Red Hat NETWORK SATELLITE 5.0.0 - RELEASE NOTES Release Note

Red Hat Network Satellite

5.0.0

Release Notes 5.0.0

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Red Hat Network Satellite

Red Hat Network Satellite: Release Notes 5.0.0

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Red Hat Network Satellite

1. Major Features ...................................................................................................... 1

2. Major Corrections ................................................................................................... 3

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Major Features

The following are the major features released as part of Red Hat Network Satellite 5.0.0.

• RHN Satellite Server 5.0.0 includes virtualization management features, including the ability
to provision virtual guests, stop, start, and pause them.

• Red Hat Network's entitlement model has been updated to accomodate virtual guests.

• Channel names have been refactored to accomodate Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5's new
Server and Client product variants.

Chapter 1.

1

2

Major Corrections

The following are the major bug fixes released as part of Red Hat Network 5.0.0.

• The return codes for satellite-sync have been updated and expanded. The new codes
may be viewed on a satellite by executing the command satellite-sync

--list-error-codes. The new return codes are:

-1 - Could not lock file or KeyboardInterrupt or SystemExit
0 - User interrupted or intentional exit.
1 - attempting to run more than one instance of satellite-sync.
2 - Unable to find synchronization tools.
3 - a general socket occurred
4 - an SSL error occurred. Recheck your SSL settings.
5 - RHN error
6 - unhandled exception occurred
7 - unknown sync error
8 - ERROR: must be root to execute
9 - rpclib fault during synchronization init
10 - synchronization init error
11 - Error parsing XML stream
12 - Channel do not exist
13 - SQL error during importing package metadata
14 - SQL error during linking channel packages
15 - SQL error during xml processing
16 - server.mount_point not set in the configuration file
17 - SQL error during retrieving the channels already imported in the
satellite's database
18 - Wrong db connection string in rhn.conf
19 - Bad arguments
20 - Could not connect to db.
21 - Bad debug level
22 - Not valid step
23 - error: --rhn-cert requires --mount-point
24 - no such file
25 - no such directory

• A configuration option has been added to osad.conf. This setting allows a user to toggle
whether rhn_check runs when osad is run with a debug level of 5 or greater. Set the run

rhn_check option to 1 to perform the check when the debug level is set to 5.

• Deleting multiple systems from a Satellite that has Monitoring enabled no longer results in an
Internal Server Error.

• A bug that caused kickstarts to ignore the sync to package profile option of a kickstart
profile for 64-bit systems has been corrected.

• A bug that prevented the installation of packages from an RHN Proxy using yum has been
corrected.

Chapter 2.

3

• Executing the Satellite Installation Program with unknown options now causes the
program to stop, rather than continuing while ignoring the unknown option.

• The Pending Actions page of the Schedule tab now includes a Cancel Actions button. This
button allows a user to cancel actions that have not yet occurred.

• The contents of the RHN Tools child channel are required in order to perform a bare metal
kickstart. When creating a kickstart profile from a base channel that does not have this child
channel, a message appears to indicate that necessary packages do not exist in the specified
base channel.

• The API no longer logs passwords in rhn_web_api.log as a result of auth.login requests.

• The RHN Applet now checks for available updates more frequently than in the past.

• The taskomatic process no longer fails when it cannot contact an external database.

• Bare metal kickstarts are now included in the list of Systems Currently Kickstarting on the
Kickstart Overview page.

• The timezone America/Toronto has been added to the appropriate drop-down menu in the
kickstart profile creation process.

• A bug that corrupted pre- and post-scripts added to kickstart profiles via the web interface
has been corrected.

• The command service rhn-satellite status; echo$? now produces an accurate return
code. This enables Red Hat Cluster Suite to monitor the health of an RHN Satellite Server.

• Changing the notification method for the administrator account of a Satellite no longer causes
an Internal Server Error.

• A bug that caused the --step=rpms and the --no-rpms options of satellite-sync to fail
has been corrected.

• It is now possible to export data from a 4.1.0 RHN Satellite Server and import it into an 5.0.0
Satellite.

• The bootstrap.sh script generated for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 systems now makes use
of yum.

• The python-cheetah-1.0-2.el4.i386.rpm package has been removed from the RHN
Satellite Server ISO; it is not required for installation.

• It is again possible to kickstart between compatible 32-bit and 64-bit base channels.

• When executing a package profile sync by issuing rhn_check -vv on a client system, any
missing packages are listed by name in the command's output.

• A bug that prevented snapshot tags from being properly created has been fixed.

Chapter 2. Major Corrections

4

• A bug that prevented changing a host's subscribed channel to a custom channel has been
corrected.

• It is now possible to select all systems that subscribe to a given child channel and work with
them via the System Set Manager.

• Partition schemes in kickstart profiles now remain in the same order unless manually
changed. The partition order will not automatically change when the profile is accessed or
cloned.

• Attempting to schedule a second kickstart after the first kickstart has completed no longer
results in an error message that indicates another kickstart is pending.

• For Satellites that authenticate users via PAM, attempting to login with an expired password
no longer causes the Satellite to hang. Instead, the login attempt fails.

• The size limit of pre- and post-scripts to kickstart profiles has been increased to 150,000
characters. There is also a configurable value in /etc/rhn/rhn.conf that allows a user to
select the maximum length of such scripts. Edit the web.kickstart_script_max_length
entry to change the size of the scripts.

• A new option has been added to rhn-satellite-exporter. The --hard-links option
exports hard links to the packages in /var/satellite, rather than copies of the packages.

• A bug that caused an Internal Server Error when disabling Monitoring a second time has
been corrected.

• Kickstart files generated via RHN have been reordered such that the standard Message of
the Day (MOTD) created by RHN can be overridden by a user's post script. Changes to

/etc/motd made in the post section of a kickstart profile will override the RHN MOTD.

• The command service httpd status on RHN Satellite has been modified so that the
generated return code accurately reflects the status of httpd, which allows the Satellite to
function with Red Hat Cluster Suite.

• The command service osa-dispatcher status on RHN Satellite has been modified so
that the generated return code accurately reflects the status of httpd, which allows the
Satellite to function with Red Hat Cluster Suite

• When searching for a package within a given channel, the search function again returns all
versions of that package, not just the latest version.

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