Reviewing hosts in orcharhino management UI

You can review hosts in the orcharhino management UI to see them in one place and select the columns you need for daily work. When Red Hat Enterprise Linux lifecycle data is available, check it in the same views to plan patches and track compliance.

Browsing hosts in orcharhino management UI

In the orcharhino management UI, you can browse all hosts recognized by orcharhino, grouped by type.

The following host types are available when browsing hosts in the orcharhino management UI:

  • All Hosts – a list of all hosts recognized by orcharhino.

  • Discovered Hosts – a list of bare-metal hosts detected on the provisioning network by the Discovery plugin.

  • Host Collections – a list of user-defined collections of hosts used for bulk actions such as errata installation.

Procedure

  1. Search for a host: Type in the Search field, and use an asterisk (*) to perform a partial string search. For example, if searching for a host named server.example.com, click the All Hosts page and type server* in the Search field. Alternatively, *ver* will also find the host server.example.com.

    orcharhino Server is listed as a host itself even if it is not self-registered. Do not delete orcharhino Server from the list of hosts.

  2. Navigate between hosts: 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.

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.

Selecting host columns

You can select what columns you want to see in the host table on the Hosts > All Hosts page.

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

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

  2. Click Manage columns.

  3. 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.

Lifecycle status of RHEL hosts

With orcharhino, you can monitor the lifecycle status of your hosts by displaying upcoming End of Support (EOS) events. This is useful so that you can quickly identify which hosts require an update or action to maintain support.

orcharhino provides multiple mechanisms to display information about upcoming 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.

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

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

  2. Click Manage columns.

  3. Select the Content column to expand it.

  4. Select RHEL Lifecycle status.

  5. Click Save to generate a new column that displays the Red Hat Enterprise Linux lifecycle status.

  6. Optional: 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

  1. Navigate to Infrastructure > Virt-who configurations to view a list of existing Virt-who configurations.

  2. Click the Create Config button to create a new Virt-who configuration.

  3. Click the Help button to view in inbuilt help.

  4. The table lists existing Virt-who configurations.

  5. The Actions menu, you can edit an existing Virt-who configuration and delete an existing Virt-who configuration.

Viewing a Virt-Who Configuration

Procedure

  1. Navigate to Infrastructure > Virt-who configurations and select an existing Virt-who configuration:

  2. Click the Edit button to edit the selected Virt-who configuration.

  3. Click the Delete button to delete the selected Virt-who configuration.

  4. The table displays the status and settings of the selected Virt-who configurations.

  5. Click the Deploy tab to see how to deploy this configuration.

Creating a Virt-Who Configuration

Procedure

  1. Navigate to Infrastructure > Virt-who configurations and click the Create Config button to create a Virt-who configuration:

  2. Enter the name of the Virt-who configuration in the Name field.

  3. Select the type of the hypervisor in the Hypervisor Type drop down menu.

  4. Enter the FQDN of the server in the Hypervisor Server field.

  5. Enter the user name in the Hypervisor Username field.

  6. Enter the corresponding password in the Hypervisor Password field.

  7. Define how often to check the hypervisor for changes in the Interval drop down menu. .

  8. Enter the orcharhino FQDN in the orcharhino server FQDN field.

  9. Select the type of identification from the Hypervisor ID drop down menu. You may choose between its host name, UUID, and HWUUID.

  10. 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.

  11. The Enable debugging output checkbox allows you to activate debugging output.

  12. You may optionally enter an HTTP proxy using the HTTP proxy field to connect to the hypervisor.

  13. You may optionally exclude hosts from using the HTTP proxy using the Ignore proxy field.

  14. Click Submit to save your changes to orcharhino.

Host global status overview

You can use the host global status in orcharhino to see at a glance whether a host is OK, needs attention (Warning), or has errors. The status appears on the Hosts Overview page and helps you prioritize which hosts to investigate.

The host global status can have one of three possible values: OK, Warning, or Error. You can find global status on the Hosts Overview page. The status displays a small icon next to the host name and has a color that corresponds with the status. Hovering over the icon renders a tooltip with sub-status information to quickly find out more details. To view the global status for a host, in the orcharhino management UI, navigate to Hosts > All Hosts.

OK

No errors were reported by any sub-status. This status is highlighted with the color green.

Warning

While no error was detected, some sub-status raised a warning. For example, there are no configuration management reports for the host even though the host is configured to send reports. It is a good practice to investigate any warnings to ensure that your deployment remains healthy. This status is highlighted with the color yellow.

