Updating a distro in cobbler

A few weeks ago RHEL 5.6 was released, the installation media was also updated. So it is time to get it into cobbler to deploy the latest dot release when provisioning new systems. Lets assume your profile name is rhel5-x86_64, you have an existing distro named rhel55-x86_64 and you want to replace it with rhel56-x86_64. Lets start with importing the new distro: # Mount the ISO as loop back mount /some/where/rhel-server-5.6-x86_64-dvd.iso /mnt/rhel56iso -o loop # Import the Install Media cobbler ….Read More

A review of RHEV

In the past few weeks I had the chance to have a closer look at the current release 2.2. The reason is that I’m working on a project using RHEL6 clients as virtual Desktops. For a proof-of-concept I’ve set up a test environment in the lab. Due to the lack of time I was not able to test every single feature. After reading some docs, it was amazingly easily and quickly installed. Test environment The tests have been made on ….Read More

Spice and RHEV, a RHCE goes MCSE

I’m currently working in a project which includes some virtual Linux desktops. The desktop of choice is RHEL6. How to bring a Linux desktop via WAN to a thin client? VNC -> are you nuts? Remote X11 over SSH -> WAN = no go. NX -> another vendor involved. SPICE -> Spicy! But: Spice over WAN? To be tested… SPICE is the protocol used by RHEV (Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization). Some time ago I had the chance to test this ….Read More

Pulp, what is it about it?

Thanks to Máirín’s posting I got aware of the Pulp project. What is it? I had a brief look at it, it is a Red Hat sponsored project with a similar functionality like Spacewalk and RHN Satellite. This brings me to the question: Is Pulp is intended to be a replacement of Spacewalk? It can make sense, it is written in Python as Cobbler is. Cobbler and Spacewalk are not really playing nice together. Spacewalk used Java, Perl and Python. ….Read More

RHEL6 is released!

RHEL6 was just released at 2010-11-10 20:09:50 CET. Quoting Red Hat press relase: Today, we delivered Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 to the market. @Red Hat: you are so mean! Next time inform your fellows one day in advance to give your fellows the chance to fill the fridges with champagne! I did not checked (yet) the differences between beta 2.1 and GA. I guess the differences are at a minimum. The odd thing is: It seems not be available ….Read More

Upgrading RHN Satellite from 5.3 to 5.4, experiences and hints

As I wrote in my previous post I’ll let you know about my experiences. The most important message is: It is easy to upgrade your Satellite from 5.3 to 5.4, if you have an eye on certain things. Everyone that plans to use RHEL6 and manage it with a Satellite server needs this upgrade, due to the fact that RHEL6 comes with SHA-256 checksums on its RPM packages. Who needs this upgrade? Any company that plans to use RHEL6 which ….Read More

RHN Satellite 5.4, first analysis

First of all: Where is the Red Hat Press release? Nada, nothing, nichts (yet)…. History As I wrote in my previous post, I’ll keep you posted with my latest findings. In another post, I was speculating about the upstream version. Now, Sat540 seems to be based on Spacewalk 1.2 which is not yet released. I was quite puzzled about that fact. Usually upstream (Fedora) projects are ahead of its commercial counterparts, this time it seems to be the other way ….Read More