Provisioning; Monitoring - Red Hat NETWORK SATELLITE 5.1.0 Reference Manual

Chapter 1. Red Hat Network Overview

3. Provisioning

As the highest management service level, RHN Provisioning encompasses all of the features
offered in the RHN Update and Management subscription levels. It is designed to allow you to
deploy and manage your network of Red Hat Enterprise Linux systems, users, and system
groups.
Like Management, Provisioning is based upon an organization. It takes this concept a step
further by enabling customers with Provisioning entitlements to kickstart, reconfigure, track, and
revert systems on the fly.
In addition to all of the features mentioned in lower service levels, Provisioning provides:
• Kickstarting — Systems with Provisioning entitlements may be re-installed through RHN with
a whole host of options established in kickstart profiles. Options include everything from the
type of bootloader and time zone to packages included/excluded and IP address ranges
allowed. Even GPG and SSL keys can be pre-configured.
• Client Configuration — RHN Satellite Server Customers may use RHN to manage the
configuration files on Provisioning-entitled systems. Users can upload files to custom
configurations channels on the Satellite, verify local configuration files against those stored on
the Satellite, and deploy files from the Satellite.
• Snapshot Rollbacks — Provisioning-level users have the ability to revert the package profile
and RHN settings of systems. RHN Satellite Server customers can also roll back local
configurations files. This is possible because snapshots are captured whenever an action
takes place on a system. These snapshots identify groups, channels, packages, and
configuration files.
• Custom System Information — Provisioning customers may identify any type of information
they choose about their registered systems. This differs from System Profile information,
which is generated automatically, and the Notes, which are unrestricted, in that the Custom
System Information allows you to develop specific keys of your choosing and assign
searchable values for that key to each Provisioning-entitled system. For instance, this feature
allows you to identify the cubicle in which each system is located and search through all
registered systems according to their cubicle.

4. Monitoring

Monitoring entitlements are available to RHN Satellite Server customers with Red Hat
Enterprise Linux systems.
Monitoring allows an organization to install probes that can immediately detect failures and
identify performance degradation before it becomes critical. Used properly, the Monitoring
entitlement can provide insight into the applications, services, and devices on each system.
Specifically, Monitoring provides:
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