A.3. Red Hat Network Configuration Manager

Unlike the Red Hat Network Configuration Client, the Red Hat Network Configuration Manager (rhncfg-manager) is designed to maintain RHN's central repository of config files and channels, not those located on client systems. This tool offers a command line alternative to the configuration management features within the RHN website, as well as the ability to script some or all of the related maintenance.

It is intended for use by Config Administrators and requires an RHN username and password that has the appropriate permission set. The username may be specified in /etc/sysconfig/rhn/rhncfg-manager.conf or in the [rhncfg-manager] section of ~/.rhncfgrc.

When the Red Hat Network Configuration Manager is run as root, it attempts to pull in needed configuration values from the Red Hat Update Agent. When run as a user other than root, you may have to make configuration changes within the ~/.rhncfgrc file. The session file is cached in ~/.rhncfg-manager-session to prevent logging in for every command.

The default timeout for the Red Hat Network Configuration Manager is 30 minutes. To alter this, add the server.session_lifetime option and new value to the /etc/rhn/rhn.conf file on the server running the manager, like so:

 server.session_lifetime = 120 

The Red Hat Network Configuration Manager offers these primary modes: add, create-channel, diff, diff-revisions, download-channel, get, list, list-channels, remove, remove-channel, revisions, update, and upload-channel.

Each mode offers its own set of options, which can be seen by issuing the following command:

rhncfg-manager mode --help

Replace mode with the name of the mode to be inspected:

rhncfg-manager diff-revisions --help

You can see such a list of options for the add mode at Table A-4.

A.3.1. Creating a Config Channel

To create a config channel for your organization, issue the command:

rhncfg-manager create-channel channel-label

If prompted for your RHN username and password, provide them. The output resembles the following:

 
Red Hat Network username: rhn-user 
Password:
Creating config channel channel-label 
Config channel channel-label created

Once you have created a config channel, use the remaining modes listed above to populate and maintain that channel.

A.3.2. Adding Files to a Config Channel

To add a file to a config channel, specify the channel label as well as the local file to be uploaded, such as:

rhncfg-manager add --channel=channel-label /path/to/file

In addition to the required channel label and the path to the file, you may use the available options for modifying the file during its addition. For instance, you may alter the path and file name by including the --dest-file option in the command, like:

rhncfg-manager add
--channel=channel-label 
--dest-file=/new/path/to/file.txt 
/path/to/file

The output resembles the following:

 
Pushing to channel example-channel 
Local file >/path/to/file -> remote file /new/path/to/file.txt

The following table lists the options available for rhncfg-manager add:

OptionDescription
-cCHANNEL --channel=CHANNELUpload files in this config channel
-dDEST_FILE --dest-file=DEST_FILEUpload the file as this path
--delim-start=DELIM_STARTStart delimiter for variable interpolation
--delim-end=DELIM_ENDEnd delimiter for variable interpolation
-h, --helpshow help message and exit

Table A-4. rhncfg-manager add options

A.3.3. Differentiating between Latest Config Files

To view the differences between the config files on disk and the latest revisions in a channel, issue the command:

rhncfg-manager diff --channel=channel-label --dest-file=/path/to/file.txt \
/local/path/to/file

You should see output resembling:

 
/tmp/dest_path/example-config.txt /home/test/blah/hello_world.txt 
--- /tmp/dest_path/example-config.txt  config_channel: example-channel  revision: 1 
+++ /home/test/blah/hello_world.txt  2003-12-14  19:08:59.000000000 
-0500 @@ -1 +1 @@ -foo +hello, world

The following table lists the options available for rhncfg-manager diff:

OptionDescription
-cCHANNEL, --channel=CHANNELGet file(s) from this config channel
-rREVISION, --revision=REVISIONUse this revision
-dDEST_FILE, --dest-file=DEST_FILEUpload the file as this path
-tTOPDIR, --topdir=TOPDIRMake all files relative to this string
-h, --helpShow help message and exit

Table A-5. rhncfg-manager diff options

A.3.4. Differentiating between Various Versions

To compare different versions of a file across channels and revisions, use the -r flag to indicate which revision of the file should be compared and the -n flag to identify the two channels to be checked. Refer to Section A.3.11 Determining the Number of File Revisions for related instructions. Specify only one file name here, since you are comparing the file against another version of itself. For example:

rhncfg-manager diff-revisions
-n=channel-label1 
-r=1
-n=channel-label2 
-r=1
/path/to/file.txt

The output resembles the following:

 
--- /tmp/dest_path/example-config.txt  2004-01-13 14:36:41  \
    config channel: example-channel2  revision: 1
--- /tmp/dest_path/example-config.txt  2004-01-13 14:42:42  \
    config channel: example-channel3  revision: 1 @@ -1 +1,20 @@ -foo
+blaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah 
+-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- 
+Version: GnuPG v1.0.6 (GNU/Linux) 
+Comment: For info see http://www.gnupg.org 
+
+iD8DBQA9ZY6vse4XmfJPGwgRAsHcAJ9ud9dabUcdscdcqB8AZP7e0Fua0NmKsdhQCeOWHX 
+VsDTfen2NWdwwPaTM+S+Cow= 
+=Ltp2 
+-----END PGP SIGNATURE----- 

The following table lists the options available for rhncfg-manager diff-revisions:

OptionDescription
-cCHANNEL, --channel=CHANNELUse this config channel
-rREVISION, --revision=REVISIONUse this revision
-h, --help Show help message and exit

Table A-6. rhncfg-manager diff-revisions options

A.3.5. Downloading All Files in a Channel

To download all the files in a channel to disk, create a directory and issue the following command:

	 rhncfg-manager download-channel
	  channel-label --topdir .
	
