Registering hosts and setting up host integration

You must register hosts that have not been provisioned through orcharhino to be able to manage them with orcharhino. You can register hosts through orcharhino Server or orcharhino Proxy Server.

You must also install and configure tools on your hosts, depending on which integration features you want to use. Use the following procedures to install and configure host tools:

Registering a host to orcharhino temporarily adds repository files on your host to install subscription-manager and its dependencies. Those temporary repositories are removed before registering your host to orcharhino. After your host is registered to orcharhino, it has access to the content depending on its activation key.

Supported clients in registration

orcharhino supports the following operating systems and architectures for registration.

Supported host operating systems

The hosts can use the following operating systems:

  • AlmaLinux

  • Amazon Linux

  • CentOS

  • Debian

  • Oracle Linux

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux

  • Rocky Linux

  • SUSE Linux Enterprise Server

  • Ubuntu

Supported host architectures

The hosts can use the following architectures:

Registration methods

You can use the following methods to register hosts to orcharhino:

Global registration

You generate a curl or wget command from orcharhino and run this command from an unlimited number of hosts to register them using provisioning templates over the orcharhino API. For more information, see Registering Hosts by Using Global Registration.

By using this method, you can also deploy orcharhino SSH keys to hosts during registration to orcharhino to enable hosts for remote execution jobs. For more information, see Configuring and Setting Up Remote Jobs.

By using this method, you can also configure hosts with Red Hat Insights during registration to orcharhino. For more information, see Monitoring Hosts Using Red Hat Insights.

Bootstrap script

You download the bootstrap script from orcharhino.example.com/pub/bootstrap.py on the host and then run the script. For more information, see Registering Hosts by Using the Bootstrap Script.

ATIX AG recommends using the Global Registration feature to register existing hosts to orcharhino.

As a fallback, you can use the bootstrap.py script.

Registering hosts by using global registration

You can register a host to orcharhino by generating a curl or wget command on orcharhino and running this command on hosts. This method uses two provisioning templates: Global Registration template and Linux host_init_config default template. That gives you complete control over the host registration process.

You can also customize the default templates if you need greater flexibility. For more information, see Customizing the Registration Templates.

Global parameters for registration

You can configure the following global parameters by navigating to Configure > Global Parameters:

  • The host_registration_insights parameter is used in the insights snippet. If the parameter is set to true, the registration installs and enables the Red Hat Insights client on the host. If the parameter is set to false, it prevents orcharhino and the Red Hat Insights client from uploading Inventory reports to your Red Hat Hybrid Cloud Console. The default value is false. When overriding the parameter value, set the parameter type to boolean.

  • The host_packages parameter is for installing packages on the host.

  • The host_registration_remote_execution parameter is used in the remote_execution_ssh_keys snippet. If it is set to true, the registration enables remote execution on the host. The default value is true.

  • The remote_execution_ssh_keys, remote_execution_ssh_user, remote_execution_create_user, and remote_execution_effective_user_method parameters are used in the remote_execution_ssh_keys snippet. For more details, see the snippet.

  • The skip_unmanaged_repositories_cleanup parameter is used to skip removing unmanaged repositories on hosts. By default, the value is false and orcharhino removes all Yum content as part of the registration process.

    You can navigate to snippets in the orcharhino management UI through Hosts > Templates > Provisioning Templates.

Configuring a host for registration

Configure your host for registration to orcharhino Server or orcharhino Proxy Server. You can use a configuration management tool to configure multiple hosts at once.

Prerequisites

  • The host must be using a supported operating system. For more information, see supported clients in registration.

  • The system clock on your orcharhino Server and any orcharhino Proxy Servers must be synchronized across the network. If the system clock is not synchronized, SSL certificate verification might fail. For example, you can use the Chrony suite for timekeeping.

Procedure

  1. Enable and start a time-synchronization tool on your host. The host must be synchronized with the same NTP server as orcharhino Server and any orcharhino Proxy Servers.

    • On Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 and later:

      $ systemctl enable --now chronyd

    • On Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6:

      $ chkconfig --add ntpd
$ chkconfig ntpd on
$ service ntpd start

  2. Deploy the SSL CA file on your host so that the host can make a secured registration call.

    1. Find where orcharhino stores the SSL CA file by navigating to Administer > Settings > Authentication and locating the value of the SSL CA file setting.

    2. Transfer the SSL CA file to your host securely, for example by using scp.

    3. Login to your host by using SSH.

    4. Copy the certificate to the truststore:

      • On Red Hat Enterprise Linux:

        $ cp My_SSL_CA_file.pem /etc/pki/ca-trust/source/anchors

    5. Update the truststore:

      • On Red Hat Enterprise Linux:

        $ update-ca-trust

ATIX does not support provisioning Red Hat Enterprise Linux hosts using the minimal ISO image because it does not contain the subscription-manager package and its dependencies.

