Rhn Api Access; Using The Auth Class And Getting The Session; Obtaining The System_Id; Determining The Sid - Red Hat NETWORK SATELLITE 5.1.0 Reference Manual

Appendix B. RHN API Access
In an effort to provide customers with added flexibility, RHN makes an application programming
interface (API) available. This interface can be found by clicking Help at the top-right corner of
the RHN website, then clicking API in the left navigation bar. Or you may go directly to:
https://rhn.redhat.com/rpc/api/. Use this URL for your XMLRPC server and your browser.
The RHN API is based upon XML-RPC, which allows distinct pieces of software on disparate
systems to make remote procedure calls using XML over HTTP. For this reason, any calls you
make are expected to meet the constraints of XML-RPC. You can find out more at
http://www.xmlrpc.com/.
This section bypasses a list of available methods and classes in favor of tips for using the API
efficiently. These include steps for determining required values and a sample script that makes
some of the calls.

1. Using the auth Class and Getting the Session

It is worth noting that you will almost invariably use the auth class first. This class offers a single
method, login. Use this to establish an RHN session. It requires values for three parameters:
username, password, and duration. The first two come directly from your RHN account, while
the third is the length of time the session should last in seconds, typically 1200. It returns a
session string than can be used in all other methods.

2. Obtaining the system_id

Many of the methods require a value for the parameter. This is the unique
system_id
alphanumeric value assigned to each system when registered to RHN. It can be found within
the file on each machine. In addition, you may use the
/etc/sysconfig/rhn/systemid
method within the system class to obtain the value.
download_system_id

3. Determining the sid

Several methods require a value for the , or server ID, parameter. Note that this is different
sid
from the . You may determine the of a machine in two different ways. First, you
system_id sid
can log into the RHN website, click the name of a system, and view the at the end of the
sid
URL in the location bar. It follows the "=" symbol and is part of a string that resembles the
following: "index.pxt?sid=1003486534". Second, you may use the method
list_user_systems
within the system class to obtain a list of systems available to the user that contains the
associated s.
sid

4. Viewing the cid

Like servers, channels have their own IDs. This value, the , is a required parameter for
cid
some methods, including and . Also like the , the
set_base_channel set_child_channels sid
can be obtained through the RHN website. Just click on the name of a channel and view
cid
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