Chapter 2. Requirements

These requirements must be met before installation.

2.1. Software Requirements

To perform an installation, the following software components must be available:

Base operating system — RHN Satellite is supported with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 or Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5. The operating system can be installed from disc, local ISO image, kickstart, or any of the methods supported by Red Hat, but must provide the @Base package group, as the RHN Satellite installation program will install the RHN Satellite packages as well as additional Red Hat Enterprise Linux packages not provided in @Base but are needed for RHN Satellite.
Note
Each purchased RHN Satellite product includes one supported instance of Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server. RHN Satellite must be installed on a fresh installation of Enterprise Linux where RHN Satellite is the only application and service provided by the OS. Using the Red Hat Enterprise Linux OS included with RHN Satellite to run other daemons, applications, or services within your environment is not supported.

RHN Satellite supports SELinux targeted policy in enforcing or permissive mode on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.1 or later. SELinux is a set of secure software policies that implement mandatory access control to Red Hat Enterprise Linux and other operating systems. SELinux is activated by default on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.1, and now users can have SELinux in enforcing or permissive mode with the targeted policy set during installation of Proxy or Satellite.
Warning
Security-enhanced Linux (SELinux) on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 must be disabled or in permissive mode prior to installation of RHN Satellite. To do this during CD or ISO image installation, select Permissive when presented with options for SELinux support. To do this for kickstart installation, include the command selinux --permissive or wait for the install to complete, edit the /etc/selinux/config file to read SELINUX=permissive and reboot the system.
More in-depth coverage of SELinux is available at http://www.redhat.com/docs/. You may also refer to the Red Hat Knowledgebase article on SELinux and RHN Satellite at http://kbase.redhat.com/faq/.

Satellite installation disc or ISO — this contains the RHN Satellite Installation Program. All packages required in order to suport the Program are installed automatically, and require no intervention from the user.

Note

Additional packages beyond @Base are required to install Red Hat Network Satellite. The Satellite installer will prompt you to either install the listed packages or ask if you want it to download the files from RHN. If your system is not registered to RHN, you should have the Red Hat Enterprise Linux installation media available during the Satellite installation process to install these additional packages as needed.

The files necessary for Satellite installation are listed in the rhelrpms file located in the updates directory on the Satellite installation ISO image.

Channel content — All software packages and data exported for all entitled Red Hat channels. This content may be loaded directly on the Satellite after installation using the RHN Satellite Synchronization Tool or obtained from your Red Hat representative if synchronization is not possible, such as in a disconnected environment.

When installing Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS 4 or later from CD or ISO image, there is no need to select any package groups, only the base install is required. When installing either operating system via kickstart, select the @ Base package group.