(devel) new easier registration for Red Hat Network, Satellite Server, and Spacewalk

[Michael DeHaan]

Hi folks,

So it's /always/ been possible to use Cobbler in conjunction with RHN or 
Satellite/Spacewalk, but you would always have to get the details right.

New in Cobbler 1.4, we're going to have lots of bits to make this much 
easier.   It's of course still totally not required to do this, but for 
those users with RHEL,
or those users wanting to try Spacewalk with Fedora or CentOS, this 
should be highly useful.

----

(1)  For starters, new variables in /var/lib/cobbler/settings:

redhat_management_type = "off", "hosted", or "site"       
# Hosted means RHN, site means Satellite or Spacewalk.  This is 
explained in the config file comments.

redhat_management_server =  "foosball.example.org"
# This is the address of your Satellite/Spacewalk install, or is left as 
"xmlrpc.rhn.redhat.com" for Hosted RHN

redhat_management_key = ""
# This is the default authentication key to use when installing 
systems.   If you have this blank, they won't attempt to register at 
all.    This is the default.

-----

(2)   The key can be set at any level of Cobbler and can be overriden on 
the way down:

cobbler distro edit --name=foo --redhat-management-key=ALPHA
cobbler profile edti --name=bar --redhat-management-key=BETA
cobbler system edit --name=baz --redhat-management-key=GAMMA

In the above example, "GAMMA" would be used when booting directly to the 
system install.

-----

(3)  A new snippet, which is /automatically/ included in the sample 
kickstart files (/var/lib/cobbler/kickstarts) called "redhat_register" 
that automatically writes out your
configuration for you.

For example, if configured to use Satellite/Spacewalk, it might write out:

# begin Red Hat management server registration
mkdir -p /usr/share/rhn
wget 
http://spacewalk.example.redhat.com/pub/rhn/RHN-ORG-TRUSTED-SSL-CERT -O 
/usr/share/rhn/RHN-ORG-TRUSTED-SSL-CERT
rhnreg_ks --serverUrl=https://spacewalk.example.redhat.com/XMLRPC 
--sslCACert=/usr/share/rhn/RHN-ORG-TRUSTED-SSL-CERT --activationkey=GAMMA
# end Red Hat management server registration

If configured instead for hosted:

# begin Red Hat management server registration
mkdir -p /usr/share/rhn
rhnreg_ks --serverUrl=https://xmlrpc.rhn.redhat.com/XMLRPC 
--sslCACert=/usr/share/rhn/RHNS-CA-CERT --activationkey=GAMMA
# end Red Hat management server registration

All of this is done for you so you don't have to remember what the 
arguments to RHN register are, or remember how to add them to your 
kickstarts.

-----

Choose "off" (default), "hosted", or "site" as needed and
all things 
will be set up for you.   If you have /some/ systems you want to 
register with Satellite/RHN (for example, RHEL systems) and you have 
some you don't (for example, Fedora systems), just leave the 
--redhat-management-key blank for the ones you don't want to register.

Disclaimer:  this is currently untested with live registration and I'm 
going to be relying on my Spacewalk friends for that, shortly, but 
should be good to go.     I also still have to add this to the web app 
so the keys are editable there also, look for this shortly.

--Michael

[Stephen John Smoogen]

On Thu, Dec 11, 2008 at 3:20 PM, Michael DeHaan <mdehaan(a)redhat.com&gt; wrote:
>  Hi folks,
>
>  So it's /always/ been possible to use Cobbler in conjunction with RHN or
>  Satellite/Spacewalk, but you would always have to get the details right.
>
>  New in Cobbler 1.4, we're going to have lots of bits to make this much
>  easier.   It's of course still totally not required to do this, but for
>  those users with RHEL,
>  or those users wanting to try Spacewalk with Fedora or CentOS, this
>  should be highly useful. 
Cooolio. Thanks.





-- 
Stephen J Smoogen. -- BSD/GNU/Linux
How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed
in a naughty world. = Shakespeare. "The Merchant of Venice"

[Michael DeHaan]

Stephen John Smoogen wrote:
>  On Thu, Dec 11, 2008 at 3:20 PM, Michael DeHaan
> <mdehaan(a)redhat.com&gt; wrote:
>    
> > Hi folks,
> >
> > So it's /always/ been possible to use Cobbler in conjunction with RHN or
> > Satellite/Spacewalk, but you would always have to get the details right.
> >
> > New in Cobbler 1.4, we're going to have lots of bits to make this much
> > easier.   It's of course still totally not required to do this, but for
> > those users with RHEL,
> > or those users wanting to try Spacewalk with Fedora or CentOS, this
> > should be highly useful.
> >     
>
>  Cooolio. Thanks.
>
>
>
>
>
>     
For what it's worth, the webapp on devel can now edit these keys. 
Testing and thoughts welcome.

--Michael