Red Hat NETWORK 3.5 - PROVISIONING, Reference Manual

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4 Chapter 1. What is Red Hat Network?
assign searchable values for that key to each Provisioning-entitled system. For instance, this feature
would allow you to identify the cubicle in which each system is located.
1.5. Errata Notifications and Scheduled Package Installations
You can configure Red Hat Network to send you email notifications of new and updated software
packages as soon as the packages are available through RHN. You receive one email per Errata,
regardless of the number of your systems affected. You can also schedule package installs or package
updates. The benefits include:
•
Reduced time and effort required by system administrators to stay on top of the Red Hat Errata list
•
Minimized security vulnerabilities in your network by providing the patches as soon as Red Hat
releases them
•
Filtered list of package updates (packages not relevant to your network are not included)
•
Reliable method of managing multiple systems with similar configurations
1.6. Security, Quality Assurance, and Red Hat Network
Red Hat Network provides significant benefits to your network including security and quality assur-
ance. All transactions made between you and Red Hat Network are encrypted, and all RPM packages
are signed with Red Hat’s GNU Privacy Guard (GPG) signature to ensure authenticity.
Red Hat Network incorporates the following security measures:
1. Your System Profile available at http://rhn.redhat.com is accessible only with an RHN-verified
username and password.
2. A Digital Certificate is written to the client system after registration and is used to authenticate
the system during each transaction between the client and Red Hat Network. The file is only
readable by the root user on the client system.
3. All notifications and information messages are signed by Red Hat with an electronic signature
using GPG. RPM can be used to verify the authenticity of the package before it is installed.
4. All transactions are encrypted using a Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) connection.
5. All packages are tested and verified by the Red Hat Quality Assurance Team before they are
added to the Red Hat Errata list and Red Hat Network.
Tip
Refer to https://rhn.redhat.com/help/faq/ for a list of Frequently Asked Questions.
1.7. Before You Begin
By default, all the software packages you need to use Red Hat Network are installed with Red Hat
distributions. However, if you chose not to install them during the installation process, you will need
to obtain the
Red Hat Update Agent
(
up2date
) and possibly the
Red Hat Network Registration
Client
(
rhn_register
). In Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3, registration functionality is built into the
Red Hat Update Agent , while Red Hat Enterprise Linux 2.1 users will need the Red Hat Network
Registration Client
.