Installation guide

Chapter 4. Installation
This chapter describes the initial ins tallation of the RHN Satellite. It presumes the prerequisites listed in
Chapter 2, Requirements have been met. If you are instead upgrading to a newer version of RHN
Satellite, contact your Red Hat representative for assistance.
4.1. Base Install
RHN Satellite is designed to run on the Red Hat Enterprise Linux operating system. T herefore, the first
phase is to install the base operating system, either from disc, ISO image, or kickstart. During and after
operating system installation, make sure you:
Allocate plenty of space to the partitions s toring data. T he default location for channel packages is
/var/satellite/. For RHN Satellite with Embedded Database, remember the database RPMs go
in the /opt/ partition, while the database itself is built in /rhnsat/. Refer to Section 2.2, “Hardware
Requirements” for precise s pecifications.
Enable Network T ime Protocol (NT P) on the Satellite and separate database, if it exists, and select
the appropriate time zone. All client s ystems should already be running the ntpd daemon and be set
to the correct time zone.
Due to potential complications, it is strongly advised that the /hom e/ partition is locally mounted.
4.2. RHN Satellite Installation Program
The following instructions describe how to run the RHN Sat ellite Installa tion Progra m:
Important
Due to potential complications, it is strongly advised that the /hom e/ partition is locally mounted.
1. Log into the machine as root.
2. Insert the RHN Satellite Server CD containing the installation files or download the ISO image from
the RHN website.
3. If you are installing from CD, Red Hat Enterprise Linux may automount the CD. If it does so, it will
mount the CD to the /m edia/cdrom / directory.
If Red Hat Enterprise Linux does not automount the CD, manually mount it to the
/media/cdrom / directory with the following command:
mount /dev/cdrom /media/cdrom
If you are installing from an ISO, mount the file from within the directory containing it using the
command:
mount -o loop iso_filename /media/cdrom
The remaining instructions assume it is mounted in /media/cdrom/.
4. Ensure that the RHN Entitlement Certificate has been copied onto the Satellite's file system. It can
be named anything and located in any directory. T he installation program will ask you for its
location. Also, make s ure your account has been granted the necess ary entitlements to conduct
the installation.
Warning
Users should note that the RHN Satellite Inst alla tion Progra m updates the kernel, as
well as all required packages.
5. From the /media/cdrom / directory, enter the following command to start the RHN Sa te llite
Installa tion Progra m:
./install.pl
This script has several options to assist with your installation process . T o view these options,
enter the following command:
./install.pl --help
Important
The RHN Sate llite Inst allation Program requires user interaction in order to complete.
For the ins taller to run remotely without interaction, do not use nohup. Instead, run the
process through a screen ses sion.
6. The script first runs through a pre-requisite check. These checks make certain that all
prerequisites from Chapter 2, Requirements are met before proceeding with the installation.
* Starting the Red Hat Network Satellite installer.
* Perform ing pre-install checks.
* Pre-install checks complete. Beginning installation.
7. At the prompt, enter the email address to which you would like notifications from the Satellite to be
sent. It may be a good idea to choose a general email address rather than the address of an
individual, as there can be a large volume of emails.
? Adm in email address? sat-admin@ example.com
8. The Satellite is then registered with your RHN Hosted account, and all required packages are
installed and updated.
* RHN Registration
* Installing updates.
* Installing RHN packages.
9. Next, the RHN Satellite Ins tallation Program downloads and installs the RHN GPG key, including
setting up the /root/.gnupg/ directory, if required.
* Setting up environm ent and users
** GPG: Initializing GPG and importing RHN key.
** GPG: Creating /root/.gnupg directory
When running the RHN Satellite Installation Program in offline mode, it will not automatically
Red Hat Network Satellite 5.4 Installation Guide
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