1. Concepts Guide for Release 2.10
  2. About Software Channels

2 About Software Channels

WARNING:

The software described in this documentation is supported for a limited period under Extended Support. Oracle Linux 7 is now in Extended Support. See Oracle Linux Extended Support and Oracle Open Source Support Policies for more information.

Consider using OS Management Hub to manage operating system infrastructure. See OS Management Hub for more information.

Before you can use Oracle Linux Manager to provision client systems, you must first define software channels and populate them with software packages. You can configure Oracle Linux Manager to automatically populate packages from external repositories. Or, you can use the command line to manually push packages into a software channel.

Beginning from Oracle Linux 7.1 as well as Oracle Linux 6.9, you do not need to install Oracle Linux Manager client packages in order to register clients. However, Oracle recommends installing Oracle Linux Manager client channel packages to take full advantage of Oracle Linux Manager's management capabilities, including provisioning and auditing. You also need to enable Oracle Linux Manager client channel if you want kickstart to register a client automatically, as kickstart does not recognize the built-in client for this purpose.

An easy way to populate a software channel initially, so that it can be used with kickstart, is to mount an ISO image on the server and use the rhnpush command to push packages from the ISO distribution.

Alternatively, you can synchronize channels from ULN or Oracle Linux yum server server repositories by using the Oracle Linux Manager web interface. Or, you can use either the spacewalk-repo-sync or spacecmd command.

Note:

Before running the rhnpush command, the system that you are using must be registered with Oracle Linux Manager server, even if the command is being run on the same system that is hosting Oracle Linux Manager server. The rhnpush command uses the Transport Layer Security/Secure Socket Layer (TLS/SSL) protocols to communicate with Oracle Linux Manager server. If the system is not registered, the rhnpush command fails with a certificate error. Client registration updates the configuration to use the correct Oracle Linux Manager SSL certificate. For more information about client registration, see Registering Client Systems in Oracle Linux Manager: Client Life Cycle Management Guide for Release 2.10 .

Differences Between ULN and Oracle Linux Yum Server Channels

ULN provides base and patch channels for each update of an Oracle Linux release. The Oracle Linux yum server does not provide separate patch channels. Instead, it provides a olN_latest repository that includes all of the packages for an entire release. See Working With Software Channels in Oracle Linux Manager: Client Life Cycle Management Guide for Release 2.10 for further information.

Optimizing the Speed of Channel Synchronization

Because it can take several days to synchronize an Oracle Linux latest channel from the Oracle Linux yum server repository, populating base channels for an Oracle Linux release from an ISO image is generally faster than pulling the base packages from an upstream repository.

After you have created and initially populated channels from an ISO image, you can synchronize them with the Oracle Linux yum server and ULN to bring them up to date. The Oracle Linux yum server is mirrored on a number of servers globally, so it can be faster to synchronize the base channels with the Oracle Linux yum server and subsequently synchronize any patch channels with ULN.

If you specify the --latest option with the spacewalk-repo-sync command or select the equivalent optional check box in the web interface, the server synchronizes only the latest packages that are available at the time of synchronization. The process does not remove older packages from the channel. If the synchronization interval is large, you might miss a particular version of a package, which can have implications for errata handling, where errata are associated with specific package versions. If errata consistency is important to you, Oracle recommends that you do not select these options. Note that using the --latest option with a Ksplice channel is an exception to this rule because its packages are always cumulative.

Caution:

DO NOT use the --latest option when synchronizing module-enabled channels such as ol8_AppStream. The mechanism that underlies this option is not module-aware and if used, will skip required packages.