Registering a host

You can register a host by using registration templates and set up various integration features and host tools during the registration process.

Prerequisites

  • Your user account has a role assigned that grants the create_hosts permission.

  • You must have root privileges on the host that you want to register.

  • You have configured the host for registration. For more information, see Configuring a Host for Registration.

  • You must either install curl or wget on the host that you want to register.

  • orcharhino Server, any orcharhino Proxy Servers, and your host must be synchronized with the same NTP server, and have a time synchronization tool enabled and running.

  • An activation key must be available for your host. For more information, see Managing Activation Keys in Managing Content.

  • Optional: If you want to register your host to Red Hat Insights, you must synchronize the rhel-8-for-x86_64-baseos-rpms and rhel-8-for-x86_64-appstream-rpms repositories and make them available in the activation key that you use. This is required to install the insights-client package on your host.

  • orcharhino Client for Red Hat Enterprise Linux repository for the operating system version of the host is synchronized on orcharhino Server and enabled in the activation key you use.

  • If you want to use orcharhino Proxy Servers instead of your orcharhino Server, ensure that you have configured your orcharhino Proxy Servers accordingly. For more information, see Configuring orcharhino Proxy for Host Registration and Provisioning in Installing orcharhino Proxy Server.

  • If your orcharhino Server or orcharhino Proxy Server is behind an HTTP proxy, configure the Subscription Manager on your host to use the HTTP proxy for connection.

  • You have configured the operating system entry on orcharhino for Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

    You can use a script to add operating system entries to your orcharhino Server.

    On your orcharhino Server, uncomment the operating systems and orcharhino Client for Red Hat Enterprise Linux that you want to add in /etc/orcharhino-ansible/or_operating_systems_vars.yaml, replace the default organization and location names, and run /opt/orcharhino/automation/play_operating_systems.sh. For more information, see /usr/share/orcharhino-ansible/README.md on your orcharhino Server.
Procedure

  1. In the orcharhino management UI, navigate to Hosts > Register Host.

  2. Enter the details for how you want the registered hosts to be configured.

  3. On the General tab, in the Activation Keys field, enter one or more activation keys to assign to hosts.

  4. If you want to use wget to register your host to orcharhino, select wget in the Download Utility dropdown. By default, orcharhino generates a curl command.

  5. If your host does not trust the SSL certificate of your orcharhino Server, select the Insecure option. During the first call, your host downloads the CA file from orcharhino. Your host will use this CA file to connect to orcharhino Server with all future calls.

    ATIX AG recommends that you avoid insecure calls.

    If an attacker, located in the network between orcharhino and your host, fetches the CA file from the first insecure call, the attacker will be able to access the content of the API calls to and from your host and the JSON Web Tokens (JWT). Therefore, if you have chosen to deploy SSH keys during registration, the attacker will be able to access your host using the SSH key.

  6. In the Repositories field, click Add repositories for registration.

    On the Repository list window, add content that is required before performing the registration. For example, it can be useful to make the subscription-manager package available for the purpose of the registration.

    • In the Repository field, enter a repository to be added before the registration is performed. For Red Hat Enterprise Linux, enter the path to the orcharhino Client for Red Hat Enterprise Linux repository, for example http://orcharhino.example.com/pulp/content/Example/Library/custom/red_hat_enterprise_linux_client/red_hat_enterprise_linux_client/.

    • Optional: In the Repository GPG key URL field, specify the public key to verify the signatures of GPG-signed packages. It needs to be specified in the ASCII form with the GPG public key header.

    You do not have to specify repositories if you provide them in an activation key. To verify synchronized Yum content, you can use orcharhino API to get associated GPG public keys of repositories. For example, https://orcharhino.example.com/katello/api/v2/repositories/My_Repository_ID/gpg_key_content.

  7. Optional: In the Token lifetime (hours) field, change the validity duration of the JSON Web Token (JWT) that orcharhino uses for authentication. The duration of this token defines how long the generated registration command works. You can set the duration to 0 – 999 999 hours or unlimited.

    Note that orcharhino applies the permissions of the user who generates the registration command to authorization of your host. If the user loses or gains additional permissions, the permissions of the JWT change too. Therefore, do not delete, block, or change permissions of the user during the token duration.

    The scope of the JWTs is limited to the registration endpoints only and cannot be used anywhere else.

