Importing And Synchronizing; Exporting With Rhn Satellite Exporter; Rhn-Satellite-Exporter - Red Hat NETWORK SATELLITE 5.3.0 Installation Manual

Chapter 6.

Importing and Synchronizing

After installing the RHN Satellite, you must provide it with the packages and channels to be served
to client systems. This chapter explains how to import that data and keep it up to date whether the
content is from RHN's central servers, local media, or from one Satellite within your organization to
another.
Two tools, RHN Satellite Exporter and RHN Satellite Synchronization Tool, come installed as part of
the rhns-sat-tools package.

6.1. Exporting with RHN Satellite Exporter

The RHN Satellite Exporter (rhn-satellite-exporter) tool exports Satellite content in an
XML format that can then be imported into another identical Satellite. The content is exported into a
directory specified by the user with the -d option. Once that directory has been transported to another
Satellite, the RHN Satellite Synchronization Tool may be used to import the contents, synchronizing
two Satellites.

6.1.1. rhn-satellite-exporter

The RHN Satellite Exporter can export the following content:
• Channel Families
• Architectures
• Channel metadata
• Blacklists
• RPMs
• RPM metadata
• Errata
• Kickstarts
The amount of time it takes rhn-satellite-exporter to export data is dependent on the number
and size of the channels being exported. Using the --no-packages, --no-kickstarts, --
no-errata, and --no-rpms options reduces the amount of time required for rhn-satellite-
exporter to run, but also prevents potentially useful information from being exported. For that
reason, these options should only be used when you are certain that you will not need the content that
they exclude. Additionally, you must use the matching options for satellite-sync when importing
the data. For example, if you use --no-kickstarts with rhn-satellite-exporter you must
specify the --no-kickstarts option when importing the data.
When exporting an RHN base channel, you must also export the tools channel associated with that
base channel in order to kickstart machines to the distribution in the base channel. For instance, if you
export rhel-i386-as-4 you must also export the rhn-tools-rhel-4-as-i386 channel in order to kickstart
machines to Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 AS. This is because the tools channels contain the auto-
kickstart packages that install packages for kickstarting a machine through the Satellite.
41