Red Hat NETWORK SATELLITE SERVER 3.7 Installation Manual

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Red Hat NETWORK SATELLITE SERVER 3.7 Installation Manual Manual pdf 42 page image

38 Chapter 6. Importing and SynchronizingImportantTo populate custom channels correctly, you must first populate at least one Red Hat base channel.The RHN Satellite Synchronization Tool creates the necessary directory structures and permis-sions; without these, the custom channel tools will not work properly. For this reason, you should usethese instructions to set up your base channel(s) and then refer to the RHN Channel ManagementGuide for steps to establish custom channels.6.2.1. PrerequisitesTo perform the RHN Satellite Server import, the following prerequisites must be met:• The RHN Satellite Server installation must have been performed successfully.• The Red Hat Network Channel Content ISOs must be available, or the Satellite must have accessto the Internet and the RHN website.6.2.2. Preparing for ImportAlthough it is possible to conduct the import directly from the RHN website, this should be done onlyif Channel Content ISOs are not available. It takes a long time to populate a channel from scratch overthe Internet. For this reason, Red Hat urges you to use ISOs, if they are available, for initial import.Channel Content ISOs are special collections that contain both packages and XML dumps of metadata.The ISO images can be downloaded from the RHN website on a machine connected to the Internetand then transferred to the Satellite. After logging in, click Channels in the top navigation bar andthen the name of the channel for your version of RHN Satellite Server. Click the Downloads tab anduse the instructions on the page to obtain the Channel Content ISOs, available by version of Red HatEnterprise Linux. If the desired Channel Content ISOs don’t appear, ensure your RHN EntitlementCertificate has been uploaded to RHN and correctly identifies the target channels.Channel Content ISOs are mounted and then copied to a temporary repository directory. Beforemounting the ISOs, ensure the temporary repository has enough disk space to copy all the contentsinto a single directory. For a single channel, the approximate required space is 3 GB. The process tocopy Channel Content ISOs is to mount each one, copy its contents to the temporary repository, andthen unmount the ISO. Repeat. Each channel consists of several ISOs. Once finished, the administratorshould delete the temporary directory and all of its contents. Follow these steps:1. Log into the machine as root.2. Insert the first Channel Content ISO that has been burned to disc.3. Create a directory in /mnt to store the file(s) with the command:mkdir /mnt/import4. Mount the ISO file from within the directory containing it using the command:mount iso_filename /mnt/import -o loop5. Create a target directory for the files, such as:mkdir /var/rhn-sat-import/6. This sample command assumes the administrator wants to copy the contents of the ISO(mounted in /mnt/import) into /var/rhn-sat-import/:cp -ruv /mnt/import/* /var/rhn-sat-import/7. Then unmount /mnt/import in preparation for the next CD or ISO:umount /mnt/import/8. Repeat these steps for each Channel Content ISO of every channel to be imported.