alessiodini 9:14 am on January 19, 2021
Tags: insight, katello ( 2 ), Redhat Satellite ( 7 ), satellite ( 4 )

Redhat Satellite Upgrade

In my company we have a running Satellite with nine remote capsules. The current version of the infrastructure is 6.5.1 version and I want to reach 6.8

I thought to jump directly on 6.8 but unfortuately is not possible. I need to upgrade one release at once:

satellite core -> from 6.5 to 6.6
all the capsules -> from 6.5 to 6.6

Same for 6.7 and 6.8 releases 😦

I also thought about a new installation but we have more than 1000 registered vms, it will be troublesome to manage them after a new installation.
For now, I’m studying the documentation because until today I never worked about a Satellite upgrade, and I’m very excited!!

I began to see the official documentation in Redhat library but I also found the Upgrade Helper very useful.
After the first upgrade to 6.6 release I will share more technical details 😉

alessiodini 8:16 am on October 23, 2019

Redhat Satellite Issue: tlsv1 alert unknown ca

Today I was registering a RHEL 7.6 system against one Satellite capsule, when I faced this error:

Unable to verify server’s identity: [SSL: TLSV1_ALERT_UNKNOWN_CA] tlsv1 alert unknown ca (_ssl.c:618)

No matter what I tried ( re-installing katello agent, checking rhsm.conf/systemid ) I solved the issue running a simple command:

# subscription-manager clean

from the client. Let’s write this for the future! 😀

alessiodini 6:42 am on October 10, 2019

Red Hat Satellite registration via ansible playbook

The last week I wrote a playbook for Satellite registration. I tested it against Satellite 6.2 and 6.5, it worked great.
I usually need to register serveral vms to Satellite, with this playbook it’s very easy and quick 🙂

You can find the playbook on my github. Check the README, run the playbook and let me know!!

alessiodini 12:54 pm on October 15, 2018
Tags: Redhat Satellite ( 7 ), satellite ( 4 ), virt-who ( 2 )

Redhat Satellite 6.3: new virt-who configuration via dashboard

One of the new features of Satellite 6.3 is the virt-who configuration from the dashboard.
In the 6.2 release, for example, you must manually install the virt-who service and create configuration files under /etc/virt-who.d directory.

From the 6.3 release you can deal with virt-who from the new dashboard menu:

After the configuration, you will have two options:

1) Run an hammer command for the configuration

2) Copy and paste a script to the system. This will install virt-who service, will create the configuration file under /etc/virt-who.d and will start the service. I played with the second choice, cool! 🙂
In this case you automatically have the encrypted password inside the configuration file.

alessiodini 1:41 pm on October 5, 2018
Tags: Ansible ( 5 ), Puppet ( 2 ), redhat linux, Redhat Satellite ( 7 ), satellite ( 4 )

Redhat Satellite 6.4 announced!!

Four days ago Redhat announced Satellite 6.4 availability. From what I read it’s very interesting: new user interface, deeper ansible integration, co-pilot integration for better performance.
You can read more here

Let’s wait the progress from beta to stable and let’s play with it 🙂

alessiodini 10:36 am on October 2, 2018
Tags: candlepin, dashboard, foreman, hammer, katello ( 2 ), Redhat Satellite ( 7 )

Redhat Satellite 6.3 installation useful tips

Have you read Redhat Satellite 6.3 installation guide?

I usually like to read installation guides because they are full of useful tips! In this case I learned new interesting things about I/O performance for Satellite:

1) foreman-maintain utility. It checks the disk speed for Satellite /var sub-filesystems, for example:

# foreman-maintain upgrade check --target-version 6.2.z ... Check for recommended disk speed of pulp, mongodb, pgsql dir.: \ Finished Disk speed : 80 MB/sec [OK]

( Take care about planning /var filesystem for your Satellite/Capsule installation. It will be one of the most stressed filesystems due the requested I/O )

2) The fantastic fio command! The previous ‘foreman-maintain’ utility uses fio command for the benchmarks. At the beginning it’s not easy to understand but it’s very powerful.
I suggest you to read more about fio and Satellite benchmarks checking this Redhat solution.
Let me know about your thoughts! 🙂

alessiodini 2:25 pm on April 18, 2018

Got Certified!!!

Yesterday I passed the EX403 exam, finally I got certified as “Red Hat Certified Specialist in Deployment and Systems Management”.
I’m still waiting the PDF because Redhat does not send the certification within the mail as in the past.
Now I have 3 more exams to pass for reach the “Redhat Cloud Architect” level. Actually I’m planning to take Openstack RHCSA ( the next one ), after I would like to take the Openshift exam. Later I will think about the lastone exam.

Let’s study more and more!!

alessiodini 2:21 pm on April 4, 2018

Redhat Satellite 6.2: How to isolate contents for specific capsules

Let’s think a Satellite infrastructure as follow:

1x satelite core
multiple capsules ( 4x, 6x, or more )

What if we need to host custom packages isolating them on a single or only two capsules?
Satellite 6.2.x does not have this feature natively. In my case I solved with these steps:

1) Creating a new organization
2) Creating a new capsules inside the new organization
3) Modifying the subscription manifest and assigning a new one on the new organization

With this I’m sure that contents on the new organization are isolated between those capsules. I tried everything playing with Lifecycles/Content Views, but I was unable to isolate the contents within the present organization.

alessiodini 9:16 am on March 20, 2018

Failed Redhat Satellite Exam

Last Week I faced EX403V6K exam in KOALA mode. I left the room sure to pass the exam, I did 16 of 18 tasks requested. Anyway I received 173 score and I was very surprised because I was sure to about the tasks I worked for. The only thing I’m thinking about is to forget Uppercase in some name, because I manually tested each component and it worked great.
I found KOALA very very restrictive but with a bit of patience it’s not that bad.
The only issue is that I founded a couple of tasks a bit subjectives, at this point I think I understood bad that tasks.
I don’t give up and I will repeat the exam studying more and more because I want to reach RHCA cloud level.
Let’s study more!!

alessiodini 10:50 am on March 14, 2018

Redhat Satellite: How to sync a specific lifecycle environment on a capsule

In these days I’m working several hours with Redhat Satellite 6.2.9
The architecture is composited by:

1x satellite orchestrator
6x capsules

I made a new lifecycle/content view/activation keys objects and I need on a capsule to sync it for a specific lifecycle, instead of syncing it for *all* lifecycles assigned.

I was very funny to explore hammer CLI options:

[root@satellite ~]# hammer capsule content synchronize –id 7 –environment-id 22 –organization GTK
[………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… ] [80%]
[………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… ] [80%]
[………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… ] [80%]

Done!!! 🙂

Alessio dini's Blog

Welcome to my IT!

Category Archives: Redhat Satellite