Red Hat NETWORK SATELLITE SERVER 4.1.0, Installation Manual

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62 Chapter 8. Maintenance
8.5. Cloning the Satellite with Embedded DB
You may limit outages caused by hardware or other failures by cloning the Satellite with
Embedded Database in its entirety. The secondary Satellite machine can be prepared for
use if the primary fails. To clone the Satellite, perform these tasks:
1. Install RHN Satellite Server with Embedded Database (and a base install of Red Hat
Enterprise Linux AS) on a separate machine, skipping the SSL Certificate generation
step.
2. Back up the primary Satellite’s database daily using the commands described in
Section 8.4.2 Backing up the Database . If this is done, only changes made the day
of the failure will be lost.
3. Establish a mechanism to copy the backup to the secondary Satellite and keep these
repositories synchronized using a file transfer program such as rsync . If you’re using
a SAN, copying isn’t necessary.
4. Use RHN DB Control ’s
restore
option to import the duplicate data.
5. If the primary Satellite fails, transfer the SSL certificates from it to the secondary.
Refer to the Sharing Certificates section of the RHN Client Configuration Guide for
precise instructions.
6. Change DNS to point to the new machine or configure your load balancer appropri-
ately.
8.6. Establishing Redundant Satellites with Stand-Alone
DB
In keeping with the cloning option available to Satellite with Embedded Database, you may
limit outages on Satellites with Stand-Alone Database by preparing redundant Satellites.
Unlike cloning a Satellite with Embedded Database, redundant Satellites with Stand-Alone
Database may be run as active, as well as standby. This is entirely up to your network
topology and is independent of the steps listed here.
To establish this redundancy, first install the primary Satellite normally, except the value
specified in the Common Name field for the SSL certificate must represent your high-
availability configuration, rather than the hostname of the individual server. Then:
1. Prepare the Stand-Alone Database for failover using Oracle’s recommendations for
building a fault-tolerant database. Consult your database administrator.
2. Install RHN Satellite Server with Stand-Alone Database (and a base install of Red
Hat Enterprise Linux AS) on a separate machine, skipping the database configura-
tion, database schema, SSL certificate, and bootstrap script generation steps. Include
the same RHN account and database connection information provided during the
initial Satellite install and register the new Satellite.