A manual for setting up and customizing Red Hat Satellite Capsule server

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The Red Hat Satellite Capsule Server empowers you to oversee Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) hosts across a variety of platforms and geographical locations. By utilizing a Satellite Capsule Server, you can ensure content and software accessibility for systems even during Satellite Server unavailability. Additionally, these servers aid in load management and congestion control, especially in scenarios involving a large number of systems.

The advantages of Satellite Capsule Servers

Satellite Capsule Servers play a crucial role in enhancing Red Hat Enterprise Linux environments with the following capabilities:

Enhanced availability of content sources: Satellite Capsule Servers cache metadata and content from the Satellite Server, allowing hosts to access content even if the Satellite Server is offline.
Improved performance scalability: These servers help distribute the load, ensuring optimal system management performance as RHEL systems scale up. Additionally, Satellite Capsule Servers can leverage alternate content sources to reduce bandwidth expenses while maximizing throughput for swift system updates.

By employing a Satellite Capsule Server, you can expand the reach and scalability of your Satellite deployment. You have the flexibility to mirror content from the Satellite Server to establish content sources in diverse geographical or logical locations. By registering a host to a Satellite Capsule Server, you can configure the host to obtain content and configuration from the specific Satellite Capsule Server in its location, rather than from the central Satellite Server. This allows for localized services to manage the discovery, provisioning, control, and configuration of hosts.

Preparations for deploying Satellite Capsule Servers

Satellite Capsule Servers address challenges related to both availability and scalability.

Availability

These servers simplify Satellite infrastructure patching processes by permitting upgrades or updates to occur independently for Satellite Server and Satellite Capsule Server. Red Hat support enables running a Satellite Capsule Server that lags one major version behind the current version without issues.

Satellite Capsule Servers maintain an asynchronous connection with the Satellite Server, thereby ensuring that periodic disconnections between them do not disrupt content or software availability for RHEL systems. For computing environments spanning multiple geographic regions or data centers, capsule servers can effectively cater to them, mitigating the risk of network disruptions.

Scale

For environments managing several thousand systems, Satellite Capsule Servers enhance the performance of bulk operations, such as remote execution and patching. Instead of dispatching all tasks from a single Satellite Server, these tasks can be distributed across multiple Capsule Servers.

Steps to set up and customize a Satellite Capsule Server

Prior to Satellite Capsule Server installation, there are prerequisites in terms of storage and performance requirements. It’s imperative to utilize high-bandwidth, low-latency storage for the /var/lib/pulp/ directory to ensure optimal performance for the I/O intensive operations involved in Red Hat Satellite.

Here are the key tasks to carry out:

Enabling the essential software repositories

On the server designated for the Satellite Capsule Server, you must enable the necessary repositories. These commands help enable the relevant repositories:

    
        capsule$ sudo subscription-manager repos --disable "*" 
        capsule$ sudo subscription-manager repos --enable=rhel-8-for-x86_64-baseos-rpms  
        --enable=rhel-8-for-x86_64-appstream-rpms  
        --enable=satellite-capsule-6.15-for-rhel-8-x86_64-rpms  
        --enable=satellite-maintenance-6.15-for-rhel-8-x86_64-rpm

Opening the essential ports on the Satellite Capsule Server

It is necessary to open specific ports on the Satellite Capsule Server:

    
        capsule$ sudo firewall-cmd --permanent  
        --add-port="5647/tcp"  
        --add-port="8000/tcp"  
        --add-port="9090/tcp" 

        capsule$ sudo firewall-cmd --permanent  
        --add-service=dns  
        --add-service=dhcp  
        --add-service=tftp  
        --add-service=http  
        --add-service=https  
        --add-service=puppetmaster 

        capsule$ sudo firewall-cmd --reload

Enabling the module

Proceed to enable the Satellite Capsule module on the server:

    
        capsule$ sudo dnf module enable satellite-capsule:el8

Installing the Satellite Capsule Server software

Once the preliminary preparations are complete, proceed to install the Satellite Capsule Server software on the server with a single command:

    
        capsule$ sudo dnf install satellite-capsule

Installing SSL certificate

Post-installation of the Satellite Capsule Server software, the next step is to generate SSL certificates on your Satellite Server and then transfer them to the Satellite Capsule Server. SSL certificates play a vital role in facilitating encrypted communications between the Satellite Server, external Satellite Capsule Servers, and all hosts.

Follow these steps to generate and transfer the certificates:

Create a directory on the Satellite Server to store the certificate.
Generate the certificate tarball on the Satellite Server, specifying the fully qualified domain name (FQDN) of the Satellite Capsule Server.
On the Satellite Capsule Server, copy the generated certificate tarball and run the specified commands to complete the setup.

Once the SSL certificates are configured, the Satellite Capsule Server is ready for operation.

Configuring the Satellite Capsule Server

After installing the Satellite Capsule Server software, content won’t be replicated until the Satellite Server is configured to do so. Content replication is managed through Content Views and Lifecycle Environments.

In this instance, the Satellite Server has a single Lifecycle Environment (LCE) named Capsule Production. This environment needs to be synchronized with the capsule to initiate content replication effectively.

To synchronize content from the Satellite Server to the capsule, the following components are essential:

Lifecycle Environment: Capsule Production
Content View: RHEL9
Repositories:
- RHEL 9 BaseOS
- RHEL 9 AppStream
- Satellite Client 6 for RHEL 9 (comprising remote execution pull provider, traces, etc.)

The synchronization process involves creating a Content View, adding repositories, publishing the Content View, and finally promoting it to the Capsule Production Lifecycle Environment. Following this workflow ensures the successful synchronization of the specified content to the Satellite Capsule Server.

Facilitating Capsule synchronization

Ensuring that content metadata is automatically synchronized to the capsule is crucial. In the Satellite web UI, navigate to Infrastructure and then Capsules to initiate the synchronization process.

Next, click on the Satellite Capsule Server, followed by the Edit button in the top right corner to access the Lifecycle Environments tab for configuring the synchronization from the Satellite Server to the capsule.

By following these detailed steps and best practices, you can efficiently manage and customize your Red Hat Satellite Capsule Server to suit your organizational requirements and streamline your system management processes.

Enhance efficiency with Satellite

Red Hat Satellite serves as an all-encompassing infrastructure management solution aimed at simplifying the management of Red Hat Enterprise Linux systems across physical, virtual, and cloud environments.

By automating routine system tasks and integrating with Red Hat Insights for enhanced visibility, analysis, and update recommendations, Satellite helps keep systems secure, accessible, and compliant with minimal maintenance efforts.

Leveraging Satellite and its Capsule functionality allows organizations to efficiently manage their RHEL infrastructure in complex topologies, ensuring smooth operations and business continuity.

If you wish to delve deeper into Red Hat Satellite’s capabilities, don’t hesitate to engage with a knowledgeable Red Hat representative for further insights and guidance.