      

The output resembles the following:

 
Copying /tmp/dest_path/example-config.txt -> \
blah2/tmp/dest_path/example-config.txt 

The following table lists the options available for rhncfg-manager download-channel:

OptionDescription
-tTOPDIR, --topdir=TOPDIRDirectory all the file paths are relative to. This option must be set.
-h, --helpShow help message and exit

Table A-7. rhncfg-manager download-channel options

A.3.6. Getting the Contents of a File

To direct the contents of a particular file to stdout, issue the command:

 
rhncfg-manager get --channel=channel-label \
/tmp/dest_path/example-config.txt 

You should see the contents of the file as output.

A.3.7. Listing All Files in a Channel

To list all the files in a channel, issue the command:

rhncfg-manager list channel-label

You should see output resembling:

Files in config channel `example-channel3':
/tmp/dest_path/example-config.txt 

The following table lists the options available for rhncfg-manager get:

OptionDescription
-cCHANNEL, --channel=CHANNELGet file(s) from this config channel
-tTOPDIR, --topdir=TOPDIRMake all files relative to this string
-rREVISION, --revision=REVISIONGet this file revision
-h, --helpShow help message and exit

Table A-8. rhncfg-manager get options

A.3.8. Listing All Config Channels

To list all of your organization's configuration channels, issue the command:

rhncfg-manager list-channels

The output resembles the following:

Available config channels: 
   example-channel 
   example-channel2 
   example-channel3
   config-channel-14
   config-channel-17 

Note that this does not list local_override or server_import channels.

A.3.9. Removing a File from a Channel

To remove a file from a channel, issue the command:

rhncfg-manager remove --channel=channel-label /tmp/dest_path/example-config.txt

If prompted for your RHN username and password, provide them. You should see output resembling:

 
Red Hat Network username: rhn-user 
Password:
Removing from config channel example-channel3
/tmp/dest_path/example-config.txt removed 

The following table lists the options available for rhncfg-manager remove:

OptionDescription
-cCHANNEL, --channel=CHANNELRemove files from this config channel
-tTOPDIR, --topdir=TOPDIRMake all files relative to this string
-h, --help Show help message and exit

Table A-9. rhncfg-manager remove options

A.3.10. Deleting a Config Channel

To destroy a config channel in your organization, issue the command:

rhncfg-manager remove-channel channel-label 

The output resembles the following:

Removing config channel example-channel Config channel example-channel removed 

A.3.11. Determining the Number of File Revisions

To find out how many revisions (revisions go from 1 to N where N is an integer greater than 0) of a file/path are in a channel, issue the following command:

 
rhncfg-manager revisions channel-label /tmp/dest_path/example-config.txt 

The output resembles the following:

Analyzing files in config channel example-channel \
/tmp/dest_path/example-config.txt: 1 

A.3.12. Updating a File in a Channel

To create a new revision of a file in a channel (or add the first revision to that channel if none existed before for the given path), issue the following command:

 
rhncfg-manager update \
--channel=channel-label --dest-file=/path/to/file.txt /local/path/to/file 

The output resembles the following:

 
Pushing to channel example-channel: 
Local file example-channel/tmp/dest_path/example-config.txt -> \
remote file /tmp/dest_path/example-config.txt 

The following table lists the options available for rhncfg-manager update:

OptionDescription
-cCHANNEL, --channel=CHANNELUpload files in this config channel
-dDEST_FILE, --dest-file=DEST_FILEUpload the file as this path
-tTOPDIR, --topdir=TOPDIRMake all files relative to this string
--delim-start=DELIM_STARTStart delimiter for variable interpolation
--delim-end=DELIM_ENDEnd delimiter for variable interpolation
-h, --help Show help message and exit

Table A-10. rhncfg-manager update options

A.3.13. Uploading Multiple Files at Once

To upload multiple files to a config channel from local disk at once, issue the command:

 
rhncfg-manager upload-channel --topdir=topdir channel-label

The output resembles the following:

 
Using config channel example-channel4 
Uploading /tmp/ola_world.txt from blah4/tmp/ola_world.txt

The following table lists the options available for rhncfg-manager upload-channel:

OptionDescription
-tTOPDIR, --topdir=TOPDIRDirectory all the file paths are relative to
-cCHANNEL, --channel=CHANNELList of channels the config info will be uploaded into. Channels delimited by ','. Example: --channel=foo,bar,baz
-h, --helpShow help message and exit

Table A-11. rhncfg-manager upload-channel options