Red Hat Network Overview - Red Hat NETWORK SATELLITE 5.1.1 Reference Manual

Chapter 1.

Red Hat Network Overview

Have you ever read about a new version of a software package and wanted to install it but could not
find it?
Have you ever tried to find an RPM through an Internet search engine or an RPM repository and been
linked to an unknown site?
Have you ever tried to find an RPM but instead found only source files that you had to compile
yourself?
Have you ever spent hours or even days visiting different websites to see if you have the latest
packages installed on your system, only to have to do it again in a few months?
Those days are over with Red Hat Network (RHN). RHN provides the solution to all your system
software management needs.
Red Hat Network is an Internet solution for managing a single Red Hat Enterprise Linux system or a
network of Red Hat Enterprise Linux systems. All Security Alerts, Bug Fix Alerts, and Enhancement
Alerts (collectively known as Errata Alerts) can be downloaded directly from Red Hat or your own
custom collection. You can even schedule updates for delivery to your system immediately after
release.
The main components of Red Hat Network are as follows:
• the Red Hat Update Agent
• the Red Hat Network website, whether this is hosted by the central RHN Servers, an RHN Satellite
Server, or fed through an RHN Proxy Server
• Red Hat Network Daemon
• the Red Hat Network Registration Client - for systems running Red Hat Enterprise Linux 2.1 only.
The Red Hat Update Agent (up2date) provides your initial connection to Red Hat Network. Red
Hat Enterprise Linux 3 and newer systems use the Red Hat Update Agent to register with RHN.
Registration involves creating a unique RHN username and password, probing the hardware on your
system to create a Hardware Profile, and probing the software packages installed on your system
to create a Package Profile. This information is sent to RHN and RHN returns a unique System ID
to your system. Once registered, the Red Hat Update Agent enables channel subscription, package
Chapter 2, Red Hat Update Agent
installs, and management of System Profiles. See for further
information.
The Red Hat Update Agent, as the base component of RHN, is designed to manage a single system.
It allows the system's superuser to view and apply Errata to the system. The RHN web interface
facilitates the management, monitoring, and provisioning of a large deployment of systems, including
the configuration of the Red Hat Update Agent for each system.
The Red Hat Network Daemon (rhnsd) runs in the background as a service and probes the Red Hat
Chapter 3, Red Hat Network Daemon
Network for notifications and updates at set time intervals (see
for further information). This daemon is necessary in order to schedule updates or other actions
through the website.
The Red Hat Network Registration Client allows you to register your Red Hat Enterprise Linux 2.1
systems with RHN. (Newer versions of Red Hat Enterprise Linux have registration functionality built
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