How It Works - Red Hat NETWORK SATELLITE 5.3.0 Installation Manual

For more detailed explanations of these terms and others, refer to the Red Hat Network Reference
Guide.

1.4. How it Works

RHN Satellite consists of the following components:
• Database — for the Stand-Alone Database, this may be the organization's existing database or,
preferably, a separate machine. RHN Satellite supports Oracle Database 10g Release 2, Standard
or Enterprise Edition. For the Embedded Database, the database comes bundled with RHN Satellite
and is installed on the same machine as the Satellite during the installation process.
•
RHN Satellite — core "business logic" and entry point for Red Hat Update Agent running on client
systems. The RHN Satellite also includes an Apache HTTP Server (serving XML-RPC requests).
• RHN Satellite Web interface — advanced system, system group, user, and channel management
interface.
• RPM Repository — package repository for Red Hat RPM packages and custom RPM packages
identified by the organization.
• Management Tools:
• Database and file system synchronization tools
• RPM importing tools
• Channel maintenance tools (Web-based)
• Errata management tools (Web-based)
• User management tools (Web-based)
• Client system and system grouping tools (Web-based)
• Red Hat Update Agent on the client systems
The Red Hat Update Agent on the client systems must be reconfigured to retrieve updates from the
organization's internal RHN Satellite instead of the central Red Hat Network Servers. After this one-
time reconfiguration, client systems may retrieve updates locally using the Red Hat Update Agent, or
system administrators may schedule actions through the RHN Satellite website.
Important
Red Hat strongly recommends that clients connected to RHN Satellite be running the
latest update of Red Hat Enterprise Linux to ensure proper connectivity.
When a client requests updates, the organization's internal RHN Satellite queries its database,
authenticates the client system, identifies the updated packages available for the client system, and
sends the requested RPMs back to the client system. Depending upon the client's preferences, the
package may also be installed. If the packages are installed, the client system sends an updated
package profile to the database on the RHN Satellite; those packages are removed from the list of
outdated packages for the client.
How it Works
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