Administering hosts

This chapter describes creating, registering, administering, and removing hosts.

Creating a host in orcharhino

Use this procedure to create a host in orcharhino. To use the CLI instead of the orcharhino management UI, see the CLI procedure.

Procedure

In the orcharhino management UI, navigate to Hosts > Create Host.
On the Host tab, enter the required details.
Click the Ansible Roles tab, and from the Ansible Roles list, select one or more roles that you want to add to the host. Use the arrow icon to manage the roles that you add or remove.
On the Puppet Classes tab, select the Puppet classes you want to include.
On the Interfaces tab:
1. For each interface, click Edit in the Actions column and configure the following settings as required:
  - Type — For a Bond or BMC interface, use the Type list and select the interface type.
  - MAC address — Enter the MAC address.
  - DNS name — Enter the DNS name that is known to the DNS server. This is used for the host part of the FQDN.
  - Domain — Select the domain name of the provisioning network. This automatically updates the Subnet list with a selection of suitable subnets.
  - IPv4 Subnet — Select an IPv4 subnet for the host from the list.
  - IPv6 Subnet — Select an IPv6 subnet for the host from the list.
  - IPv4 address — If IP address management (IPAM) is enabled for the subnet, the IP address is automatically suggested. Alternatively, you can enter an address. The address can be omitted if provisioning tokens are enabled, if the domain does not manage DNS, if the subnet does not manage reverse DNS, or if the subnet does not manage DHCP reservations.
  - IPv6 address — If IP address management (IPAM) is enabled for the subnet, the IP address is automatically suggested. Alternatively, you can enter an address.
  - Managed — Select this checkbox to configure the interface during provisioning to use the orcharhino Proxy provided DHCP and DNS services.
  - Primary — Select this checkbox to use the DNS name from this interface as the host portion of the FQDN.
  - Provision — Select this checkbox to use this interface for provisioning. This means TFTP boot will take place using this interface, or in case of image based provisioning, the script to complete the provisioning will be executed through this interface. Note that many provisioning tasks, such as downloading packages by the operating system installer or Puppet setup in a %post script, will use the primary interface.
  - Virtual NIC — Select this checkbox if this interface is not a physical device. This setting has two options:
    
    Tag — Optionally set a VLAN tag. If unset, the tag will be the VLAN ID of the subnet.
    
    Attached to — Enter the device name of the interface this virtual interface is attached to.
2. Click OK to save the interface configuration.
3. Optionally, click Add Interface to include an additional network interface. For more information, see Adding Network Interfaces.
4. Click Submit to apply the changes and exit.
On the Operating System tab, enter the required details. For Red Hat operating systems, select Synced Content for Media Selection. If you want to use non Red Hat operating systems, select All Media, then select the installation media from the Media Selection list. You can select a partition table from the list or enter a custom partition table in the Custom partition table field. You cannot specify both.
On the Parameters tab, click Add Parameter to add any parameter variables that you want to pass to job templates at run time. This includes all Puppet Class, Ansible Playbook parameters and host parameters that you want to associate with the host. To use a parameter variable with an Ansible job template, you must add a Host Parameter.

If you want to create a host with pull mode for remote job execution, add the enable-remote-execution-pull parameter with type boolean set to true. For more information, see transport modes for remote execution.
On the Additional Information tab, enter additional information about the host.
Click Submit to complete your provisioning request.

CLI procedure

To create a host associated to a host group, enter the following command:
```
$ hammer host create \
--ask-root-password yes \
--hostgroup "My_Host_Group" \
--interface="primary=true, \
            provision=true, \
            mac=My_MAC_Address, \
            ip=My_IP_Address" \
--location "My_Location" \
--name "My_Host_Name" \
--organization "My_Organization"
```
This command prompts you to specify the root password. It is required to specify the host’s IP and MAC address. Other properties of the primary network interface can be inherited from the host group or set using the --subnet, and --domain parameters. You can set additional interfaces using the --interface option, which accepts a list of key-value pairs. For the list of available interface settings, enter the hammer host create --help command.

