Red Hat NETWORK SATELLITE 5.3.0 - CHANNEL MANAGEMENT, Reference Manual

Page: 146 / 318

Chapter 7. Red Hat Network Website
134
In traditional file management, you would be required to upload and distribute each file separately,
even if the distinction is nominal and the number of variations is in the hundreds or thousands.
RHN addresses this by allowing the inclusion of macros, or variables, within the configuration files it
manages for Provisioning-entitled systems. In addition to variables for custom system information, the
following standard macros are supported:
• rhn.system.sid
• rhn.system.profile_name
• rhn.system.description
• rhn.system.hostname
• rhn.system.ip_address
• rhn.system.custom_info(key_name)
• rhn.system.net_interface.ip_address(eth_device)
• rhn.system.net_interface.netmask(eth_device)
• rhn.system.net_interface.broadcast(eth_device)
• rhn.system.net_interface.hardware_address(eth_device)
• rhn.system.net_interface.driver_module(eth_device)
To use this powerful feature, either upload or create a configuration file through the
Configuration
Channel Details
page. Then, open its
Configuration File Details
page and include the supported
macros of your choosing. Ensure that the delimiters used to offset your variables match those set in
the
Macro Start Delimiter
and
Macro End Delimiter
fields and do not conflict with other characters
in the file. We recommend that the delimiters be two characters in length and must not contain the
percent (%) symbol.
As an example, you may have a file applicable to all of your servers that differs only in IP address and
hostname. Rather than manage a separate configuration file for each server, you may create a single
file, such as
server.conf
, with the IP address and hostname macros included, like so:
hostname={| rhn.system.hostname |}
ip_address={| rhn.system.net_interface.ip_address(eth0) |}
Upon delivery of the file to individual systems, whether through a scheduled action in the RHN website
or at the command line with the
Red Hat Network Configuration Client
(
rhncfg-client
), the
variables will be replaced with the hostname and IP address of the system, as recorded in RHN's
System Profile. In the above configuration file, for example, the deployed version resembles the
following:
hostname=test.example.domain.com
ip_address=177.18.54.7