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Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5

Deployment Guide

Deployment, configuration and administration of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5

Edition 8

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Abstract
The Deployment Guide documents relevant information regarding the deployment, configuration, and administration of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.

Introduction
1. Document Conventions
2. Send in Your Feedback
I. File Systems
1. File System Structure
1.1. Why Share a Common Structure?
1.2. Overview of File System Hierarchy Standard (FHS)
1.2.1. FHS Organization
1.3. Special File Locations Under Red Hat Enterprise Linux
2. Using the mount Command
2.1. Listing Currently Mounted File Systems
2.2. Mounting a File System
2.2.1. Specifying the File System Type
2.2.2. Specifying the Mount Options
2.2.3. Sharing Mounts
2.2.4. Moving a Mount Point
2.3. Unmounting a File System
2.4. Additional Resources
2.4.1. Installed Documentation
2.4.2. Useful Websites
3. The ext3 File System
3.1. Features of ext3
3.2. Creating an ext3 File System
3.3. Converting to an ext3 File System
3.4. Reverting to an ext2 File System
4. The proc File System
4.1. A Virtual File System
4.1.1. Viewing Virtual Files
4.1.2. Changing Virtual Files
4.2. Top-level Files within the proc File System
4.2.1. /proc/apm
4.2.2. /proc/buddyinfo
4.2.3. /proc/cmdline
4.2.4. /proc/cpuinfo
4.2.5. /proc/crypto
4.2.6. /proc/devices
4.2.7. /proc/dma
4.2.8. /proc/execdomains
4.2.9. /proc/fb
4.2.10. /proc/filesystems
4.2.11. /proc/interrupts
4.2.12. /proc/iomem
4.2.13. /proc/ioports
4.2.14. /proc/kcore
4.2.15. /proc/kmsg
4.2.16. /proc/loadavg
4.2.17. /proc/locks
4.2.18. /proc/mdstat
4.2.19. /proc/meminfo
4.2.20. /proc/misc
4.2.21. /proc/modules
4.2.22. /proc/mounts
4.2.23. /proc/mtrr
4.2.24. /proc/partitions
4.2.25. /proc/pci
4.2.26. /proc/slabinfo
4.2.27. /proc/stat
4.2.28. /proc/swaps
4.2.29. /proc/sysrq-trigger
4.2.30. /proc/uptime
4.2.31. /proc/version
4.3. Directories within /proc/
4.3.1. Process Directories
4.3.2. /proc/bus/
4.3.3. /proc/driver/
4.3.4. /proc/fs
4.3.5. /proc/ide/
4.3.6. /proc/irq/
4.3.7. /proc/net/
4.3.8. /proc/scsi/
4.3.9. /proc/sys/
4.3.10. /proc/sysvipc/
4.3.11. /proc/tty/
4.3.12. /proc/<PID>/
4.4. Using the sysctl Command
4.5. Additional Resources
4.5.1. Installed Documentation
4.5.2. Useful Websites
5. Redundant Array of Independent Disks (RAID)
5.1. What is RAID?
5.1.1. Who Should Use RAID?
5.1.2. Hardware RAID versus Software RAID
5.1.3. RAID Levels and Linear Support
5.2. Configuring Software RAID
5.2.1. Creating the RAID Partitions
5.2.2. Creating the RAID Devices and Mount Points
5.3. Managing Software RAID
5.3.1. Reviewing RAID Configuration
5.3.2. Creating a New RAID Device
5.3.3. Replacing a Faulty Device
5.3.4. Extending a RAID Device
5.3.5. Removing a RAID Device
5.3.6. Preserving the Configuration
5.4. Additional Resources
5.4.1. Installed Documentation
6. Swap Space
6.1. What is Swap Space?
6.2. Adding Swap Space
6.2.1. Extending Swap on an LVM2 Logical Volume
6.2.2. Creating an LVM2 Logical Volume for Swap
6.2.3. Creating a Swap File
6.3. Removing Swap Space
6.3.1. Reducing Swap on an LVM2 Logical Volume
6.3.2. Removing an LVM2 Logical Volume for Swap
6.3.3. Removing a Swap File
6.4. Moving Swap Space
7. Managing Disk Storage
7.1. Standard Partitions using parted
7.1.1. Viewing the Partition Table
7.1.2. Creating a Partition
7.1.3. Removing a Partition
7.1.4. Resizing a Partition
7.2. LVM Partition Management
8. Implementing Disk Quotas
8.1. Configuring Disk Quotas
8.1.1. Enabling Quotas
8.1.2. Remounting the File Systems
8.1.3. Creating the Quota Database Files
8.1.4. Assigning Quotas per User
8.1.5. Assigning Quotas per Group
8.1.6. Setting the Grace Period for Soft Limits
8.2. Managing Disk Quotas
8.2.1. Enabling and Disabling
8.2.2. Reporting on Disk Quotas
8.2.3. Keeping Quotas Accurate
8.3. Additional Resources
8.3.1. Installed Documentation
8.3.2. Related Books
9. Access Control Lists
9.1. Mounting File Systems
9.1.1. NFS
9.2. Setting Access ACLs
9.3. Setting Default ACLs
9.4. Retrieving ACLs
9.5. Archiving File Systems With ACLs
9.6. Compatibility with Older Systems
9.7. Additional Resources
9.7.1. Installed Documentation
