Managing Red Hat Enterprise Linux Clients
The following sections provide guidance on managing Red Hat Expanded Support clients, this includes Salt minions and traditional systems.
Server Configuration for Red Hat Enterprise Linux Channels
This section provides guidance on server configuration for Red Hat Enterprise Linux Channels provided by SUSE.
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Minimum of 8 GB RAM and at least two physical or virtual CPUs. Taskomatic will use one of these CPUs.
-
Taskomatic requires of minimum of 3072 MB RAM. This should be set in
/etc/rhn/rhn.conf
:taskomatic.java.maxmemory=3072
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Provision enough disk space.
/var/spacewalk
contains all mirrored RPMs. For example, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 x86_64 channels require 90 GB and more. -
LVM or an NFS mount is recommended.
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Access to RHEL 5/6/7 Subscription Media.
Access to RHEL Media or Repositories
Access to Red Hat base media repositories and RHEL installation media is the responsibility of the user. Ensure that all your RHEL systems obtain support from RHEL or all your RHEL systems obtain support from SUSE. If you do not follow these practices you may violate terms with Red Hat. |
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Channel Management Tips
This section provides tips on Red Hat Enterprise Linux channel management.
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The base parent distribution Red Hat Enterprise Linux channel per architecture contains zero packages. No base media is provided by SUSE. The RHEL media or installation ISOs should be added as child channels of the Red Hat Enterprise Linux parent channel.
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The Red Hat Enterprise Linux and tools channels are provided by SUSE Customer Center (SCC) using
mgr-sync
. -
It can take up to 24 hours for an initial channel synchronization to complete.
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When you have completed the initial synchronization process of any Red Hat Enterprise Linux channel it is recommended to clone the channel before working with it. This provides you with a backup of the original synchronization.
Mirroring RHEL Media into a Channel
The following procedure guides you through setup of the RHEL media as a SUSE Manager channel. All packages on the RHEL media will be mirrored into a child channel located under RES 5/6/7 distribution per architecture.
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Create a new Channel by log in to the Web UI and selecting
. -
Fill in basic channel details and add the channel as a child to the corresponding RES 5/6/7 distribution channel per architecture from SCC. The base parent channel should contain zero packages.
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Modify the RES 5/6/7 activation key to include this new child channel.
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As root on the SUSE Manager command line copy the ISO to the
/tmp
directory. -
Create a directory to contain the media content:
mkdir -p /srv/www/htdocs/pub/rhel
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Mount the ISO:
mount -o loop /tmp/name_of_iso /srv/www/htdocs/pub/rhel
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Start
spacewalk-repo-sync
to synchronize Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 packages:spacewalk-repo-sync -c channel_name -u https://127.0.0.1/pub/rhel/ Repo URL: https://127.0.0.1/pub/rhel/ Packages in repo: [...] Packages already synced: [...] Packages to sync: [...] [...]
To synchronize RES 5/6 packages:
spacewalk-repo-sync -c channel_name -u https://127.0.0.1/pub/rhel/Server/ Repo URL: https://127.0.0.1/pub/rhel/Server/ Packages in repo: [...] Packages already synced: [...] Packages to sync: [...] [...]
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When the channel has completed the synchronization process you can use the channel as any normal SUSE Manager channel.
Attempting to synchronize the repository will sometimes fail with this error:
[Errno 256] No more mirrors to try.
To troubleshoot this error, look at the HTTP protocol to determine if spacewalk-repo-sync
is running:
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Start debugging mode with
export URLGRABBER_DEBUG=DEBUG
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Check the output of
/usr/bin/spacewalk-repo-sync --channel <channel-label> --type yum
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If you want to disable debug mode, use
unset URLGRABBER_DEBUG
Registering RES Salt Minions with SUSE Manager
This section will guide you through registering RHEL minions with SUSE Manager.
This section assumes you have updated your server to the latest patch level.
Synchronizing Appropriate Red Hat Enterprise Linux Channels
Ensure you have the corresponding Red Hat Enterprise Linux product enabled and required channels have been fully synchronized:
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Product: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7
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Mandatory channels:
rhel-x86_64-server-7
,res7-suse-manager-tools-x86_64
,res7-x86_64
systemitem>
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Product: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6
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Mandatory channels:
rhel-x86_64-server-6
,res6-suse-manager-tools-x86_64
,res6-x86_64
Checking Synchronization Progress
To check if a channel has finished synchronizing you can do one of the following:
|
Create an activation key associated with the Red Hat Enterprise Linux channel.
Creating a Bootstrap Repository
The following procedure demonstrate creating a bootstrap repository for RHEL:
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On the server command line as root, create a bootstrap repo for RHEL with the following command:
mgr-create-bootstrap-repo RHEL_activation_channel_key
If you use a dedicated channel per RHEL version, specify it with the
--with-custom-channel
option. -
Rename
bootstrap.sh
toresversion-boostrap.sh
:cp bootstrap.sh res7-bootstrap.sh
Register a Salt Minion via Bootstrap
The following procedure will guide you through registering a Salt minion using the bootstrap script.
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For your new minion download the bootstrap script from the SUSE Manager server:
wget --no-check-certificate https://`server`/pub/bootstrap/res7-bootstrap.sh
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Add the appropriate res-gpg-pubkey--.key to the
ORG_GPG_KEY
key parameter, comma delimited in yourres7-bootstrap.sh
script. These are located on your SUSE Manager server at:http://`server`/pub/
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Make the
res7-bootstrap.sh
script executable and run it. This will install necessary Salt packages from the bootstrap repository and start the Salt minion service:chmod +x res7-bootstrap.sh ./res7-boostrap.sh
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From the SUSE Manager Web UI select
and accept the new minion’s key.
Troubleshooting Bootstrap
If bootstrapping a minion fails it is usually caused by missing packages. These missing packages are contained on the RHEL installation media. The RHEL installation media should be loop mounted and added as a child channel to the Red Hat Enterprise Linux channel. See the warning in [bp.expanded-support.resclients] on access to RHEL Media. |
Manual Salt Minion Registration
The following procedure will guide you through the registration of a Salt minion manually.
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Add the bootstrap repository:
yum-config-manager --add-repo https://`server`/pub/repositories/res/7/bootstrap
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Install the salt-minion package:
yum install salt-minion
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Edit the Salt minion configuration file to point to the SUSE Manager server:
mkdir /etc/salt/minion.d echo "master:`server_fqdn`" > /etc/salt/minion.d/susemanager.conf
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Start the minion service:
systemctl start salt-minion
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From the SUSE Manager Web UI select the
and accept the new minion’s key.