate to Administer > Organizations.
  2. Click New Organization.
  3. In the Name field, enter a name for the organization.
  4. In the Label field, enter 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.
  5. Optional: in the Description field, enter a description for the organization.
  6. Click Submit.
  7. If you have hosts with no organization assigned, select the hosts that you want to add to the organization, then click Proceed to Edit.
  8. In the Edit page, assign the infrastructure resources that you want to add to the organization. This includes networking resources, installation media, kickstart templates, and other parameters. You can return to this page at any time by navigating to Administer > Organizations and then selecting an organization to edit.
  9. Click Submit.

For CLI Users

  1. To create an organization, enter the following command:

    # hammer organization create \
    --name "your_organization_name" \
    --label "your_organization_label \
    --description "your_organization_description"
  2. Optional: To edit an organization, enter the hammer organization update command. For example, the following command assigns a compute resource to the organization:

    # hammer organization update \
    --name "your_organization_name" \
    --compute-resource-ids 1

2.2. Setting the Organization Context

An organization context defines the organization to use for a host and its associated resources.

Procedure

The organization menu is the first menu item in the menu bar, on the upper left of the Satellite web UI. If you have not selected a current organization, the menu says Any Organization. Click the Any Organization button and select the organization to use.

For CLI Users

While using the CLI, include either --organization "your_organization_name" or --organization-label "your_organization_label" as an option. For example:

# hammer subscription list --organization "Default_Organization"

This command outputs subscriptions allocated for the Default_Organization.

2.3. Creating an Organization Debug Certificate

If you require a debug certificate for your organization, use the following procedure.

Procedure

To create a debug certificate for an organization, complete the following steps:

  1. In the Satellite web UI, navigate to Administer > Organizations.
  2. Select an organization that you want to generate a debug certificate for.
  3. Click Generate and Download.
  4. Save the certificate file in a secure location.

Debug Certificates for Provisioning Templates

Debug Certificates are automatically generated for provisioning template downloads if they do not already exist in the organization for which they are being downloaded.

2.4. Browsing Repository Content Using an Organization Debug Certificate

You can view an organization’s repository content using a web browser or using the API if you have a debug certificate for that organization.

Prerequisites

  1. Create and download an organization certificate as described in Section 2.3, “Creating an Organization Debug Certificate”.
  2. Open the X.509 certificate, for example, for the default organization:

    $ vi 'Default Organization-key-cert.pem'
  3. Copy the contents of the file from -----BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY----- to -----END RSA PRIVATE KEY-----, into a key.pem file.
  4. Copy the contents of the file from -----BEGIN CERTIFICATE----- to -----END CERTIFICATE-----, into a cert.pem file.

Procedure

To use a browser, you must first convert the X.509 certificate to a format your browser supports and then import the certificate.

For Firefox Users

To use an organization debug certificate in Firefox, complete the following steps:

  1. To create a PKCS12 format certificate, enter the following command:

    $ openssl pkcs12 -keypbe PBE-SHA1-3DES -certpbe PBE-SHA1-3DES -export -in cert.pem -inkey key.pem -out organization_label.pfx -name organization_name
  2. In the Firefox browser, navigate to Edit > Preferences > Advanced Tab.
  3. Select View Certificates, and click the Your Certificates tab.
  4. Click Import and select the .pfx file to load.
  5. In the address bar, enter a URL in the following format to browse for repositories:

    http://satellite.example.com/pulp/repos/organization_label

    Pulp uses the organization label, therefore, you must enter the organization label into the URL.

For CURL Users

To use the organization debug certificate with CURL, enter the following command:

$ curl -k --cert cert.pem --key key.pem \
http://satellite.example.com/pulp/repos/Default_Organization/Library/content/dist/rhel/server/7/7Server/x86_64/sat-tools/6.7/os/

Ensure that the paths to cert.pem and key.pem are the correct absolute paths otherwise the command fails silently.

2.5. Deleting an Organization

You can delete an organization if the organization is not associated with any life cycle environments or host groups. If there are any life cycle environments or host groups associated with the organization you are about to delete, remove them by navigating to Administer > Organizations and clicking the relevant organization. Do not delete the default organization created during installation because the default organization is a placeholder for any unassociated hosts in the Satellite environment. There must be at least one organization in the environment at any given time.

Procedure

To delete an organization, complete the following steps:

  1. In the Satellite web UI, navigate to Administer > Organizations.
  2. From the list to the right of the name of the organization you want to delete, select Delete.
  3. Click OK to delete the organization.

For CLI Users

  1. Enter the following command to retrieve the ID of the organization that you want to delete:

    # hammer organization list

    From the output, note the ID of the organization that you want to delete.

  2. Enter the following command to delete an organization:

    # hammer organization delete --id Organization_ID