  8. Click Generate.

  9. Copy the generated registration command.

  10. On the host that you want to register, run the copied command as root.

CLI procedure

  1. Use the hammer host-registration generate-command to generate the registration command to register the host.

  2. On the host that you want to register, run the registration command as root.

For more information, see the Hammer CLI help with hammer host-registration generate-command --help.

Ansible procedure

  • Use the "`theforeman.foreman`".registration_command module.

For more information, see the Ansible module documentation with ansible-doc "`theforeman.foreman`".registration_command.

API procedure

  • Use the POST /api/registration_commands resource.

For more information, see the full API reference at https://orcharhino.example.com/apidoc/v2.html.

If running remote execution jobs fail on your registered host due to Could not resolve hostname: Name or service not known, disable Ignore interfaces facts for provisioning.

Procedure

  1. In the orcharhino management UI, navigate to Hosts > All hosts.

  2. Locate your registered host and click Edit.

  3. On the Interfaces tab, check if the host has an IP address. If the host has no IP address, continue with this procedure.

  4. In the orcharhino management UI, navigate to Administer > Settings.

  5. On the Facts tab, set Ignore interfaces facts for provisioning to No. This ensures that an IP address is assigned to the host during registration.

Customizing host registration by using snippets

You can customize the registration process by creating snippets with pre-defined names. The Global Registration template includes these snippets automatically. Therefore, you do not have to edit the template.

To add custom steps to registration, create one or both of the following snippets:

before_registration

This snippet is loaded and executed by the Global Registration template before registering your host to orcharhino.

after_registration

This snippet is loaded and executed by the Global Registration template after registering your host to orcharhino.

Ensure you name the snippets precisely. Otherwise, the Global Registration template cannot load them.

Prerequisites

  • Your orcharhino account has a role that grants the permissions view_provisioning_templates, create_provisioning_templates, assign_organizations, and assign_locations.

  • You have selected a particular organization and location context.

Procedure

  1. In the orcharhino management UI, navigate to Hosts > Templates > Provisioning Templates.

  2. Click Create Template.

  3. In the Name field, enter the name of the required snippet: before_registration or after_registration.

  4. In the template editor, create your snippet.

  5. On the Type tab, select Snippet.

  6. On the Locations tab, assign the snippet to required locations.

  7. On the Organizations tab, assign the snippet to required organizations.

  8. Click Submit.

Additional resources

Customizing the registration templates

You can customize the registration process by editing the provisioning templates. Note that all default templates in orcharhino are locked. If you want to customize the registration templates, you must clone the default templates and edit the clones.

ATIX AG only provides support for the original unedited templates. Customized templates do not receive updates released by ATIX AG.

The registration process uses the following provisioning templates:

  • The Global Registration template contains steps for registering hosts to orcharhino. This template renders when hosts access the /register orcharhino API endpoint.

  • The Linux host_init_config default template contains steps for initial configuration of hosts after they are registered.

Procedure

  1. Navigate to Hosts > Templates > Provisioning Templates.

  2. Search for the template you want to edit.

  3. In the row of the required template, click Clone.

  4. Edit the template as needed. For more information, see Template Writing Reference.

  5. Click Submit.

  6. Navigate to Administer > Settings > Provisioning.

  7. Change the following settings as needed:

    • Point the Default Global registration template setting to your custom global registration template,

    • Point the Default 'Host initial configuration' template setting to your custom initial configuration template.

Registering Hosts Using the Bootstrap Script

orcharhino comes with a bootstrap.py script to register existing hosts to orcharhino. It is available on your orcharhino Server at https://orcharhino.example.com/pub/bootstrap.py.

ATIX AG recommends creating a backup or snapshot of your host before running the bootstrap script.

Prerequisites

  • You need root access on any hosts you want to register to orcharhino.

  • Hosts need to be able to communicate with orcharhino Server or orcharhino Proxy Servers through HTTP(S).

  • If you use a self-signed certificate on your orcharhino, ensure that hosts trust the SSL certificate before running the bootstrap.py script.

  • You have created an activation key for the host that contains the necessary software content. For more information, see Creating an Activation Key.

  • You have configured a host group to manage the hosts through orcharhino. For more information, see Creating a Host Group.

    Ensure to select a host group without any predefined deploy on compute resource. Otherwise, registering an existing host starts deploying a new host to the compute resource selected in the deploy on drop down menu.

  • Your host has access to the BaseOS repository that provides subscription-manager and its dependencies.

