Installation guide

Chapter 2. Requirements
These requirements must be met before installation.
2.1. Software Requirements
To perform an installation, the following software components must be available:
Base operating system — RHN Satellite is supported with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 and 6. The
operating system can be installed from disc, local ISO image, kickstart, or any of the methods
supported by Red Hat. Red Hat Enterprise Linux installations must provide the @ Base package
group with no other package-set modifications, and without third-party configurations or software that
is not directly necessary for the direct operation of the server. This restriction includes hardening or
other non-Red Hat security software. If such software is required in your infrastructure, you must first
install and verify a complete working Satellite first, and then make a backup of the system before
adding any non-Red Hat software.
When installing a new RHN Satellite, it is recommended that the latest supported update to Red Hat
Enterprise Linux is installed.
Satellite can be installed on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 or 6 in any virtualized environment supported
by Red Hat, including Xen, KVM, and VMware.
Note that for production deployments, we recommend that you deploy RHN Satellite as the sole
application running on the underlying physical hardware to avoid contention issues. Also, be aware
that functional support for virtualized environments does not always equal the performance of
running on physical hardware, so you may need to carefully consider your virtualized environment of
choice and any tuning guide lines recommended.
Note
Each purchased RHN Satellite product includes one s upported instance of Red Hat Enterprise
Linux Server. RHN Satellite must be installed on a fresh installation of Enterprise Linux where
RHN Satellite is the only application and service provided by the OS. Using the Red Hat
Enterprise Linux OS included with RHN Satellite to run other daemons, applications, or
services within your environment is not supported.
RHN Satellite supports SELinux targeted policy in enforcing or perm issive mode on Red Hat
Enterprise Linux 5 and 6. SELinux is a set of secure software policies that implement mandatory
access control to Red Hat Enterprise Linux and other operating systems. Users can have SELinux in
enforcing or perm issive mode with the targeted policy s et during ins tallation of Proxy or
Satellite.
Satellite installation disc or ISO — this contains the RHN Sa tellit e Installa tion Program. All
packages required in order to suport the Program are installed automatically, and require no
intervention from the user.
Note
Additional packages beyond @ Base are required to install Red Hat Network Satellite. T he Satellite
installer will prompt you to either install the listed packages or ask if you want it to download the
files from RHN. If your system is not registered to RHN, you s hould have the Red Hat Enterprise
Linux ins tallation media available during the Satellite installation process to install these additional
packages as needed.
The files necessary for Satellite installation are listed in the rhelrpm s file located in the
updates directory on the Satellite installation ISO image.
Channel content — All software packages and data exported for all entitled Red Hat channels. This
content may be loaded directly on the Satellite after installation using the RHN Sa te llite
Synchronization T ool or obtained from your Red Hat representative if synchronization is not
possible, such as in a disconnected environment.
When installing Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 or 6 from CD or ISO image, there is no need to select any
package groups, only the base install is required. When installing either operating system via kickstart,
select the @ Base package group.
2.2. Hardware Requirements
RHN Satellite supports several hardware architectures. The following table illustrates the architecture
support for RHN Satellite on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.
Table 2.1. RHN Sat ellit e on Red Hat Enterprise Linux Archit ect ure Support
Red Ha t Ent erprise Linux Version x86 x86_6 4 s39 0x
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 yes yes yes
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 no yes yes
2.2.1. x86 and x86_64 Hardware Requirements
The following table shows the required and recommended hardware configurations on the x86 and
x86_64 platform for the two types of RHN Satellite:
Red Hat Network Satellite 5.4 Installation Guide
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