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:

Ability to deploy SSH keys to hosts during registration
Satellite can now deploy SSH keys to hosts automatically when registering hosts to Satellite using the global registration template.
Ability to register hosts to Red Hat Insights during registration
Satellite users can now install and configure hosts with Insights during registration using the global registration template.
Ability to set or edit a system purpose on multiple hosts
Satellite users can now set or edit a system purpose on multiple hosts using bulk action and remote execution.
Ability to authenticate using Red Hat SSO with Time-Based One-Time Password (TOTP)
Satellite can now authenticate using Red Hat SSO with Time-Based One-Time Password.
Template writing reference document in the Satellite web UI
Satellite now provides a template writing reference document in the Satellite web UI.
Enables inventory upload by default
Satellite now enables inventory upload by default.
Ability to discover Insights actions
Satellite users are now directed to recommended Insights actions and can see Insights hits on host pages.
Ability to enforce playbook verification
Satellite now has the ability to enforce playbook verification. If console.redhat.com tries to execute a forged playbook with a wrong or missing signature, the playbook execution will fail. This protection is now enabled by default.
Simple Content Access (SCA) is enabled by default for Satellite Manifests (RHSM)

New Satellite installations (or new organizations in an existing Satellite) will now have SCA as their content access mode by default.

Note
  • Satellite upgraded from the previous version (or organizations in an upgraded Satellite) will continue to have their existing content access mode.
  • You can enable or disable SCA for a manifest from the Satellite web UI.
Foreman service and Puma web server

Satellite will no longer use the Passenger web server. It now uses the Puma web server, which is a multi-process and multi-threaded app server for the Ruby application. By default, Puma has been deployed with 2 workers and each worker can max out at 16 threads. With this change, Satellite introduces a standalone service (foreman.service) and socket (foreman.socket) under which the Ruby web application runs. Apache now acts as a reverse proxy that handles SSL termination.

foreman.socket features:

  • It is a systemd socket that can hold open connections.
  • It can activate foreman.service if it is not running. For example, if foreman.service is being restarted or, say, it shuts down for some reason, you can make a request and Apache will communicate to foreman.socket. As a result, foreman.socket will hold the connection open and trigger foreman.service to come back up.

foreman.service features:

  • The primary service, if it needs to ever be restarted (or status checked), is foreman. You can restart the service by running the command: 

    # systemctl restart foreman
  • The Ruby web application can be restarted without shutting down Apache (for example, Pulp).
  • Apache can be restarted faster, and without restarting the web application.
  • The foreman service runs via unix socket and Apache talks over the unix socket.

See https://puma.io for more information about the web server.

5.2. Known Issues

These known issues exist in Red Hat Satellite 6 at this time:

Hammer task resume command

The hammer task resume command is not resuming all paused tasks and produces the following error: "Please provide at least one of the search or task_ids parameters in the request.”

BZ#1895324

Repository enable fails on http-proxy configured Satellite setup

Enabling a repository on a Satellite installation with http-proxy configured fails with a 404 error.

BZ#1907864

Content hosts cannot be deleted or unregistered

Content hosts registered prior to upgrade to the current version cannot be deleted or unregistered. It produces the following error. “ERROR: update or delete on table "hosts" violates foreign key constraint”

BZ#1917506

hammer scap-content bulk-upload command does not work as expected

The hammer scap-content bulk-upload command to upload default SCAP content on Satellite does not work as expected. It produces the following error. “Error: No such sub-command 'bulk-upload'.”

BZ#1905041

Global registration curl command on FIPS-enabled RHEL8 host fails with error

Running the global registration curl command on FIPS-enabled RHEL8 host fails on katello-ca-consumer installation step with the following error. “Error: Transaction test error: package katello-ca-consumer-hostname.redhat.com-1.0-1.noarch does not verify: no digest”

BZ#1923320

Upgrading Satellite to the current version changes the default_download_policy

After upgrading Satellite to this version, the default_download_policy changes from "on_demand" to "immediate".

BZ#1914751

Syncing a Capsule from Satellite fails for some appstream repos

Note that this applies only to customers using Pulp 3 in limited beta. Please consult your TAM if you have any questions.

Syncing a Capsule running pulp2 from Satellite running pulp3 fails for some appstream repos.

BZ#1954839

Publishing a Content View fails on dynamic workflow step

Note that this applies only to customers using Pulp 3 in limited beta. Please consult your TAM if you have any questions.

Publishing a Content View with filters and solve dependencies set to true (depsolve=true) results in an assert failure. It fails on dynflow step Actions::Pulp3::Repository::MultiCopyContent.

BZ#1934545

5.3. Deprecated Functionality

The items in this section are either no longer supported, or will no longer be supported in a future release.

Foreman Hooks
Foreman Hooks functionality has been deprecated and will be removed in a future release. The functionality will be replaced by the new Foreman Webhooks feature that will be documented with its release.
Provisioning on Red Hat Virtualization
The integration of Red Hat Virtualization (RHV) with Satellite is deprecated and will be removed in a future release. All the existing compute resources of RHV type will be removed and the hosts associated with RHV will be disconnected.
Bootstrap.py
The bootstrap.py script that was used to register a host to Satellite Server or Capsule Server has been replaced with the curl command created with the global registration template.
Puppet External Node Classifier (ENC)
Satellite’s support for Puppet and the ability to serve as the External Node Classifier (ENC) is deprecated and will be removed in a future release. Consider moving to Ansible for your automation and configuration needs or moving to external Puppet infrastructure.
Puppet Run API
The puppet run API endpoint /api/hosts/:id/puppetrun, the built in apidoc, and the CLI command have been deprecated in this version of Satellite.
Content ISOs on the CDN
Content ISOs that were available on the CDN are now deprecated in this version and will be removed in a future release. A connected Satellite can make content ISOs.
RHEV API V3
The RHEV API v3 has been deprecated in this version and will be removed in the next release.
Katello-agent
Katello-agent is deprecated and will be removed in the next release. Transition your workloads to use the remote execution feature.
pulp-puppet-module Builder
Puppet Content Management and pulp-puppet-module builder is deprecated in this version and will be removed in the next release.
OSTree and Puppet Content Type

The following management operations of OSTree and Puppet content types are deprecated and will be removed in the next 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.
Delta RPM (drpm) Support
Delta RPM (drpm) support is deprecated in this version and will be removed in the next release.
katello-ca-consumer Package
The katello-ca-consumer package has been deprecated in this version and will be removed in a future release. Use the global registration template for registering a host to Satellite.
Red Hat Access Insights plugin
The Red Hat Access Insights plugin has been deprecated in this version and will be removed in the next release.

5.4. Removed Functionality

katello-host-tools
katello-host-tools support for RHEL 5 has been removed in this version of Satellite.
Puppet Run
The puppet run functionality has been removed in this version of Satellite. This includes removal of the puppet run button and settings in the Satellite web UI, puppetrun_hosts permission in roles, and related options in the installer.
Statistics (Web UI page)
The Monitor > Statistics page in the Satellite web UI was deprecated in Satellite 6.8. It has now been removed in this version of Satellite.
Trends (Web UI page)
The Monitor > Trends page in the Satellite web UI was deprecated in Satellite 6.8. It has now been removed in this version of Satellite.
Generic & Host Boot Disks
The generic & host boot disks were deprecated in Satellite 6.8 and will be disabled in a future release of Satellite. The subnet and full host boot disks will be the only supported boot disk in the future.