Procedure

  1. Download the bootstrap.py script using wget:

    $ wget https://orcharhino.example.com/pub/bootstrap.py

  2. Use the --help option to display a list of mandatory options:

    $ python bootstrap.py --help

  3. Register an existing host to orcharhino:

    $ ./bootstrap.py \
--fqdn "my-host.example.com" \
--skip "puppet" \
-L "Munich" \
-a "red_hat_enterprise_linux" \
-g "Red Hat Enterprise Linux" \
-l "admin" \
-o "Example" \
-p "password" \
-s "orcharhino.example.com"

    You can provide multiple dependency repositories and GPG public keys for dependency repositories. Ensure that the number and order of the GPG public keys matches the number and order of the repository URLs.

    • Optional: Add further instances of --deps-repository-url and --deps-repository-gpg-key if you require additional dependency repositories.

    • Use --fqdn to specify the FQDN of the new host, for example --fqdn my-host.example.com.

    • Use -L to specify the location, for example -L Munich.

    • Use -a to specify the activation key, for example -a red_hat_enterprise_linux or -a red_hat_enterprise_linux_puppet.

    • Use -g to add the host to a host group, for example -g "Red Hat Enterprise Linux with Puppet".

    • Use -l to specify your orcharhino user, for example -l admin.

    • Use -o to specify your organization, for example -o Example.

    • Use -p to specify your corresponding password, for example -p password.

    • Use -s to specify your orcharhino FQDN, for example -s orcharhino.example.com.

    • Optional: Use --skip "puppet" to skip the installation of Puppet.

      You can use additional options to have orcharhino manage DHCP, provisioning, and configuration management for your existing host.

Using a Custom User for Remote Execution for bootstrap.py

If you set the remote execution user, you must create that user prior to running the bootstrap.py script on the host.

Procedure

  1. Install sudo on your managed host:

    $ dnf install -y sudo

  2. Add your custom user:

    $ useradd -m My_Custom_User

  3. Set up SSH for your custom user:

    $ mkdir -p ~My_Custom_User/.ssh
$ chmod 0700 ~My_Custom_User/.ssh
$ chown -R My_Custom_User: ~My_Custom_User/.ssh

  4. Add your custom user to the sudoers file:

    $ echo "My_Custom_User ALL = (root) NOPASSWD : ALL" >> /etc/sudoers
$ echo "Defaults:_My_Custom_User_ My_Custom_User_Password" >> /etc/sudoers

  5. Run the bootstrap.py script:

    $ ./bootstrap.py --force

    Add required flags and options as described in Registering Hosts Using the Bootstrap Script.

Associating Registered Hosts with a Compute Resource

If you register hosts to orcharhino using the bootstrap.py script, the hosts are not automatically associated with their compute resource. You have to manually disassociate the host and then reassociate it again.

Procedure

  1. Navigate to Hosts > All Hosts and select your host.

  2. In the Select Action menu, click Disassociate Hosts.

  3. Navigate to Infrastructure > Compute Resources and select your compute resource.

  4. Click Associate VMs.

  5. In case your orcharhino Server or orcharhino Proxies run on the same compute resource, disassociate the VMs on the All Hosts page again.

Adding SSH Keys for Remote Execution

Add the SSH public key from orcharhino to your managed hosts to use remote execution and to patch your hosts.

Procedure

  1. Create the required directory:

    $ mkdir -p ~root/.ssh

  2. Add the SSH public key from your orcharhino:

    $ cat << EOF >> ~root/.ssh/authorized_keys
ssh-rsa My_SSH_Public_Key foreman-proxy@orcharhino.example.com
EOF

    Ensure that you use a user with root privileges. This can either be root or any user being part of the sudo group.

Associating Registered Hosts with a Compute Resource

If you register hosts to orcharhino manually, the hosts are not automatically associated with their compute resource. You have to manually enter networking information before you can associate the VMs.

Procedure

  1. On your managed hosts, view the MAC address, IP address, and device identifier of the network interface providing a connection to your orcharhino:

    $ ip a

  2. Navigate to Hosts > All Hosts, select your host, and click Edit.

  3. On the Interfaces tab, click Edit and enter the MAC address, IPv4 address, and the device identifier.

  4. Click Submit to save your changes.

  5. Navigate to Hosts > All hosts and tick the checkbox of your host.

  6. In the Select Action drop down menu, click Disassociate Hosts.

  7. Navigate to Infrastructure > Compute Resources and select the compute resource your host runs on.

  8. On the Compute Resources tab, click Associate VMs.

  9. Optional: Navigate to Hosts > All Hosts, select your host, and verify your change by changing the power status of the host.

Installing Tracer

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

Prerequisites

  • The host is registered to orcharhino.

  • 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.

