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  • arsa - archiving/deleting old Red Hat Satellite actions

    Posted on

    Hi folks,

    I just developed a little Python script for archiving and deleting old Red Hat Satellite actions.

    As you might know everything you trigger using the WebUI is registered as an action - if you're maintaining a bigger system landscape you might end up in a long list of completed/archived actions after a couple of days. I'm not very familiar with the database design of Red Hat Satellite but I think it's basically a good idea to clean this stuff up sometimes.

    I couldn't find a "delete all actions" button in the WebUI and so I decided to create a tiny script for this after reading the Spacewalk API

    The script is called arsa (archive Spacewalk actions) and is also compatible with Spacewalk and SUSE Manager.
    It can be downloaded on GitHub.

    Authentication information can be provided in multiple ways. By default the script prompts for username and password.

    If you need to automate this you can assign two shell variables:
    - SPACEWALK_LOGIN - a username
    - SPACEWALK_PASSWORD - the appropriate password

    Another (and more secure) possibility is to create an "authfile" and pass this file to the script (-a / --authfile). This file needs to have two lines containing the username (first line) and the password (second line). You will also have to set the file permissions to 0600.

    Per default the script uses localhost as hostname for logging in. You can also change this behaviour (-s / --server).

    Some examples:

    Listing all completed actions (login information are prompted):

    $ ./arsa.py -l
    Username: mylogin
    Password: 
    things I'd like to clean (completed):
    -------------------------------------
    action #1494 ('Remote Command on mymachine.localdomain.loc.')
    

    Removing all completed and archived actions (login information are provided using shell variables):

    $ SATELLITE_LOGIN=mylogin SATELLITE_PASSWORD=mypass ./arsa.py -r
    Archving action #1494 ('Remote Command on mymachine.localdomain.loc.')...
    Deleting action #1494 ('Remote Command on mymachine.localdomain.loc.')...
    Deleting action #1493 ('Remote Command on myothermachine.localdomain.loc.')...
    

    Additional parameters can be found in the integrated help:

    $ ./arsa.py -h
    Usage: arsa.py [options]
    
    arsa.py is used to archive completed actions and remove archived actions on
    Spacewalk, Red Hat Satellite and SUSE Manager. Login credentials are assigned
    using the following shell variables:
    SATELLITE_LOGIN  username                 SATELLITE_PASSWORD  password
    It is also possible to create an authfile (permissions 0600) for usage with
    this script. The first line needs to contain the username, the second line
    should consist of the appropriate password. If you're not defining variables
    or an authfile you will be prompted to enter your login information.
    Checkout the GitHub page for updates: https://github.com/stdevel/arsa
    
    Options:
      --version             show program's version number and exit
      -h, --help            show this help message and exit
      -a FILE, --authfile=FILE
                            defines an auth file to use instead of shell variables
      -s SERVER, --server=SERVER
                            defines the server to use
      -q, --quiet           don't print status messages to stdout
      -d, --debug           enable debugging outputs
      -r, --remove          archives completed actions and removes all archived
                            actions
      -l, --list-only       only lists actions that would be archived
    

    Maybe this helps somebody here - I use this script inside a cronjob to regularly clean-up old actions.

    Best regards,
    Christian!

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