Appendix A.Command Line Config Management ToolsIn addition to the options provided in the RHN website, Red Hat Network offers twocommand line tools for managing a system’s configuration files: the Red Hat NetworkConfiguration Client and the Red Hat Network Configuration Manager. There is acomplementary Red Hat Network Actions Control tool that is used to enable and dis-able configuration management on client systems. If you do not yet have these these toolsinstalled, they can be found within the RHN Tools child channel for your operating system.TipKeep in mind, whenever a configuration file is deployed via RHN, a backup of the previousfile including its full path is made in the /var/lib/rhncfg/backups/ directory on theaffected system. The backup retains its filename but has a .rhn-cfg-backup extensionappended.A.1. Red Hat Network Actions ControlThe Red Hat Network Actions Control (rhn-actions-control) application is usedto enable and disable configuration management of a system. Client systems cannot bemanaged in this fashion by default. This tool allows Organization Administrators to en-able or disable specific modes of allowable actions such as: deploying a configurationfile onto the system, uploading a file from the system, diffing what is currently man-aged on a system and what is available, or allowing running arbitrary remote commands.These various modes are enabled/disabled by placing/removing files and directories in the/etc/sysconfig/rhn/allowed-actions/ directory. Due to the default permissionson the /etc/sysconfig/rhn/ directory, RHN Actions Control will most likely have tobe run by someone with root access.A.1.1. General command line optionsThere is a man page available, as there are for most command line tools, though the useof this tool is simple enough to describe here briefly. Simply decide what RHN scheduledactions should be enabled for use by system administrators. The following options enablethe various scheduled action modes:
