Registering CentOS Clients

This section contains information about registering traditional and Salt clients running CentOS operating systems.

CentOS clients are based on CentOS and are unrelated to SUSE Linux Enterprise Server with Expanded Support, RES, Red Hat, or Expanded Support. You are responsible for arranging access to CentOS base media repositories and CentOS installation media, as well as connecting Uyuni Server to the CentOS content delivery network.

Traditional clients are not available on CentOS 8. CentOS 8 clients are only supported as Salt clients.

Add Software Channels

Before you register CentOS clients to your Uyuni Server, check that you have the CentOS product enabled, and the required channels are fully synchronized.

The channels you need for this procedure are:

Table 1. CentOS Channels - CLI
OS Version Base Channel Client Channel Updates Channel

CentOS 6

centos6

centos6-uyuni-client

centos6-updates

CentOS 7

centos7

centos7-uyuni-client

centos7-updates

CentOS 8

centos8

centos8-uyuni-client

centos8-appstream

Procedure: Adding Software Channels at the Command Prompt
  1. At the command prompt on the Uyuni Server, as root, use the spacewalk-common-channels command to add the appropriate channels:

    spacewalk-common-channels \
    <base_channel_name> \
    <child_channel_name_1> \
    <child_channel_name_2> \
    ... <child_channel_name_n>

The client tools channel provided by spacewalk-common-channels is sourced from Uyuni and not from SUSE.

For CentOS 8 clients, add both the Base and Appstream channels. You will require packages from both channels. If you do not add both channels, you will not be able to create the bootstrap repository, due to missing packages.

Check Synchronization Status

Procedure: Checking Synchronization Progress
  1. In the Uyuni Web UI, navigate to Software  Manage  Channels, then click the channel associated to the repository.

  2. Navigate to the Repositories tab, then click Sync and check Sync Status.

Procedure: Checking Synchronization Progress from the Command Prompt
  1. At the command prompt on the Uyuni Server, as root, use the tail command to check the synchronization log file:

    tail -f /var/log/rhn/reposync/<channel-label>.log
  2. Each child channel generates its own log during the synchronization progress. You will need to check all the base and child channel log files to be sure that the synchronization is complete.

Create an Activation Key

You will need to create an activation key that is associated with your CentOS channels.

For more information on activation keys, see Activation Keys.

Trust GPG Keys on Clients

By default, some operating systems do not trust the GPG key for the Uyuni client tools. The clients can be successfully bootstrapped without the GPG key being trusted. However, you will not be able to install new client tool packages or update them until the keys are trusted.

Procedure: Trusting GPG Keys on Clients
  1. On the Uyuni Server, at the command prompt, check the contents of the /srv/www/htdocs/pub/ directory. This directory contains all available public keys. Take a note of the key that applies to the client you are registering.

  2. Open the relevant bootstrap script, locate the ORG_GPG_KEY= parameter and add the required key. For example:

    uyuni-gpg-pubkey-0d20833e.key

    You do not need to delete any previously stored keys.

  3. If you are bootstrapping clients from the Uyuni Web UI, you will need to use a Salt state to trust the key. Create the Salt state and assign it to the organization. You can then use an activation key and configuration channels to deploy the key to the clients.

Register Clients

CentOS clients are registered in the same way as all other clients. For more information, see Client Registration Overview.

To register and use CentOS 6 clients, you need to configure the Uyuni Server to support older types of SSL encryption. For more information about how to resolve this error, see Registering Older Clients at Troubleshooting Clients.

Manage Errata

When you update CentOS clients, the packages do not include metadata about the updates. You can use a third-party errata service to obtain this information.

Procedure: Installing an Errata Service
  1. On the Uyuni Server, from the command prompt, as root, add the sle-module-development-tools module:

    SUSEConnect --product sle-module-development-tools/15.2/x86_64
  2. Install the errata service:

    zypper in  perl-Text-Unidecode
  3. Create a file for your errata script:

    touch /usr/local/bin/cent-errata.sh
  4. Edit the new file to include this script, editing the repository details as required. This script fetches the errata details from an external errata service, unpacks it, and publishes the details:

    #!/bin/bash
    mkdir -p /usr/local/centos
    cd /usr/local/centos
    rm *.xml
    wget -c http://cefs.steve-meier.de/errata.latest.xml
    #wget -c https://www.redhat.com/security/data/oval/com.redhat.rhsa-all.xml
    wget -c https://www.redhat.com/security/data/oval/com.redhat.rhsa-RHEL7.xml
    wget -c http://cefs.steve-meier.de/errata-import.tar
    tar xvf errata-import.tar
    chmod +x /usr/local/centos/errata-import.pl
    export SPACEWALK_USER='<adminname>';export SPACEWALK_PASS='<password>'
    /usr/local/centos/errata-import.pl --server '<servername>' \
    --errata /usr/local/centos/errata.latest.xml  \
    --include-channels=centos7-x86_64-updates,centos7-x86_64,centos7-x86_64-extras \
    --publish --rhsa-oval /usr/local/centos/com.redhat.rhsa-RHEL7.xml
  5. Set up a cron job to run the script daily:

    ln -s /usr/local/bin/cent-errata.sh /etc/cron.daily

For more information on this tool, see https://cefs.steve-meier.de/.