UBC RHN Satellite Server

Red Hat Satellite 5 (RHS5) was decommissioned on 2020-06-01. You will stop receiving updates past this date if you have not migrated.

Migration Guide: https://confluence.it.ubc.ca/display/ISSP/RHS6+-+How+To+-+Client+Migration

New Registration Guide: https://confluence.it.ubc.ca/display/ISSP/RHS6+-+How+To+-+Client+Registration

If you have any questions, please open a service request via: https://web.it.ubc.ca/forms/systems/

RHS6 - How To - Client Registration

Pre-Requisites

1. Client cannot be a cloned VM with the same name as its parent
2. hostname must be correct (check /etc/hostname and hostnamectl)
   1. name should have a FQDN (*.ubc.ca or similar)
3. Bash shell recommended; tcsh may generate errors

New Clients

You can use this process for VMs that have never registered with RHS5.

Activation Keys

Current list of activation keys for use when registering clients in the UBC IT Services Organization:

RHEL6

RHEL6 systems must have subscription-manager installed. If it is installed, proceed with the RHEL7 & RHEL8 instructions, below. Otherwise, you'll have to register with Satellite 5 (RHS5) and then use the client migration steps for RHEL7.

RHEL7 & RHEL8

yum install --nogpgcheck http://satellite6.it.ubc.ca/pub/katello-ca-consumer-latest.noarch.rpm

RHEL8 may fail for various reasons. In that case, try this instead:

rpm -Uvh --nodigest --nofiledigest http://satellite6.it.ubc.ca/pub/katello-ca-consumer-latest.noarch.rpm

Once the consumer is installed, proceed with the registration:

subscription-manager register --org=UBCITServices --activationkey=<ACTIVATION_KEY_NAME>

yum -y remove rhn-setup rhn-client-tools yum-rhn-plugin \
  rhnsd rhn-check rhnlib spacewalk-abrt spacewalk-oscap \
  osad 'rh-*-rhui-client' 'candlepin-cert-consumer-*'

Changing Client Activation Key

It may happen that you need to change from a regular patching method to a monthly checkpoint (or vice versa), for example. In this case, you'll just need to force re-registration with a different activation key.

First, make a note of the currently subscribed repositories so you can re-enable them after re-registration.

Here's a fancy way to just get the repo IDs:

subscription-manager repos --list-enabled | grep ID | awk -F' ' '{ print $3 }'

Here's a way to check whether any packages are actually installed from a given repository. If there are none, you can probably disable that repo. If there are any results, you should probably not disable that repo.

yumdb search from_repo <REPO_ID>

Then re-register and re-enable the desired repos.

subscription-manager register --org="UBCITServices" --activationkey=<ACTIVATION_KEY_NAME> --force
subscription-manager repos --enable=REPO_ID [--enable=ANOTHER_REPO_ID]

Removing a Client from RHS6

subscription-manager remove --all
subscription-manager unregister
subscription-manager clean

OLD STUFF IS BELOW (pre Satellite6, ie. approx 2020-04)

satellite_setup.pl is a script used to register our servers with satellite.it.ubc.ca. I created an activation key for PHAS and put it in the script (rdp, 11-01-26). To download this script, use a command like the following with your own username substituted for "rap"

Update 19-09-01
perl <(curl -kSs https://satellite.it.ubc.ca/pub/bootstrap/ubcIT/satellite_setup_silent.pl)

scp root@gamma.phas.ubc.ca:/var/www/shtml/sysadmin/Computers/00_Servers/rhel/satellite_setup.pl .

scp rap@ada.phas.ubc.ca:/home/rap/Downloads/satellite_setup.pl .

wget --no-check-certificate --user=rap --ask-password https://www.phas.ubc.ca/sysadmin/Computers/00_Servers/rhel/satellite_setup.pl

Chris Krusch commented on SYSOTHER-74:
--------------------------------------
the "UBC Phas" organization has been set up...

The "phas.admin" account has been created with you as the primary contact.

Please leave the phas.krusch account active and unmodified - we may need access to your org when the system is encountering problems.

You can create an activation key or keys, and then use those keys to quickly register systems in your organization, and into specific groups if you wish, using the rhnreg_ks command.

The satellite server is deployed in support of our VSS service - it has not been built for general deployment to campus. As such you're welcome to use it at your own risk so you can leverage the server and site license, but we make no guarantees regarding it's availability, features and functionality and can provide very minimal assistance if you encounter issues specific to your external servers and/or satellite organizaton.

August 22, 2007 RHN Subscription Status
Account number: 552384

RHEL AS Academic Edition Serviced System	1	
Subscription details and support options:
Contract Number 	947119
Quantity 	1
Start Date 	10/12/06
End Date 	10/11/08
Subscription Status 	Active
Phone Support 	None 	:: Global support hours and numbers
Web Support 	None
RHN Support 	Expires with subscription (Active)
Installation Number 	3f2e44d23f2a0c44

RHEL AS Academic Edition Serviced System
Subscription details and support options:
Contract Number 	647954
Quantity 	1
Start Date 	8/16/05
End Date 	8/15/08
Subscription Status 	Active
Phone Support 	None 	:: Global support hours and numbers
Web Support 	None
RHN Support 	Expires with subscription (Active)
Installation Number 	cd033b0dcd07753b

RHEL AS Academic Edition Serviced System
Subscription details and support options:
Contract Number 	603451
Quantity 	1
Start Date 	6/9/05
End Date 	6/8/08
Subscription Status 	Active
Phone Support 	None 	:: Global support hours and numbers
Web Support 	None
RHN Support 	Expires with subscription (Active)
Installation Number 	bd20fccdbd24b4fc

RHEL AS Academic Edition Serviced System
Subscription details and support options:
Contract Number 	528356
Quantity 	3
Start Date 	2/1/05
End Date 	1/31/08
Subscription Status 	Active
Phone Support 	None 	:: Global support hours and numbers
Web Support 	None
RHN Support 	Expires with subscription (Active)
Installation Number 	b094adb9b090e4ad

RHEL AS Academic Edition Serviced System
Subscription details and support options:
Contract Number 	350006
Quantity 	1
Start Date 	12/17/03
End Date 	12/16/07
Subscription Status 	Active
Phone Support 	None 	:: Global support hours and numbers
Web Support 	None
RHN Support 	Expires with subscription (Active)
Installation Number 	7fcc36207fc87c36

RHEL AS Academic Edition Serviced System
Subscription details and support options:
Contract Number 	1150731
Quantity 	1
Start Date 	8/20/07
End Date 	8/19/08
Subscription Status 	Active
Phone Support 	None 	:: Global support hours and numbers
Web Support 	None
RHN Support 	Expires with subscription (Active)
Installation Number 	e1696c98e16d256c

For more assistance contact sysadmin@phas.ubc.ca
 

webmaster@phas.ubc.ca

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last updated: 07/08/22