Managing Flatpak repositories in orcharhino

Flatpak remotes in orcharhino connect to external application indexes so you can scan available repositories, mirror them into products, and distribute desktop application content to hosts.

Flatpak repositories function similarly to other content repositories in orcharhino. You can synchronize, manage access permissions, and assign repositories to specific lifecycle environments to control which applications are available to hosts. You can also use Hammer CLI to manage Flatpak remotes and repositories.

Flatpak repositories in orcharhino have the docker content type. You can export Flatpak repositories and import them into other orcharhino instances.

You can consume content from orcharhino without registering your hosts to orcharhino and/or without using subscription-manager to consume content, for example, in containerized build pipelines. Any host that consumes content from orcharhino Server or orcharhino Proxy Servers is considered a managed host that requires a valid orcharhino subscription.
Additional resources

Creating a Flatpak remote by using orcharhino management UI

Add a Flatpak remote to your orcharhino inventory to scan it, mirror selected repositories into your products, and distribute desktop application content to hosts.

Prerequisites

  • Your orcharhino account has a role that grants the create_flatpak_remotes permission.

Procedure

  1. In the orcharhino management UI, navigate to Content > Flatpak Remotes.

  2. Click Create new.

  3. In the Name field, enter a name for the Flatpak remote.

  4. In the URL field, enter the URL of the Flatpak remote. For example, to use the Red Hat Flatpak index, enter: https://flatpaks.redhat.io/rhel/. To use the Fedora Flatpak index, enter: https://registry.fedoraproject.org/.

  5. If the Flatpak remote requires authentication, enter the required credentials. For example, synchronizing Red Hat Flatpaks from registry.redhat.io requires authentication. For more information, see Creating Registry Service Accounts.

  6. Click Create.

Creating a Flatpak remote by using Hammer CLI

Add a Flatpak remote to your orcharhino inventory to scan it, mirror selected repositories into your products, and distribute desktop application content to hosts.

Prerequisites

  • Your orcharhino account has a role that grants the create_flatpak_remotes permission.

Procedure

  • Create your Flatpak remote:

    $ hammer flatpak-remote create \
--name My_Flatpak_Remote_Name \
--organization-id My_Organization_ID \
--url My_Flatpak_Remote_URL

    For example, to use the Red Hat Flatpak index, enter: https://flatpaks.redhat.io/rhel/. To use the Fedora Flatpak index, enter: https://registry.fedoraproject.org/.

    If the Flatpak remote requires authentication, enter the required credentials. For example, synchronizing Red Hat Flatpaks from registry.redhat.io requires authentication. For more information, see Creating Registry Service Accounts.

Scanning a Flatpak remote by using orcharhino management UI

Scan a Flatpak remote to discover the repositories its index hosts before you mirror them into products. Rescan the remote when new repositories are added.

Prerequisites

  • A Flatpak remote exists in orcharhino.

  • Your orcharhino account has a role that grants the view_flatpak_remotes and edit_flatpak_remotes permissions.

Procedure

  1. In the orcharhino management UI, navigate to Content > Flatpak Remotes.

  2. Select the Flatpak remote that you want to scan.

  3. Click Scan.

Scanning a Flatpak remote by using Hammer CLI

Scan a Flatpak remote to discover the repositories its index hosts before you mirror them into products. Rescan the remote when new repositories are added.

Prerequisites

  • A Flatpak remote exists in orcharhino.

  • Your orcharhino account has a role that grants the view_flatpak_remotes and edit_flatpak_remotes permissions.

Procedure

  • Scan your Flatpak remote:

    $ hammer flatpak-remote scan --id My_Flatpak_Remote_ID

Viewing Flatpak remote details by using orcharhino management UI

Review the repositories a scanned Flatpak remote provides to decide which ones to mirror into your products.

Prerequisites

  • The Flatpak remote has been scanned.

  • Your orcharhino account has a role that grants the view_flatpak_remotes permission.

Procedure

  1. In the orcharhino management UI, navigate to Content > Flatpak Remotes.

  2. Click the name of the Flatpak remote you want to view.

  3. The page displays a list of repositories available from the scanned Flatpak remote.

Viewing Flatpak remote details by using Hammer CLI

Review the repositories a scanned Flatpak remote provides to decide which ones to mirror into your products.

Prerequisites

  • The Flatpak remote has been scanned.

  • Your orcharhino account has a role that grants the view_flatpak_remotes permission.

Procedure

  • View details of your Flatpak remote:

    $ hammer flatpak-remote info --id My_Flatpak_Remote_ID

Mirroring remote Flatpak repositories to orcharhino products by using orcharhino management UI

Mirror a Flatpak repository from a scanned remote into an existing product so you can synchronize it and publish application content to hosts through content views.

This action creates a new repository inside the product you selected. You can now synchronize the repository to pull down its content. Flatpak repositories are container repositories and you can add them to content views like other container repositories.

Flatpak applications require a corresponding runtime environment, which the Flatpak remote also provides. To make the Rocky Linux 10 Mozilla Firefox Flatpak available to a host, ensure that the host can access the matching rhel10/flatpak-runtime repository.

Prerequisites

  • The Flatpak remote has been scanned.

  • Your orcharhino account has a role that grants the view_flatpak_remotes and edit_flatpak_remotes permissions.

  • You have created a product on orcharhino.

  • Flatpak runtime repositories are available to hosts alongside application repositories. Flatpak applications, such as rhel9/firefox-flatpak, depend on the runtime for installation.

Procedure

  1. In the orcharhino management UI, navigate to Content > Flatpak Remotes.

  2. In the list of Flatpak Remotes, click the name of the remote you want to mirror.

  3. In the list of remote repositories, locate the repository you want to mirror.

  4. Select the Mirror Action menu on the row of the repository.

  5. In the Mirror window, select the existing product where you want to create the new repository.

  6. Click Mirror.

Next steps

Mirroring remote Flatpak repositories to orcharhino products by using Hammer CLI

Mirror a Flatpak repository from a scanned remote into an existing product so you can synchronize it and publish application content to hosts through content views.

This action creates a new repository inside the product you selected. You can now synchronize the repository to pull down its content. Flatpak repositories are container repositories and you can add them to content views like other container repositories.

Flatpak applications require a corresponding runtime environment, which the Flatpak remote also provides. To make the Rocky Linux 10 Mozilla Firefox Flatpak available to a host, ensure that the host can access the matching rhel10/flatpak-runtime repository.

Prerequisites

  • The Flatpak remote has been scanned.

  • Your orcharhino account has a role that grants the view_flatpak_remotes and edit_flatpak_remotes permissions.

  • You have created a product on orcharhino.

  • Flatpak runtime repositories are available to hosts alongside application repositories. Flatpak applications, such as rhel9/firefox-flatpak, depend on the runtime for installation.

Procedure

  • Mirror a Flatpak repository into your product:

    $ hammer flatpak-remote remote-repository mirror \
--flatpak-remote-id My_Flatpak_Remote_ID \
--id My_Flatpak_Repository_ID \
--product-id My_Product_ID
Next steps

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").