Error

Some sub-status reports a failure. For example, a run contains some failed resources. This status is highlighted with the color red.

If you want to search for hosts according to their status, use the syntax for searching in orcharhino that is outlined in the Searching and Bookmarking in Administering orcharhino, and then build your searches out by using the following status-related examples:

To search for hosts that have an OK status:

global_status = ok

To search for all hosts that deserve attention:

global_status = error or global_status = warning

Host sub-status overview

You can use host sub-statuses in orcharhino to see the status of specific areas of a host, such as configuration, build, or content. Sub-statuses feed into the global host status and help you pinpoint what needs attention.

To view the sub-statuses of a host, in the orcharhino management UI, navigate to Hosts > All Hosts and click on the host whose full status you want to inspect. You can view the global host status next to the name of the host and the host sub-statuses on the Host status card.

Each sub-status has its own set of possible values that are mapped to the three global status values. With any change of a sub-status, the global status is recalculated and the result is determined by the statuses of all sub-statuses.

The following sub-statuses are available in orcharhino:

Configuration

This sub-status is only relevant if orcharhino uses a configuration management system like Ansible, Puppet, or Salt.

Possible values:

Label Global host status

Alerts disabled

OK

Active

OK

Pending

OK

No changes

OK

No reports

OK / Warning

Out of sync

Warning

Error

Error

Additional information about the values of this sub-status:

  • Active: During the last configuration, some resources were applied.

  • Pending: During the last configuration, some resources would be applied but your configuration management integration was configured to run in noop mode.

  • No changes: During the last configuration, nothing changed.

  • No reports: This can be both a Warning or OK status. When there are no reports but the host uses an associated orcharhino Proxy for configuration management or the always_show_configuration_status setting is set to true, it maps to Warning. Otherwise it maps to OK.

  • Error: This indicates an error during configuration. For example, a configuration run failed to install a package.

  • Out of sync: A configuration report was not received within the expected interval, based on the outofsync_interval setting. Reports are identified by an origin and can have different intervals based upon it.

Build

This sub-status is only relevant for hosts provisioned from orcharhino or hosts registered through global registration.

Possible values:

Label Global host status Number value

Installed

OK

0

Pending installation

OK

1

Token expired

Error

2

Installation error

Error

3
Compliance

Indicates if the host is compliant with OpenSCAP policies.

Possible values:

Label Global host status Number value

Compliant

OK

0

Inconclusive

Warning

1

At least one incompliant

Error

2
Execution

Status of the last completed remote execution job.

Possible values:

Label Global host status Number value

Last execution succeeded / No execution finished yet

OK

0

Last execution failed

Error

1

Unknown execution status

OK

2 or 3

Last execution cancelled

OK

4
Inventory

Indicates if the host is synchronized to Red Hat Hybrid Cloud Console. orcharhino Server performs the synchronization itself but only uploads basic information to Red Hat Hybrid Cloud Console.

Only applies if you have the Red Hat Cloud plugin installed.

Possible values:

Label Global host status Number value

Host was not uploaded to your RH cloud inventory

Warning

0

Successfully uploaded to your RH cloud inventory

OK

1
Insights

Indicates if the host is synchronized to Red Hat Hybrid Cloud Console. This synchronization is performed by the host. The host uploads more information than the orcharhino Server.

Possible values:

Label Global host status Number value

Reporting

OK

0

Not reporting

Error

1
Errata

Indicates if Errata is available on the host.

Possible values:

Label Global host status Number value

Up to date

OK

0

Unknown

Warning

1

Needed errata

Error

2

Needed security errata

Error

3
Traces

Indicates if the host needs a reboot or a process restart.

Possible values:

Label Global host status Number value

Unknown

Warning

-1

Up to date

OK

0

Required process restart

Error

1

Required reboot

Error

2

If you want to search for hosts according to their sub-status, use the syntax for searching in orcharhino that is outlined in the Searching and Bookmarking chapter of the Administering orcharhino guide, and then build your searches out by using the following status-related examples:

You search for hosts' configuration sub-statuses based on their last reported state.

For example, to find hosts that have at least one pending resource:

status.pending > 0

To find hosts that restarted some service during last run:

status.restarted > 0

To find hosts that have an interesting last run that might indicate something has happened:

status.interesting = true

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