Using RHN Satellite for a dev/test/QA/Prod environment

I think I get this...

Let's say I have a base channel named rhel-x86_64-server-6. Let's say all my production servers are patched to be current as of, say, Aug. 1, 2013 and I have a one month patch cycle. Everything is registered with my local RHN Satellite and I keep it synced with the real RHN with a cron job that runs every weekend.

I want to have an environment with development, test, QA, and production servers, most of them virtual in a RHEV environment.

I think this is how I would use Satellite for this - tell me if I have this right.

On Aug. 1, I would clone the rhel-x86_64-server-6 channel and name the clone, say, RHEL-Test. I could probably even automate this somehow with a cron job. I would point yum on my test servers to this repository channel, yum update them, then run them through my application tests. Let's say during the testing, I run into an errata that breaks an app. I note it and remove the errata from my RHEL-Test channel. After a while, all those systems test good, so I clone my RHEL-Test channel and call this clone, say, RHEL-QA. I snapshot my production VMs and yum update them, now using the repository from RHEL-QA. The production VMs all look good, so now I clone RHEL-QA and call this one, say, RHEL-Prod, collapse the snapshots of my production servers, and point their yum repositories to RHEL-Prod.

By the time I'm done with this whole cycle, most of August is come and gone and I start the whole thing over again on Sept. 1 with a brand new RHEL-Test clone.

Am I getting the gist of this?

OK - so when I build new systems, I probably want my activation key and kickstart profile pointing to the "real", most up to date rhel-x86_64-server-6 channel, because this is my development channel with the newest RPMs of everythig - right? And then after a while, I would insert this new system into my dev/test/QA/Prod environment by updating its yum repository accordingly.

Great - so how do I point yum to the correct repositories in my various categories of systems? I'll bet there's something inside that template bootstrap.sh script for that. So then, as long as I keep my clone names consistent, my various groups of systems will have their own variations of relevant pieces of bootstrap.sh to point their yums to the correct repositories. Or I can keep those scripts as a config channel inside my Satellite server and apply them as needed I guess.

Am I getting this?

thanks

• Greg Scott