Red Hat NETWORK PROXY SERVER 3.7 -, Installation Manual

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6 Chapter 2. Requirements
•
Configuration of the system to accept remote commands and configuration management through
Red Hat Network. Refer to Section 4.2 RHN Proxy Server Installation Process for instructions.
2.2. Hardware Requirements
The following hardware configuration is required for the RHN Proxy Server:
•
Pentium III processor, 1.26GHz, 512K cache or equivalent
•
512 MB of memory
•
3 GB storage for base install of Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS
•
6 GB storage per distribution/channel
Keep in mind, the frequency in which client systems connect to the Proxy is directly related to load
on the Apache HTTP Server. If you do reduce the default interval of four hours (or 240 minutes), as
set in the
/etc/sysconfig/rhn/rhnsd
configuration file of the client systems, you will increase
the load on this component significantly.
2.3. Disk Space Requirements
The caching mechanism used by RHN Proxy Server is the Squid HTTP proxy, which saves signif-
icant bandwidth for the clients. It should have a reasonable amount of space available. The cached
packages are stored in
/var/spool/squid
. The required free space allotment is 6 GB storage per
distribution/channel.
If the RHN Proxy Server is configured to distribute custom, or local packages, make sure that the
/var
mount point on the system storing local packages has sufficient disk space to hold all of the
custom packages, which are stored in
/var/spool/rhn-proxy
. The required disk space for local
packages depends on the number of custom packages served.
2.4. Additional Requirements
The following additional requirements must be met before the RHN Proxy Server installation can be
considered complete:
•
Full Access
Client systems need full network access to the RHN Proxy Server solution’s services and ports.
•
Firewall Rules
The RHN Proxy Server solution can be firewalled from the Internet, but it must be able to issue
outbound connections to the Internet on ports 80 and 443. In addition, if the Proxy will be connected
to an RHN Satellite Server that will be configured to push actions to client systems and the Proxy,
you must allow inbound connections on port 5222.
•
Synchronized System Times
There is great time sensitivity when connecting to a Web server running SSL (Secure Sockets
Layer); it is imperative the time settings on the clients and server are reasonably close together so
the SSL certificate does not expire before or during use. It is recommended Network Time Protocol
(NTP) be used to synchronize the clocks.
•
Fully Qualified Domain Name (FQDN)
The system upon which the RHN Proxy Server will be installed must resolve its own FQDN prop-
erly..