During host provisioning, you have to set a Content Source, a Lifecycle Environment, and a Content View to ensure that your host has access to orcharhino Client for Red Hat Enterprise Linux repositories. Note that you cannot solely set Content Source because provisioning templates expect either no Content Source or values for all three fields.

Cloning hosts

You can clone existing hosts.

Procedure

In the orcharhino management UI, navigate to Hosts > All Hosts.
In the Actions menu, click Clone.
On the Host tab, ensure to provide a Name different from the original host.
On the Interfaces tab, ensure to provide a different IP address.
Click Submit to clone the host.

For more information, see Creating a Host.

Associating a virtual machine with orcharhino from a hypervisor

Procedure

In the orcharhino management UI, navigate to Infrastructure > Compute Resources.
Select a compute resource.
On the Virtual Machines tab, click Associate VMs to associate all VMs or select Associate VM from the Actions menu to associate a single VM.

Editing the system purpose of a host

You can edit the system purpose attributes for a Red Hat Enterprise Linux host. System purpose allows you to set the intended use of a system on your network and improves reporting accuracy in the Subscriptions service of the Red Hat Hybrid Cloud Console.

Prerequisites

The host that you want to edit must be registered with the subscription-manager.

Procedure

In the orcharhino management UI, navigate to Hosts > All Hosts.
Click the name of the host you want to modify.
On the Overview tab, click Edit on the System purpose card.
Select the system purpose attributes for your host.
Click Save.

CLI procedure

Log in to the host and edit the required system purpose attributes. For example, set the usage type to Production, the role to Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and add the addon add on.

$ subscription-manager syspurpose set usage 'Production'
$ subscription-manager syspurpose set role 'Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server'
$ subscription-manager syspurpose add addons 'your_addon'

Verify the system purpose attributes for this host:
```
$ subscription-manager syspurpose
```

Editing the system purpose of multiple hosts

You can edit the system purpose attributes of Red Hat Enterprise Linux hosts.

Prerequisites

The hosts that you want to edit must be registered with the subscription-manager.

Procedure

In the orcharhino management UI, navigate to Hosts > Content Hosts and select Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 hosts that you want to edit.
Click the Select Action list and select Manage System Purpose.
Select the system purpose attributes that you want to assign to the selected hosts. You can select one of the following values:
- A specific attribute to set an all selected hosts.
- No Change to keep the attribute set on the selected hosts.
- None (Clear) to clear the attribute on the selected hosts.
Click Assign.

Changing a module stream for a host

If you have a host running Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8, you can modify the module stream for the repositories you install.

You can enable, disable, install, update, and remove module streams from your host in the orcharhino management UI.

Procedure

In the orcharhino management UI, navigate to Hosts > All Hosts.
Click the name of the host you want to modify.
Click the Content tab, then click the Module streams tab.
Click the vertical ellipsis next to the module and select the action you want to perform. You get a REX job notification once the remote execution job is complete.

Enabling custom repositories on content hosts

You can enable all custom repositories on content hosts using the orcharhino management UI.

Procedure

In the orcharhino management UI, navigate to Hosts > All Hosts and select a host.
Select the Content tab, then select Repository sets.
From the dropdown, you can filter the Repository type column to Custom.
Select the desired number of repositories or click the Select All checkbox to select all repositories, then click the vertical ellipsis, and select Override to Enabled.

Changing the content source of a host

A content source is a orcharhino Proxy that a host consumes content from. Use this procedure to change the content source for a host.

Procedure

In the orcharhino management UI, navigate to Hosts > All Hosts.
Click the name of the host you want to modify.
Click the vertical ellipsis icon next to the Edit button and select Change content source.
Select Content Source, Lifecycle Content View, and Content Source from the lists.

Click Change content source.

Some lifecycle environments can be unavailable for selection if they are not synced on the selected content source. For more information, see Adding lifecycle environments to orcharhino Proxy Servers in Managing Content.

