Red Hat Satellite

This article will go over content for RedHat Satellite 6.

Overview

RedHat Satellite is a management tool that helps system administrators to build and maintain Linux (RedHat only?) systems.

Satellite has the following components:

1. Foreman - Open Source application used to provision and life cycle manage hosts using kickstart and puppet modules. It also provides historical data on hosts
2. Katello - Subscription and repository management. It pulls upstream packages from RedHat's CDN
3. Katello/Pulp - Repository / content management as part of katello
4. Katello/Candlepin - handles subscription management (to RedHat's CDN)
5. Capsule Server - A capsule module is a proxy for some of Satellite's services (repository, dns, dhcp, puppet master). An integrated capsule server is bundled with a Satellite install, but additional capsule servers can be created to offer HA/Redundancy.

Installation

Satellite should be installed on a clean install of RedHat Enterprise 6 or 7 on a minimum of:

• x86_64
• 2 CPU
• 12GB RAM
• 6GB disk (for base install)

Installing using Subscription Manager

If your machine has the proper subscription, Satellite can be installed using subscription-manager.

## Show all subscriptions that are available
# subscription-manager list --available --all
+-------------------------------------------+
    Available Subscriptions
+-------------------------------------------+

Subscription Name: Red Hat Satellite Subscription
Provides:          Red Hat 
                   Red Hat Satellite Capsule 6
                   Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7
                   Red Hat Satellite 6
SKU:               SKU123456
Pool ID:           e1730d1f4eaa448397bfd30c8c7f3d334bd8b
Available:         6
Suggested:         1
Service Level:     Self-Support
Service Type:      L1-L3
Multi-Entitlement: No
Ends:              01/01/2022
System Type:       Physical

## Attach the subscription to this system
# subscription-manager attach --pool=e1730d1f4eaa448397bfd30c8c7f3d334bd8b
Successfully attached a subscription for: Red Hat Satellite Subscription

## Disable all repositories
# subscription-manager repos --disable "*"
Repo rhel-lb-for-rhel-7-server-eus-rpms is disabled for this system.
Repo rhel-7-server-rhs-client-1-source-rpms is disabled for this system.
Repo rhel-7-server-cf-tools-1-beta-source-rpms is disabled for this system.

## Enable the Red Hat Satellite, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and Red Hat Software Collections repositories. Make sure the release matches the repo (7 in this case).
# subscription-manager repos --enable rhel-7-server-rpms \
                     --enable rhel-server-rhscl-7-rpms \
                     --enable rhel-7-server-satellite-6.2-rpms
Repo rhel-7-server-rpms is enabled for this system.
Repo rhel-server-rhscl-7-rpms is enabled for this system.
Repo rhel-7-server-satellite-6.2-rpms is enabled for this system.

## Update and install
# yum -y update && yum -y install satellite

Installing from ISO

You can also install Satellite using the ISO image from the RedHat Customer Portal.

# mount -o loop /tmp/satellite-6.2.1-rhel-7-x86_64-dvd.iso /mnt/iso
# cd /mnt/iso ; ./install_packages
This script will install the satellite packages on the current machine.
   - Ensuring we are in an expected directory.
   - Copying installation files.
   - Creating a Repository File
   - Creating RHSCL Repository File
   - Checking to see if Katello is already installed.
   - Importing the gpg key.
   - Installation repository will remain configured for future package installs.
   - Installation media can now be safely unmounted.

Install is complete. Please run foreman-installer --scenario katello

Configuring Satellite

After installing Satellite, configure it using the satellite-installer script.

satellite-installer --scenario satellite --foreman-admin-username admin --foreman-admin-password redhat
    Installing    Done   [100%] [...................................]
      Success!
      * Satellite is running at https://satellite.lab.example.com
          Initial credentials are admin / redhat
      * To install additional capsule on separate machine continue by running:

          capsule-certs-generate --capsule-fqdn "$CAPSULE" --certs-tar "~/$CAPSULE-certs.tar"

      The full log is at /var/log/foreman-installer/satellite.log

The installer will save the installation parameters in /etc/foreman-installer/scenarios.d/satellite-answers.yaml.

If you wish to use satellite-installer with an existing answers file, edit /etc/foreman-installer/scenarios.d/satellite.yaml to point to your answers file, and rerun the satellite-installer.

To reset the admin account password:

# foreman-rake permissions:reset
Reset to user: admin, password: NEW_RANDOMIZED_PASSWORD

Post Installation

Firewall must be configured to allow satellite services. A service RH-Satellite-6 is predefined as part of the package and can be applied using:

# firewall-cmd --add-service=RH-Satellite-6 --permanent
# firewall-cmd --reload

If the Satellite server is also providing DHCP/DNS/TFTP, those ports should also be allowed through using:

# firewall-cmd --permanent --add-port="53/udp" --add-port="53/tcp" --add-port="67/udp" --add-port="68/udp" --add-port="69/udp"
# firewall-cmd --reload

SELinux must also be set to enforcing:

# selinux --enforcing