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2.5. Enabling Staging Content

Staging content is a feature that stages package or errata deployment on the client system before a scheduled installation. Within the 24 hours before scheduled deployment, the client pre-downloads the RPM content onto the local disk of the system. Then when executing the scheduled action, the specific packages and errata are already cached on client. This results in:
  • A faster installation than without staging content.
  • The ability to spread out client requests to the Satellite server.
  • Less time needed for the installation and upgrade of client packages.
Prerequisite

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.6 or later, or Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.1 or later, is required on the client.

This feature is disabled by default on the Satellite. The client default configuration file is enabled. To use staging content you have to enable it on both client systems and within the Satellite server for each Organization using it.
To enable staging content on the Satellite server, navigate to Admin → Organization → Your Organization → Configuration and select the Enable Staging Contents option.
To enable staging content on a client, open the file /etc/sysconfig/rhn/up2date in your text editor. Make the file includes the following lines: 
stagingContent[comment]=Retrieve content of future actions in advance
stagingContent=1

...

stagingContentWindow[comment]=How much forward we should look for future actions. In hours
stagingContentWindow=24
Without these entries, staging content within on the client defaults to disabled and window of time would be 24 hours in advance: 
stagingContent=0
stagingContentWindow=24