Red Hat NETWORK SATELLITE SERVER 4.1.0, Installation Manual, Page: 46 / 80

42 Chapter 6. Importing and Synchronizing
Important
To populate custom channels correctly, you must first populate at least one Red Hat base
channel. The RHN Satellite Synchronization Tool creates the necessary directory struc-
tures and permissions; without these, the custom channel tools will not work properly. For
this reason, you should use these instructions to set up your base channel(s) and then
refer to the RHN Channel Management Guide for steps to establish custom channels.
6.2.1.
satellite-sync
The RHN Satellite Synchronization Tool enables an RHN Satellite Server to update its
database metadata and RPM packages with those of RHN’s central servers, another Satel-
lite within your organization, or local media. To launch it, execute the following command
as root:
satellite-sync
This tool can be used in a a closed environment, such as the one created with a disconnected
install, or it may obtain data directly over the Internet. Closed environment imports can
get their data from downloaded ISOs or from the XML data generated by RHN Satellite
Exporter .
The RHN Satellite Synchronization Tool works incrementally, or in steps. For it to ob-
tain Errata information, it must first know the packages contained. For the packages to be
updated, the tool must first identify the associated channel(s). For this reason, the RHN
Satellite Synchronization Tool performs its actions in the following order:
1.
channel-families
— Import/synchronize channel family (architecture) data.
2.
channels
— Import/synchronize channel data.
3.
rpms
— Import/synchronize RPMs.
4.
packages
— Import/synchronize full package data for those RPMs retrieved suc-
cessfully.
5.
errata
— Import/synchronize Errata information.
Each of these steps can be initiated individually for testing purposes with the effect of forc-
ing the tool to stop when that step is complete. All steps that precede it, however, will have
taken place. Therefore, calling the
rpms
step will automatically ensure the
channels
and
channel-families
steps take place first. To initiate an individual step, use the
--step
option, like so:
satellite-sync
--step= rpms