Red Hat NETWORK SATELLITE SERVER 4.1.0, Installation Manual

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48 Chapter 6. Importing and Synchronizing
advisories published by RHN must be manually imported and synchronized by the admin-
istrator of the RHN Satellite Server.
During synchronization over the Internet, the
RHN Satellite Synchronization Tool per-
forms the following steps:
1. Connects over SSL to central RHN Servers, authenticates itself as an RHN Satel-
lite Server, and triggers an export of RHN data — unless a local mount point for
RHN-exported data is specified, in which case no connection is necessary. Refer
to Section 6.3.2 Synchronizing Errata and Packages via Local Media for an expla-
nation.
2. Examines the export and identifies differences between the RHN Satellite Server
data set and the exported RHN data set. For a particular channel, the following infor-
mation is analyzed:
•
Channel metadata
•
Metadata of all packages in that channel
•
Metadata for all Errata that affect that channel
Note
All analysis is performed on the RHN Satellite Server; the central RHN Servers
deliver only an export of its channel information and remain ignorant of any details
regarding the RHN Satellite Server.
3. After the analysis of the export data, any differences are imported into the RHN
Satellite Server database. Please note that importing new packages may take variable
lengths of time. For a large update, an import can take many hours.
The
satellite-sync
command can be used in two modes: via RHN and via local media.
6.3.1. Synchronizing Errata and Packages Directly via RHN
For customers who want to sync data as frequently as possible and who can initiate con-
nections outside of their own environments, the satellite sync can be run over the Internet
through SSL. This is the default setting for the satellite sync script. For example:
satellite-sync -c rhel-i386-as-3
This connects to central Red Hat Network Servers and performs the process described
above. Multiple channels can be included by repeating the option. If no channels are spec-
ified, all channels on the Satellite will be refreshed.