You can either complete the content source change using remote execution or manually. To update configuration on host using remote execution, click Run job invocation. For more information about running remote execution jobs, see Configuring and setting up remote jobs in Managing Hosts. To update the content source manually, execute the autogenerated commands from Change content source on the host.

Changing the environment of a host

Use this procedure to change the environment of a host.

Procedure

In the orcharhino management UI, navigate to Hosts > All Hosts.
Click the name of the host you want to modify.
Click the vertical ellipsis in the Content view details card and select Edit content view assignment.
Select the environment.
Select the content view.
Click Save.

Changing the managed status of a host

Hosts provisioned by orcharhino are Managed by default. When a host is set to Managed, you can configure additional host parameters from orcharhino Server. These additional parameters are listed on the Operating System tab. If you change any settings on the Operating System tab, they will not take effect until you set the host to build and reboot it.

If you need to obtain reports about configuration management on systems using an operating system not supported by orcharhino, set the host to Unmanaged.

Procedure

In the orcharhino management UI, navigate to Hosts > All Hosts.
Click the name of the host you want to modify.
Click Edit.
Click Manage host or Unmanage host to change the host’s status.
Click Submit.

Enabling Tracer on a host

Use this procedure to enable Tracer on orcharhino and access Traces. Tracer displays a list of services and applications that need to be restarted. Traces is the output generated by Tracer in the orcharhino management UI.

Prerequisites

orcharhino Client for Red Hat Enterprise Linux repository for the operating system version of the host is synchronized on orcharhino Server, available in the content view and the lifecycle environment of the host, and enabled for the host.
Remote execution is enabled.

Procedure

In the orcharhino management UI, navigate to Hosts > All Hosts.
Click the name of the host you want to modify.
On the Traces tab, click Enable Traces.
Select the provider to install katello-host-tools-tracer from the list.
Click Enable Tracer. You get a REX job notification after the remote execution job is complete.

Restarting applications on a host

Use this procedure to restart applications from the orcharhino management UI.

Procedure

In the orcharhino management UI, navigate to Hosts > All Hosts.
Click the name of the hosts you want to modify.
Select the Traces tab.
Select applications that you want to restart.
Select Restart via remote execution from the Restart app list. You will get a REX job notification once the remote execution job is complete.

Assigning a host to a specific organization

Use this procedure to assign a host to a specific organization. For general information about organizations and how to configure them, see Managing Organizations in Managing Organizations and Locations.

If your host is already registered with a different organization, you must first unregister the host before assigning it to a new organization. To unregister the host, run subscription-manager unregister on the host. After you assign the host to a new organization, you can re-register the host.

Procedure

In the orcharhino management UI, navigate to Hosts > All Hosts.
Select the checkbox of the host you want to change.
From the Select Action list, select Assign Organization. A new option window opens.

From the Select Organization list, select the organization that you want to assign your host to. Select the checkbox Fix Organization on Mismatch.

A mismatch happens if there is a resource associated with a host, such as a domain or subnet, and at the same time not associated with the organization you want to assign the host to. The option Fix Organization on Mismatch will add such a resource to the organization, and is therefore the recommended choice. The option Fail on Mismatch will always result in an error message. For example, reassigning a host from one organization to another will fail, even if there is no actual mismatch in settings.

Click Submit.

Assigning a host to a specific location

Use this procedure to assign a host to a specific location. For general information about locations and how to configure them, see Creating a Location in Managing Content.

Procedure

In the orcharhino management UI, navigate to Hosts > All Hosts.
Select the checkbox of the host you want to change.
From the Select Action list, select Assign Location. A new option window opens.

Navigate to the Select Location list and choose the location that you want for your host. Select the checkbox Fix Location on Mismatch.

A mismatch happens if there is a resource associated with a host, such as a domain or subnet, and at the same time not associated with the location you want to assign the host to. The option Fix Location on Mismatch will add such a resource to the location, and is therefore the recommended choice. The option Fail on Mismatch will always result in an error message. For example, reassigning a host from one location to another will fail, even if there is no actual mismatch in settings.

Click Submit.

