Red Hat Network Satellite

RHN Satellite Server 5.1.0 introduces the Organizations feature, which allows administrators to to create and manage multiple organizations across the Satellite. The Organizations feature allows administrators to appropriate software and system entitlements across various organizations, as well as control an organization's access to systems management tasks.

Extended Update Support (EUS) has been added to RHN Satellite Server 5.1.0. EUS channels are for administrators who want to stay with one major or update version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (such as Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.1) and customize their package updates for their particular version, rather than upgrade their systems to a new update version that installs new software and features on production systems.

User interface improvements featured in RHN Satellite Server 5.1.0 include a new search feature for faster package and errata query and retrieval, as well as sorting and filtering functionality to display specified information.

The RHN Satellite Server 5.1.0 Application Programming Interface (API) has been expanded and now features several new calls, including configuration management and activation key API calls.

RHN Satellite Server 5.1.0 introduces new features for interacting with and filtering Systems, Groups, and User lists. Administrators can filter systems, groups, and users by keyword, and run actions on just the filtered results (such as pressing the Select All button to automatically mark the checkboxes).

The following language preference enhancements and features are included in RHN Satellite Server 5.1.0:

The RHN Satellite Server 5.1.0 installation has been changed so that it now requires the following:

The osad service, by default, no longer fails over to the Satellite when the Proxy is unavailable. To enable Proxy failover to the Satellite, edit the following line in the /etc/sysconfig/rhn/osad.conf file:

enable_failover = 1

You can now configure the restricted deletion flag (sticky bit) for directories from the Configuration Channels page.

A bug that prevented usage of text based web browsers to login and use RHN Satellite Server has been fixed.

When creating kickstart labels or editing existing labels, only alphanumeric characters (A-Z, a-z, 0-9) and underscores (_) are permitted.

The path for virtual guest images has been changed to /var/lib/xen/images/ to conform to SELinux policy.

An issue was fixed where the State/Province field was not saved after editing and updating the System Properties page.

A bug was fixed where clicking on a particular Channel Entitlement on the Software Channel Entitlements page (Your RHN => Subscription Management => Software Channel Entitlements) shows that there are 0 systems subscribed to the channel even if there are subscribed systems.

You can now schedule errata updates from the System => Software => Errata => Confirm Errata Update page.

A bug has been fixed where the link to a Failed erratum under the Status column of the Errata page led to the erratum information page rather than the System History page.

RHN Satellite Server now supports bracket characters in user passwords, such as parentheses ("()"), box brackets ("[]"), braces ("{}"), and angle brackets ("<>").

User names with accented characters now display properly once they are saved.

A bug was fixed that prevented dollar signs ($) from being used in SSL certificate passwords.

An issue was fixed where filtering by username on the Users page resulted in an Internal Server Error message when the administrator's Interface Language was set to a language other than English.

A bug was fixed where the Details page for packages whose names contain a special character, such as a plus sign (`+`), would display a no package error.

RHN Satellite Server features a new service called satellite-httpd. This service replaces the standard httpd service that was used to start Satellite. If a Satellite administrator attempts to start the httpd service on the Satellite system, the following warning will be displayed on the terminal:

Warning: satellite-httpd is installed on this system.
         Are you sure you want to run httpd and not satellite-httpd?

Red Hat Network Satellite 5.1.0 now supports the 'org/<random hash>' URL type in kickstart profiles as part of the new Organizations feature. For example:

 https://sat.example.com/kickstart/ks/org/1x8ac1dbff1d17c09434225433ab8/view_label/rhel-i386-as-3-u8

A filter text box has been added to the System Groups page to display groups matching a certain string.

Users, Systems, and System Group filter strings can now be cleared to display the complete list.

server.satellite.tiny_url_timeout is a new option in the /etc/rhn/rhn.conf file that allows a user to configure the amount of time (in hours) a kickstart file is valid before it times out. The default value is 4.

The use of shell metacharacters (such as `?`, `\`, and `&`) in Data Source Name (DSN) passwords are now supported.

An issue was fixed where the nocpulse user was not created if a user with the UID 502 already existed.

Users have the option to remove RHN Proxy Server packages during Proxy deactivation. Once the packages are removed, you can then install any version of RHN Proxy without the need to provision the OS.

When installing a new version of RHN Proxy Server, if an older version of Proxy is installed (or other conflicting packages), you will be given list of the conflicting packages and be informed that any conflicting packages will be removed prior to installation.

The HTTP proxy username and password listed in the /etc/rhn/rhn.conf file cannot be entirely numerical (for example, 12345). It can, however, be entirely alphabetical (such as "abcde") or alphanumeric (abc123).

If you change your database password after you install RHN Satellite Server, and it includes a backslash ("\"), you need to add an extra backslash to the password in your /etc/rhn/rhn.conf file.

For example, if your password is currently "abc\123", you must modify the /etc/rhn/rhn.conf file to read:

hibernate.connection.password=abc\\123

A cascading stylesheet bug when displaying the Configuration File Details page in Internet Explorer 6 has been fixed.