Exploring Red Hat Satellite Server 6
Katello
Red Hat developed an application called Katello [7] that expands Foreman, adding life cycle management features. Katello actually wraps itself round Puppet and Foreman as a management framework and adds a cornucopia of meaningful features.
Content management is an example of a feature that works well with Katello. In the Katello workflow, content means either Puppet modules or RPM packages. Satellite offers the ability to store specific RPMs on local systems. By creating repositories, admins ensure that clients pick up RPM packages from the Satellite server and not from the Internet. If you have local (i.e., self-built) RPM packages, you can create the repositories in Katello and dump them on your managed servers. In the background, Katello uses Pulp [8], which takes care of the entire infrastructure for Yum repositories.
Capsules
Capsules are another striking example of Katello's feature scope: the Capsule server, which is part of Katello (Figure 4), creates a prebuilt package with DHCP, Bind, Puppet, and other services, which you can then install in a virtual Katello environment at the press of a button. Many Capsule servers can belong to a single Satellite instance, and they can run on different hardware. If you rely on this kind of structure, the individual Puppet servers draw on Capsule, which in turn gets its configuration directly from Satellite.

At the same time, Katello can easily manage several virtual environments. Red Hat acknowledges that heterogeneous environments do exist. If you operate various configurations at your data center, you can manage them meaningfully as different environments in Katello. Katello draws on Pulp to make sure local mirrors of the most frequently used repositories for RPM packages are created in a Satellite installation.
Cloud Support
Satellite 6 lets you launch virtual machines in cloud environments, including OpenStack and Amazon's EC2. At the press of a button, Satellite 6 will provision virtual servers that run either in a public cloud or on a local server.
Practically all of Red Hat's appliances are based on RHEL, so you can configure them and use them from within Satellite. For example, if you operate a matching Red Hat product in an OpenStack cloud, you can manage it on your Satellite server.
On the Satellite dashboard (Figure 5), you can define additional operating systems in the operating system section. Katello supports distribution-specific details, such as pre-seed configurations for systems that are installed by the Debian installer or Kickstart settings for features that are RHEL compatible (Figure 6).
« Previous 1 2 3 Next »
Buy this article as PDF
(incl. VAT)
Buy Linux Magazine
Direct Download
Read full article as PDF:
Price $2.95
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
News
-
An All-Snap Version of Ubuntu is In The Works
Along with the standard deb version of the open-source operating system, Canonical will release an-all snap version.
-
Mageia 9 Beta 2 Ready for Testing
The latest beta of the popular Mageia distribution now includes the latest kernel and plenty of updated applications.
-
KDE Plasma 6 Looks to Bring Basic HDR Support
The KWin piece of KDE Plasma now has HDR support and color management geared for the 6.0 release.
-
Bodhi Linux 7.0 Beta Ready for Testing
The latest iteration of the Bohdi Linux distribution is now available for those who want to experience what's in store and for testing purposes.
-
Changes Coming to Ubuntu PPA Usage
The way you manage Personal Package Archives will be changing with the release of Ubuntu 23.10.
-
AlmaLinux 9.2 Now Available for Download
AlmaLinux has been released and provides a free alternative to upstream Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
-
An Immutable Version of Fedora Is Under Consideration
For anyone who's a fan of using immutable versions of Linux, the Fedora team is currently considering adding a new spin called Fedora Onyx.
-
New Release of Br OS Includes ChatGPT Integration
Br OS 23.04 is now available and is geared specifically toward web content creation.
-
Command-Line Only Peropesis 2.1 Available Now
The latest iteration of Peropesis has been released with plenty of updates and introduces new software development tools.
-
TUXEDO Computers Announces InfinityBook Pro 14
With the new generation of their popular InfinityBook Pro 14, TUXEDO upgrades its ultra-mobile, powerful business laptop with some impressive specs.