Switching between hosts

When you are on a particular host in the orcharhino management UI, you can navigate between hosts without leaving the page by using the host switcher. Click ⇄ next to the hostname. This displays a list of hosts in alphabetical order with a pagination arrow and a search bar to find the host you are looking for.

Viewing host details from a content host

Use this procedure to view the host details page from a content host.

Procedure

In the orcharhino management UI, navigate to Hosts > Content Hosts
Click the content host you want to view.
Select the Details tab to see the host details page.

The cards in the Details tab show details for the System properties, BIOS, Networking interfaces, Operating system, Provisioning templates, and Provisioning. Registered content hosts show additional cards for Registration details, Installed products, and HW properties providing information about Model, Number of CPU(s), Sockets, Cores per socket, and RAM.

Selecting host columns

You can select what columns you want to see in the host table on the Hosts > All Hosts page. For a complete list of host columns, see overview of the host columns.

It is not possible to deselect the Name column. The Name column serves as a primary identification method of the host.

Procedure

In the orcharhino management UI, navigate to Hosts > All Hosts.
Click Manage columns.

Select columns that you want to display. You can select individual columns or column categories. Selecting or deselecting a category selects or deselects all columns in that category.

Some columns are included in more than one category, but you can display a column of a specific type only once. By selecting or deselecting a specific column, you select or deselect all instances of that column.

Verification

You can now see the selected columns in the host table.

Removing a host from orcharhino

Use this procedure to remove a host from orcharhino. To use the CLI instead of the orcharhino management UI, see the CLI procedure.

Procedure

In the orcharhino management UI, navigate to Hosts > All Hosts or Hosts > Content Hosts. Note that there is no difference from what page you remove a host, from All Hosts or Content Hosts. In both cases, orcharhino removes a host completely.
Select the hosts that you want to remove.
From the Select Action list, select Delete Hosts.
Click Submit to remove the host from orcharhino permanently.

By default, the Destroy associated VM on host delete setting is set to no. If a host record that is associated with a virtual machine is deleted, the virtual machine will remain on the compute resource.

To delete a virtual machine on the compute resource, navigate to Administer > Settings and select the Provisioning tab. Setting Destroy associated VM on host delete to yes deletes the virtual machine if the host record that is associated with the virtual machine is deleted. To avoid deleting the virtual machine in this situation, disassociate the virtual machine from orcharhino without removing it from the compute resource or change the setting.

CLI procedure

Delete your host from orcharhino:

$ hammer host delete \
--id My_Host_ID \
--location-id My_Location_ID \
--organization-id My_Organization_ID

Alternatively, you can use --name My_Host_Name instead of --id My_Host_ID.

Disassociating a virtual machine from orcharhino without removing it from a hypervisor

Procedure

In the orcharhino management UI, navigate to Hosts > All Hosts.
Select the checkbox to the left of the hosts that you want to disassociate.
From the Select Action list, click Disassociate Hosts.
Optional: Select the checkbox to keep the hosts for future action.
Click Submit.

Installing the Snapshot Management plugin

You can install the Snapshot Management plugin on your orcharhino.

Procedure

Install the Snapshot Management plugin on your orcharhino Server:

$ orcharhino-installer --enable-foreman-plugin-snapshot-management

Creating snapshots of a host

You can use the Snapshot Management plugin to create snapshots of hosts.

Prerequisites

You have installed the Snapshot Management plugin successfully. For more information, see Installing the Snapshot Management plugin.
Your host is running on VMware vSphere or Proxmox.

Procedure

In the orcharhino management UI, navigate to Hosts > All Hosts and select a host.
In the Snapshots card, click Create Snapshot.
Enter a Name.
Optional: Enter a Description.
Optional: In the Snapshot Mode field, select Memory if you want to include the RAM in your snapshot or Quiesce if you want to ensure the full state of the VM is written to disk before creating the snapshot.
Click Submit to create a snapshot.

Keeping more than three snapshots per host slows down the creation and rollback process. Consider deleting older snapshots when creating new ones.

