= Using RHN support in mrepo
Dag Wieers <dag@wieers.com>
0.8.4svn, 20 august 2007
// Please send me improvements to this document.
This document describes how to set up a Red Hat Network mirror for various
RHEL versions and architectures and provide the packages to local clients.
== Requirements
For RHN support to work, you need to install the up2date package
that comes with your RHEL distribution. It may not work with
another up2date package (eg. Fedora Core).
== RHN systemid creation
For each distribution you want to add to mrepo, you need to have a valid
RHN systemid. You can create a systemid (provided you have the correct
entitlements to do so) by using the gensystemid tool that comes with
mrepo, eg.
----
gensystemid -r 4AS -a x86_64 /var/mrepo/rhel4as-x86_64
----
The tool will create a new system called _<hostname>-4AS-x86_64-mrepo_,
register this system on RHN and create a systemid file in
_/var/mrepo/rhel4as-x86_64_
== RHN configuration
Having done that, you can enable multiple channels for this systemid
on the RHN website. And then configure mrepo to use these channels, eg.
----
[rhel4as]
name = Red Hat Advanced Server $release U2 ($arch)
release = 4
arch = i386
iso = RHEL4-U2-i386-AS-disc?.iso
updates = rhns:///rhel-i386-as-4
extras = rhns:///rhel-i386-as-4-extras
hwcert = rhns:///rhel-i386-as-4-hwcert
sdk = rhns:///rhel-i386-as-4-sdk
rhaps = rhns:///rhel-4-as-i386-rhaps-2
rhds = rhns:///rhel-4-as-i386-rhds-2.1
----
After that, mrepo should be able to successfully log on and download
all packages for the configured channels.
== Creating systemids for different dists/archs
Previously it was not possible to generate a new systemid for a
dist/arch without installing a system, connecting it to the Internet
and then register on RHN.
A lot of companies simply do not allow servers to have internet access
and I have personally been several times in the situation that I needed
to download x86_64 or ppc packages for a system that I have entitlements
for but is simply not allowed to connect to the Internet.
The gensystemid tool that comes with mrepo will help you with creating
valid systemids for mrepo, eg.
$ gensystemid -r 4AS -a x86_64 /var/mrepo/rhel4as-x86_64
You can manage your systems on the RHN website afterwards.
WARNING: For yet unknown reasons, you have to be root to run +gensystemid+.
== Downloading from unsubscribed channels
You can let mrepo subscribe to the necessary channels, unfortunately this
requires your RHN username and password. You can provide these in
the main section, like:
----
[main]
rhnlogin = username:password
----
Or you can supply them to rhnget at the appropriate time. Unfortunately since
+rhnget+ is a seperate tool invoked by mrepo, you may need to provide this
information several times (every time you need to subscribe to a new channel).
You can also choose to only provide the username in _/etc/mrepo.conf_ and
provide the password interactively.
----
[main]
rhnlogin = username
----
Of course if you put the password in _/etc/mrepo.conf_, you need to protect it.
You may want to do:
$ chmod og= /etc/mrepo.conf
$ chown root.root /etc/mrepo.conf
Since you only need the username/password to subscribe to new channels
(only the very first time you access them) you may wish to remove the
login information from mrepo.conf after that.
You can also log on manually to the RHN website to subscribe your system
to the channels you require.
== Configuring up2date sources
If you encounter the following message:
----
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/usr/bin/mrepo", line 1364, in ?
main()
File "/usr/bin/mrepo", line 1247, in main
mirror(dist.repos[repo], srcdir, dist)
File "/usr/bin/mrepo", line 819, in mirror
mirrorrhn(url, path, dist)
File "/usr/bin/mrepo", line 1099, in mirrorrhn
package_list, type = rpcServer.doCall(repos.listPackages, channel, None, None)
File "/usr/share/rhn/up2date_client/rpcServer.py", line 316, in doCall
ret = apply(method, args, kwargs)
File "/usr/share/rhn/up2date_client/repoDirector.py", line 21, inlistPackages
return self.handlers[channel['type']].listPackages(channel, msgCallback, progressCallback)
KeyError: 'up2date'
----
you need to configure up2date by adding or enabling the following line in
_/etc/sysconfig/rhn/sources_
up2date default
Especially on a system that was not using RHN or on CentOS this is a manual
change you have to make. mrepo doesn't really care, but the up2date
implementation it is using simply requires it.
== Adding up2date-uuid file
If you get the following error:
No rhnuuid config option found in /etc/sysconfig/rhn/up2date-uuid
Then you are missing the file _/etc/sysconfig/rhn/up2date-uuid_, the content
of this file looks similar to:
----
uuid[comment]=Universally Unique ID for this server
rhnuuid=7d2bee48-99b6-11d8-83df-000475ffe7a6
----
where +rhnuuid+ contains a unique identifier that matches your system. You can
generate this identifier by running:
$ uuidgen
== List of RHN channels
For a complete and up-to-date list of available channels, check the RHN
website. This list has been compiled with only EL2.1, EL3, EL4 and
i386, x86_64 archs.