Procedure

  1. On your host, install the katello-host-tools-tracer package:

    $ dnf install katello-host-tools-tracer

  2. Upload the Tracer data to orcharhino:

    $ katello-tracer-upload
Verification

  1. In the orcharhino management UI, navigate to Hosts > All Hosts.

  2. Select your host.

  3. On the Traces tab, verify that orcharhino management UI shows No applications to restart.

Installing and configuring Puppet agent during host registration

You can install and configure the Puppet agent on the host during registration. A configured Puppet agent is required on the host for Puppet integration with your orcharhino. For more information about Puppet, see Configuring Hosts Using Puppet.

Prerequisites

  • Puppet must be enabled in your orcharhino. For more information, see Enabling Puppet integration with orcharhino in Configuring Hosts Using Puppet.

  • You created a product and repository containing the Puppet agent and synchronized the repository to orcharhino. For more information, see Importing content in Managing Content.

  • You created an activation key that enables the Puppet agent repository for hosts. For more information, see Managing activation keys in Managing Content.

Procedure

  1. In the orcharhino management UI, navigate to Configure > Global Parameters to add host parameters globally. Alternatively, you can navigate to Configure > Host Groups and edit or create a host group to add host parameters only to a host group.

  2. Enable the Puppet agent using a host parameter in global parameters or a host group.

    • To use Puppet 8, add a host parameter named enable-puppet8, select the boolean type, and set the value to true.

    • To use Puppet 7, add a host parameter named enable-puppet7, select the boolean type, and set the value to true.

  3. Specify configuration for the Puppet agent using the following host parameters in global parameters or a host group:

    • Add a host parameter named puppet_server, select the string type, and set the value to the hostname of your Puppet server, such as puppet.example.com.

    • Optional: Add a host parameter named puppet_ca_server, select the string type, and set the value to the hostname of your Puppet CA server, such as puppet-ca.example.com. If puppet_ca_server is not set, the Puppet agent will use the same server as puppet_server.

    • Optional: Add a host parameter named puppet_environment, select the string type, and set the value to the Puppet environment you want the host to use.

  4. Navigate to Hosts > Register Host and register your host using an appropriate activation key. For more information, see Registering Hosts in Managing Hosts.

  5. Navigate to Infrastructure > orcharhino Proxies.

  6. From the list in the Actions column for the required orcharhino Proxy Server, select Certificates.

  7. Click Sign to the right of the required host to sign the SSL certificate for the Puppet agent.

Installing and configuring Puppet agent manually

You can install and configure the Puppet agent on a host manually. A configured Puppet agent is required on the host for Puppet integration with your orcharhino. For more information about Puppet, see Configuring Hosts Using Puppet.

Prerequisites
Procedure

  1. Log in to the host as the root user.

  2. Install the Puppet agent package:

    $ dnf install puppet-agent

  3. Add the Puppet agent to PATH in your current shell using the following script:

    . /etc/profile.d/puppet-agent.sh

  4. Configure the Puppet agent. Set the environment parameter to the name of the Puppet environment to which the host belongs:

    $ puppet config set server orcharhino.example.com --section agent
$ puppet config set environment My_Puppet_Environment --section agent

  5. Start the Puppet agent service:

    $ puppet resource service puppet ensure=running enable=true

  6. Create a certificate for the host:

    $ puppet ssl bootstrap

  7. In the orcharhino management UI, navigate to Infrastructure > orcharhino Proxies.

  8. From the list in the Actions column for the required orcharhino Proxy Server, select Certificates.

  9. Click Sign to the right of the required host to sign the SSL certificate for the Puppet agent.

  10. On the host, run the Puppet agent again:

    $ puppet ssl bootstrap

Running Ansible roles during host registration

You can run Ansible roles when you are registering a host to orcharhino.

Prerequisites
Procedure

  1. Create a host group with Ansible roles. For more information, see Creating a Host Group.

  2. Register the host by using the host group with assigned Ansible roles. For more information, see registering a host.

Using custom SSL certificate for hosts

You can use custom SSL certificate on your hosts to enable encrypted communications between orcharhino Server, orcharhino Proxy Server, and hosts. Before deploying it to your hosts, ensure that you have configured the custom SSL certificate to your orcharhino Server.

Deploying a custom SSL certificate to hosts

After you configure orcharhino to use a custom SSL certificate, you must deploy the certificate to hosts registered to orcharhino.

Procedure

  • Update the SSL certificate on each host:

    $ dnf install http://orcharhino.example.com/pub/katello-ca-consumer-latest.noarch.rpm

Resetting custom SSL certificate to default self-signed certificate on hosts

To reset the custom SSL certificate on your hosts to default self-signed certificate, you must re-register your hosts through Global Registration. For more information, see Registering Hosts by Using Global Registration.

Additional Resources

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").