Installation guide

Chapter 8. Maintenance
Becaus e of the RHN Satellite's unique environment, its users are provided with abilities not available to
any other Red Hat Network cus tomers. In addition, the Satellite itself also requires maintenance. This
chapter discusses the procedures that should be followed to carry out administrative functions outside
of standard use, as well as to apply patches to the RHN Satellite.
8.1. Managing the Satellite with rhn-satellite
Since the RHN Satellite consists of a multitude of individual components, Red Hat provides a command-
line tool that allows you to stop, start, or retrieve status information from the various services in the
appropriate order: rhn-satellite. This tool accepts all of the typical commands:
/usr/sbin/rhn-satellite start
/usr/sbin/rhn-satellite stop
/usr/sbin/rhn-satellite restart
/usr/sbin/rhn-satellite reload
/usr/sbin/rhn-satellite enable
/usr/sbin/rhn-satellite disable
/usr/sbin/rhn-satellite status
Use rhn-satellite to shut down and bring up the entire RHN Satellite and retrieve s tatus messages
from all of its services at once.
8.2. Updating the Satellite
If any critical updates are made to RHN Satellite, they will be released in the form of an Erratum for the
RHN Satellite.
For RHN Satellite systems that may be connected to the Internet, the best method for applying these
Errata Updates is using the Red Hat Upda te Age nt via Red Hat Network. Since the RHN Satellite is
subscribed to Red Hat Network during initial installation, the user s hould be able to run yum update on
the RHN Satellite or use the website at https://rhn.redhat.com to apply the updates.
Important
Apache RPMs do not res tart the httpd service upon installation. T herefore, after conducting a full
update of an RHN Satellite Server (such as with the command yum update , Apache may fail. T o
avoid this, make sure you restart the httpd service after upgrading it.
For RHN Satellite systems that may not be connected to the Internet, the packages themselves may be
retrieved using a customer account at https://rhn.redhat.com. T hen, they can be applied manually by the
customer according to instructions in the Errata Advisory.
Warning
It is very important to read the Errata Advisory before applying any RHN Satellite Errata Updates.
Additional configuration steps may be required to apply certain RHN Satellite updates, especially
if they involve the database. In s uch cases, the advisory will contain specific and detailed
information about necessary steps that may be required.
If instead of installing new Satellite packages, you are attempting to update the server's RHN Entitlement
Certificate, such as to increase its number of client systems, refer to Chapter 5, Entitlements for
instructions.
8.3. Backing Up the Satellite
Backing up an RHN Satellite can be done in several ways . Regardless of the method chosen, the
ass ociated database also needs to be backed up. For the Stand-Alone Database, consult your
organization's databas e administrator. For the Embedded Database, refer to Section 8.4 , “Using RHN
DB Cont rol” for a complete description of this process and the options available.
Here are the minimum files and directories Red Hat recommends backing up:
/rhnsat/ - Embedded Database only (never to be backed up while the database is running - refer
to Section 8.4 .2, “Backing up the Database”)
/etc/sysconfig/rhn/
/etc/rhn/
/etc/sudoers
/etc/tnsnam es.ora
/var/www/html/pub/
/var/satellite/redhat/1 - custom RPMs
/root/.gnupg/
/root/ssl-build/
/etc/dhcp.conf
/etc/httpd
/tftpboot/
/var/lib/cobbler/
/var/lib/rhn/kickstarts/
/var/www/cobbler
/var/lib/nocpulse/
If possible, back up /var/satellite/, as well. In case of failure, this will save lengthy download time.
Since /var/satellite/ (specifically /var/satellite/redhat/NULL/) is primarily a duplicate of
Red Hat's RPM repository, it can be regenerated with satellite-sync. Red Hat recommends the
entire /var/satellite/ tree be backed up. In the case of disconnected satellites,
/var/satellite/ must be backed up.
Backing up only thes e files and directories would require reinstalling the RHN Satellite ISO RPMs and
reregistering the Satellite. In addition, Red Hat packages would need to be resynchronized us ing the
satellite-sync tool. Finally, you would have to reinstall the /root/ssl-build/\ rhn-org-
httpd-ssl-key-pair-MACHINE_NAME-VER-REL.noarch.rpm .
Another method would be to back up all of the files and directories mentioned above but reinstall the
RHN Satellite without reregistering it. During the installation, cancel or skip the RHN registration and SSL
certificate generation s ections.
The final and most comprehensive method would be to back up the entire machine. T his would save
Chapter 8. Maintenance
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