This documentation is meant as a companion to the official Red Hat Network Management Reference Guide.
Creating a User
Creating an Activation Key
Creating Custom Channels
Uploading and Maintaining Custom Packages
Installing New Packages on RHN-Registered Systems
This step is really only for administrative purposes. However, there is no harm in letting anybody have a standard RHN user account. To create a new account, go to the Users tab. Then, select the "Create a New User" link in the top-right of the page. After entering in required information, select the Create User button.
Once a user is created, you can edit their permissions by simply selecting the user. The key permissions are in the Details, and are located in the Roles section.
As our system stands right now, each user, or static group of users, is given an individual activation key. This activation key registers the machine with the RHN, and allows the users to get package updates through up2date.
To create a new activation key for a user, go to Systems tab, then Activation Keys in the left navigation pane, and finally the create a new key link in the upper-right. In the next screen, we enter the user's UBIT name (or a specific group name, such as "Public Sites") in the Description field. The Usage Limit field specifies how many systems may be registered with this key. For our purposes, we follow these rules depending on the requestor's association:
Usage Limit Association of Requestor 1 Student 2 Faculty/Staff (blank) TKS or static groups
The rest of the fields may be left as default. To create the key, press the Create Key button in the bottom-right.
After creating the key, we want to alter it's properties. Select the key by its description name. We are then presented with several options.
The first are the Child Channels associated with the key. By default, each key will allow the user to subscribe to whatever base channel their system has installed. However, for some users, we want to allow access to custom child channels that we create. To do this, click the Child Channels link of the key. Select the child channels you want to let the system have access to. To select multiple channels, use ctrl-click. Then, press the Update Key button in the bottom-right to apply changes.
One other property we may want to change is the Group associated with the key. This will allow us to manage several registered machines that have similar characteristics. To do this, select the Group link. Click on the group you want the key to be associated with (use ctrl-click to select multiple groups), and then press the Update Key button.
For information on registering machines with this newly created activation key, see our official RHN documentation.
Custom channels allow us to provide updates for custom packages via our RHN server. To create a custom channel, go to the Channels tab, then Manage Software Channels in the left pane, and then the create a new channel link in the top-right.
The new channel form has a few important fields. First, the Parent Channel specifies essentially which OS we are creating this channel for. When completed, our custom channel will become a child channel of this specified base. The Channel Name field is the name of the channel, and is asthetic. The Channel Label is the name of the channel that many of the administrative tools will use, thus it is a more important name to remember than the Channel Name.
The GPG information is also necessary. For UB, this can be found at our DCE-protected private GPG information page. When we add packages to this channel, it will check this GPG information to verify its authenticity. Lastly, to create the channel, press the Create Channel button.We've explained how to create custom packages in our document on "How to make a Binary RPM". The question is, how do we integrate our custom packages into a custom channel on the Red Hat Network.
First, we need to upload our custom package to the RHN proxy server (in our case, redhat.buffalo.edu). Anywhere is fine. Then, connect to the proxy server through SSH, and use the RHN Package Manager:
rhn_package_manager -c channel_label rpm
Channel_label should be the label given to the channel at creation, and NOT the name of the channel. For example, the channel_label of UBLinux 3 (Shared) is ublinux3share.
This command will place the RPM in the correct directory on the proxy server, as well as upload the headers to the channel on RHN. After doing this, the users who are assigned to the channel can now download the update. They will be notified of required updates within two hours via the RHN Applet. You can also view the header of the RPM by logging into the RHN website and going to Channels > your channel > Packages.
While the above instructions are great for updating packages that the user already has installed, it will not install a new package that isn't already on their machine. We can, however, force the installation of a new package through the RHN.
To install on a single machine, go to Systems at the top, and then Systems in the left navigation. Put a check next to each machine you want to work with.
To install on a group of machines, go to Systems at the top, and then System Groups in the left navigation. Put a check next to the groups you want to work with, and choose either the Work With Intersection or Work With Union at the bottom. Intersection means it'll only choose computers that belong to each selected group. Union means it'll work with every machine in every selected group.
With the computers selected, we can then go to System Set Manager in the left navigation. From here, choose Install next to the Packages option. You will then be presented with a list of Channels that the selected machines belong to. Choose the channel which contains the new package, put a check next to the package, and press the Install Packages button. This creates a new scheduled action for each machine, which will be carried out when it checks with the RHN. This isn't done through up2date, but rather by a background process called rhnsd, which checks in every one to two hours.
Send Questions and Comments to ublinux-support@buffalo.edu
Last Modified September 28th, 2004