Lifecycle status of RHEL hosts

orcharhino provides multiple mechanisms to display information about upcoming End of Support (EOS) events for your Red Hat Enterprise Linux hosts:

Notification banner
A column on the Hosts index page
Alert on the Hosts index page for each host that runs Red Hat Enterprise Linux with an upcoming EOS event in a year as well as when support has ended
Ability to Search for hosts by EOS on the Hosts index page
Host status card on the host details page

For any hosts that are not running Red Hat Enterprise Linux, orcharhino displays Unknown in the RHEL Lifecycle status and Last report columns.

EOS notification banner

When either the end of maintenance support or the end of extended lifecycle support approaches in a year, you will see a notification banner in the orcharhino management UI if you have hosts with that Red Hat Enterprise Linux version. The notification provides information about the Red Hat Enterprise Linux version, the number of hosts running that version in your environment, the lifecycle support, and the expiration date. Along with other information, the Red Hat Enterprise Linux lifecycle column is visible in the notification.

Displaying RHEL lifecycle status

You can display the status of the end of support (EOS) for your Red Hat Enterprise Linux hosts in the table on the Hosts index page.

Procedure

In the orcharhino management UI, navigate to Hosts > All Hosts.
Click Manage columns.
Select the Content column to expand it.
Select RHEL Lifecycle status.
Click Save to generate a new column that displays the Red Hat Enterprise Linux lifecycle status.

Host search by RHEL lifecycle status

You can use the Search field to search hosts by rhel_lifecycle_status. It can have one of the following values:

full_support
maintenance_support
approaching_end_of_maintenance
extended_support
approaching_end_of_support
support_ended

Virt-who Configurations

You can access the Virt-who configurations page through the infrastructure menu:

Infrastructure > Virt-who configurations

The Virt-who configurations plugin connects to KVM, RHV, and VMware vSphere hypervisors to count RHEL instances for the purpose of RHEL subscription management.

The Virt-who configurations page is a part of the Virt-who configurations plugin and only exists if this plugin is installed on your orcharhino.

Viewing a List of Existing Virt-Who Configurations

Procedure

Navigate to Infrastructure > Virt-who configurations to view a list of existing Virt-who configurations.
Click the Create Config button to create a new Virt-who configuration.
Click the Help button to view in inbuilt help.
The table lists existing Virt-who configurations.
The Actions menu, you can edit an existing Virt-who configuration and delete an existing Virt-who configuration.

Viewing a Virt-Who Configuration

Procedure

Navigate to Infrastructure > Virt-who configurations and select an existing Virt-who configuration:
Click the Edit button to edit the selected Virt-who configuration.
Click the Delete button to delete the selected Virt-who configuration.
The table displays the status and settings of the selected Virt-who configurations.
Click the Deploy tab to see how to deploy this configuration.

Creating a Virt-Who Configuration

Procedure

Navigate to Infrastructure > Virt-who configurations and click the Create Config button to create a Virt-who configuration:
Enter the name of the Virt-who configuration in the Name field.
Select the type of the hypervisor in the Hypervisor Type drop down menu.
Enter the FQDN of the server in the Hypervisor Server field.
Enter the user name in the Hypervisor Username field.
Enter the corresponding password in the Hypervisor Password field.
Define how often to check the hypervisor for changes in the Interval drop down menu. .
Enter the orcharhino FQDN in the orcharhino server FQDN field.
Select the type of identification from the Hypervisor ID drop down menu. You may choose between its host name, UUID, and HWUUID.
You may optionally choose to filter the access rights of virt-who hypervisors to hosts using the Filtering drop down menu. You can choose to allow or block lists of hosts.
The Enable debugging output checkbox allows you to activate debugging output.
You may optionally enter an HTTP proxy using the HTTP proxy field to connect to the hypervisor.
You may optionally exclude hosts from using the HTTP proxy using the Ignore proxy field.
Click Submit to save your changes to orcharhino.

The text and illustrations on this page are licensed by ATIX AG under a Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike 4.0 International ("CC BY-SA 4.0") license. This page also contains text from the official Foreman documentation which uses the same license ("CC BY-SA 4.0").