RHEL4
rhel-$arch-XX-4
rhel-$arch-XX-4-beta
rhel-$arch-XX-4-extras
rhel-$arch-XX-4-extras-beta
rhel-$arch-as-4-hwcert (only for as)
rhel-$arch-XX-4-sdk
rhel-4-XX-$arch-rhaps-2
rhel-4-XX-$arch-rhaps-2-beta
rhel-4-XX-$arch-rhds-2.1
rhel-4-XX-$arch-rhds-2.1-beta
RHEL3
rhel-$arch-XX-3
rhel-$arch-XX-3-beta
rhel-$arch-XX-3-devsuite
rhel-$arch-XX-3-devsuite-beta
rhel-$arch-XX-3-extras
rhel-$arch-XX-3-extras-beta
rhel-$arch-as-3-hwcert (only for as)
rhel-3-XX-i386-rhaps-1 (only for i386)
rhel-3-XX-$arch-rhaps-beta
rhel-3-XX-i386-rhds-2 (only for i386)
RHEL2.1
redhat-advanced-server-i386 (only for as)
redhat-ent-linux-i386-es-2.1 (only for es)
rhel-i386-XX-2.1-beta
Where XX = as or es
Please send updates on these.
== Ignore packages you already have elsewhere
This is possible, although hard to implement currently. I could check
whether the file exists on one of the ISOs (or in the RPMS/ directory),
but I prefer to implement this after a redesign.
You can simply get the same effect with the following script, clean.sh:
----
#!/bin/bash
dists=$*
srcdir=/var/mrepo
wwwdir=/var/www/mrepo
if [ -z "$dists" ]; then
cd $srcdir
dists=rhel[2-4][aew]s-*
cd -
fi
for dist in $dists; do
echo "Cleaning up $dist"
### Remove dangling links
for link in $(find "$srcdir/$dist/updates" -type l); do
if [ ! -r "$(readlink $link)" ]; then
rm -f $link
fi
done
### Relink existing files
for rpm in $wwwdir/$dist/disc?/RedHat/RPMS/*.rpm; do
file="$(basename $rpm)"
dstfile="$srcdir/$dist/updates/$file"
ln -sf "$rpm" "$dstfile"
done
done
----
Run this script when you download new RHEL ISO files and make these available
in mrepo, but before downloading any updates from RHN.
$ mrepo --umount
Then download new ISO files and modify the mrepo config file(s) to reflect
this change. And then do:
$ mrepo -v
$ ./clean.sh
$ mrepo -uvg
This will free up some space by symlinking duplicate RPM packages from the ISO
files on top of the RPM packages on disk. As a side-effect it will also prevent
the new updates from being downloaded. You can also remove _all_ packages from
the updates repository prior to doing this.
== rhn:// and rhns:// URL schemes
The default scheme for RHN is rhns:// (HTTPS), but it was reported that
in some cases (related to proxies or firewalls) the HTTPS connections
fail, so there is a need to allow for HTTP connections. You can specify
this by using the rhn:// scheme instead of rhns://
In this case, the authentication is not done using SSL either !
== Using Red Hat satellite servers
You can override the hardcoded RHN server by specifying it in the URL.
If it is not specified, mrepo will assume a default value of
xmlrpc.rhn.redhat.com
So the following two lines are identical:
updates = rhns:///rhel-i386-as-4
updates = rhns://xmlrpc.rhn.redhat.com/rhel-i386-as-4
And you can use a satellite server by doing:
updates = rhns://your.own.satellite/rhel-i386-as-4
(Please let me know if this works or not !)
== Using a single systemid
You can experiment with using a single systemid for multiple dists
using the +rhnrelease+ directive:
----
[rhel3as]
rhnrelease = 3AS
----
This way you override the OS release that is in the systemid file.
This works across the same entitlement. Eg. when you have an Advanced
Server entitlement, you can download from 2.1AS, 3AS and 4AS channels.
But not from the ES or WS channels and not from different architectures.
== RHN documentation and references
A useful list of RHN references:
Red Hat: RHN XMLRPC API
https://rhn.redhat.com/rpc/api/errata/
kickstart-list: RHN XMLRPC API
https://www.redhat.com/archives/kickstart-list/2005-December/msg00021.html
RHbz 162210: [RFE] New up2date command-line options
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=162210
RHbz 179721: [RFE] No documentation for (RHN) up2date XMLRPC API methods
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=179721
And how to configure mrepo for RHN access:
Installing YAM 0.8.0 on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4
http://wiki.garylaw.net/doku.php?id=technical:unix:linux:yam
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