Red Hat SATELLITE 5.1 RELEASE NOTES Instruction Manual

Red Hat Network Satellite
Release Notes 5.1.0
5.1
ISBN:
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Red Hat Network Satellite

Red Hat Network Satellite: Release Notes 5.1.0
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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 RHN Satellite Server 5.1.0.
• RHN Satellite Server 5.1.0 introduces the Organizations feature, which allows administrators
to to create and manage multiple organizations across the Satellite. The Organizations
feature allows administrators to appropriate software and system entitlements across various
organizations, as well as control an organization's access to systems management tasks.
• Extended Update Support (EUS) has been added to RHN Satellite Server 5.1.0. EUS
channels are for administrators who want to stay with one major or update version of Red Hat
Enterprise Linux (such as Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.1) and customize their package
updates for their particular version, rather than upgrade their systems to a new update version
that installs new software and features on production systems.
• User interface improvements featured in RHN Satellite Server 5.1.0 include a new search
feature for faster package and errata query and retrieval, as well as sorting and filtering
functionality to display specified information.
• The RHN Satellite Server 5.1.0 Application Programming Interface (API) has been expanded
and now features several new calls, including configuration management and activation key
API calls.
• RHN Satellite Server 5.1.0 introduces new features for interacting with and filtering Systems,
Groups, and User lists. Administrators can filter systems, groups, and users by keyword, and
run actions on just the filtered results (such as pressing the Select All button to automatically
mark the checkboxes).
• The following language preference enhancements and features are included in RHN Satellite
Server 5.1.0:
• When the Interface Language is set to Use Browser Settings, the RHN Satellite Server user
interface will be displayed in the user's browser default language.
• The language setting is displayed on the top left corner of every page of the RHN Satellite
Server user interface. You can change the language at any time by clicking the (change)
link next to the language setting.
• When a user's browser is set to a language that is unsupported by the RHN Satellite Server
user interface, English will be the default language displayed.
Chapter 1.
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2

Major Corrections
The following are the major bug fixes and workarounds released as part of RHN Satellite Server
5.1.0.
• The RHN Satellite Server 5.1.0 installation has been changed so that it now requires the
following:
• The @Base installation of Red Hat Enterprise Linux on the system where the Satellite
Server is being installed
• Either the system must be registered with Red Hat Network Hosted service so that up2date
can operate correctly or be able to install additional software manually.
• The osad service, by default, no longer fails over to the Satellite when the Proxy is
unavailable. To enable Proxy failover to the Satellite, edit the following line in the
/etc/sysconfig/rhn/osad.conf file:
enable_failover = 1
• You can now configure the restricted deletion flag (sticky bit) for directories from the
Configuration Channels page.
• A bug that prevented usage of text based web browsers to login and use RHN Satellite
Server has been fixed.
• When creating kickstart labels or editing existing labels, only alphanumeric characters (A-Z,
a-z, 0-9) and underscores (_) are permitted.
• The path for virtual guest images has been changed to /var/lib/xen/images/ to conform to
SELinux policy.
• An issue was fixed where the State/Province field was not saved after editing and updating
the System Properties page.
• A bug was fixed where clicking on a particular Channel Entitlement on the Software
Channel Entitlements page (Your RHN => Subscription Management => Software
Channel Entitlements) shows that there are 0 systems subscribed to the channel even if
there are subscribed systems.
• You can now schedule errata updates from the System => Software => Errata => Confirm
Errata Update page.
• A bug has been fixed where the link to a Failed erratum under the Status column of the Errata
page led to the erratum information page rather than the System History page.
• RHN Satellite Server now supports bracket characters in user passwords, such as
Chapter 2.
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parentheses ("()"), box brackets ("[]"), braces ("{}"), and angle brackets ("<>").
• User names with accented characters now display properly once they are saved.
• A bug was fixed that prevented dollar signs ($) from being used in SSL certificate passwords.
• An issue was fixed where filtering by username on the Users page resulted in an Internal
Server Error message when the administrator's Interface Language was set to a language
other than English.
• A bug was fixed where the Details page for packages whose names contain a special
character, such as a plus sign (`+`), would display a no package error.
• RHN Satellite Server features a new service called satellite-httpd. This service replaces
the standard httpd service that was used to start Satellite. If a Satellite administrator
attempts to start the httpd service on the Satellite system, the following warning will be
displayed on the terminal:
Warning: satellite-httpd is installed on this system.
Are you sure you want to run httpd and not satellite-httpd?
• Red Hat Network Satellite 5.1.0 now supports the 'org/<random hash>' URL type in kickstart
profiles as part of the new Organizations feature. For example:
https://sat.example.com/kickstart/ks/org/1x8ac1dbff1d17c09434225433ab8/view_label/rhel-i386-as-3-u8
• A filter text box has been added to the System Groups page to display groups matching a
certain string.
• Users, Systems, and System Group filter strings can now be cleared to display the complete
list.
•server.satellite.tiny_url_timeout is a new option in the /etc/rhn/rhn.conf file that
allows a user to configure the amount of time (in hours) a kickstart file is valid before it times
out. The default value is 4.
• The use of shell metacharacters (such as `?`, `\`, and `&`) in Data Source Name (DSN)
passwords are now supported.
• An issue was fixed where the nocpulse user was not created if a user with the UID 502
already existed.
• Users have the option to remove RHN Proxy Server packages during Proxy deactivation.
Once the packages are removed, you can then install any version of RHN Proxy without the
need to provision the OS.
Chapter 2. Major Corrections
4

• When installing a new version of RHN Proxy Server, if an older version of Proxy is installed
(or other conflicting packages), you will be given list of the conflicting packages and be
informed that any conflicting packages will be removed prior to installation.
• The HTTP proxy username and password listed in the /etc/rhn/rhn.conf file cannot be
entirely numerical (for example, 12345). It can, however, be entirely alphabetical (such as
"abcde") or alphanumeric (abc123).
• If you change your database password after you install RHN Satellite Server, and it includes a
backslash ("\"), you need to add an extra backslash to the password in your
/etc/rhn/rhn.conf file.
For example, if your password is currently "abc\123", you must modify the
/etc/rhn/rhn.conf file to read:
hibernate.connection.password=abc\\123
• A cascading stylesheet bug when displaying the Configuration File Details page in Internet
Explorer 6 has been fixed.
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