9.7.2. Useful Websites
10. LVM (Logical Volume Manager)
10.1. What is LVM?
10.1.1. What is LVM2?
10.2. LVM Configuration
10.3. Automatic Partitioning
10.4. Manual LVM Partitioning
10.4.1. Creating the /boot Partition
10.4.2. Creating the LVM Physical Volumes
10.4.3. Creating the LVM Volume Groups
10.4.4. Creating the LVM Logical Volumes
10.5. Using the LVM utility system-config-lvm
10.5.1. Utilizing uninitialized entities
10.5.2. Adding Unallocated Volumes to a volume group
10.5.3. Migrating extents
10.5.4. Adding a new hard disk using LVM
10.5.5. Adding a new volume group
10.5.6. Extending a volume group
10.5.7. Editing a Logical Volume
10.6. Additional Resources
10.6.1. Installed Documentation
10.6.2. Useful Websites
II. Package Management
11. Package Management with RPM
11.1. RPM Design Goals
11.2. Using RPM
11.2.1. Finding RPM Packages
11.2.2. Installing
11.2.3. Uninstalling
11.2.4. Upgrading
11.2.5. Freshening
11.2.6. Querying
11.2.7. Verifying
11.3. Checking a Package's Signature
11.3.1. Importing Keys
11.3.2. Verifying Signature of Packages
11.4. Practical and Common Examples of RPM Usage
11.5. Additional Resources
11.5.1. Installed Documentation
11.5.2. Useful Websites
11.5.3. Related Books
12. Package Management Tool
12.1. Listing and Analyzing Packages
12.2. Installing and Removing Packages
13. YUM (Yellowdog Updater Modified)
13.1. Setting Up a Yum Repository
13.2. yum Commands
13.3. yum Options
13.4. Configuring yum
13.4.1. [main] Options
13.4.2. [repository] Options
13.5. Useful yum Variables
14. Product Subscriptions and Entitlements
14.1. An Overview of Managing Subscriptions and Content
14.1.1. The Purpose of Subscription Management
14.1.2. Defining Subscriptions, Entitlements, and Products
14.1.3. Subscription Management Tools
14.1.4. Subscription and Content Architecture
14.1.5. Advanced Content Management: Extended Update Support
14.1.6. Certificate-based Red Hat Network versus RHN Classic
14.2. Using Red Hat Subscription Manager Tools
14.2.1. Launching Red Hat Subscription Manager
14.2.2. About subscription-manager
14.2.3. Looking at RHN Subscription Management
14.2.4. Looking at Subscription Asset Manager
14.3. Managing Special Deployment Scenarios
14.3.1. Local Subscription Services, Local Content Providers, and Multi-Tenant Organizations
14.3.2. Virtual Guests and Hosts
14.3.3. Domains
14.4. Registering, Unregistering, and Reregistering a System
14.4.1. Registering Consumers in the Hosted Environment
14.4.2. Registering Consumers to a Local Distributor (Organization)
14.4.3. Registering an Offline Consumer
14.4.4. Registering from the Command Line
14.4.5. Unregistering
14.4.6. Restoring a Registration
14.5. Migrating Systems from RHN Classic to Certificate-based Red Hat Network
14.5.1. Installing the Migration Tools
14.5.2. Migrating from RHN Classic to Certificate-based Red Hat Network
14.5.3. Unregistering from RHN Classic Only
14.5.4. Migrating a Disconnected System
14.5.5. Looking at Channel and Certificate Mappings
14.6. Handling Subscriptions
14.6.1. Subscribing and Unsubscribing through the GUI
14.6.2. Handling Subscriptions through the Command Line
14.6.3. Stacking Subscriptions
14.6.4. Manually Adding a New Subscription
14.7. Redeeming Subscriptions on a Machine
14.7.1. Redeeming Subscriptions through the GUI
14.7.2. Redeeming Subscriptions on a Machine through the Command Line
14.8. Viewing Available and Used Subscriptions
14.8.1. Viewing Subscriptions in the GUI
14.8.2. Listing Subscriptions with the Command Line
14.8.3. Viewing Subscriptions Used in Both RHN Classic and Certificate-based Red Hat Network
14.9. Working with Subscription yum Repos
14.10. Responding to Subscription Notifications
14.11. Changing the Healing Check Frequency
14.12. Working with Subscription Asset Manager
14.12.1. Configuring Subscription Manager to Work with Subscription Asset Manager
14.12.2. Viewing Organization Information
14.13. Updating Entitlements Certificates
14.13.1. Updating Entitlement Certificates
14.13.2. Updating Subscription Information
14.14. Configuring the Subscription Service
14.14.1. Red Hat Subscription Manager Configuration Files
14.14.2. Using the config Command
14.14.3. Using an HTTP Proxy
14.14.4. Changing the Subscription Server
14.14.5. Configuring Red Hat Subscription Manager to Use a Local Content Provider
14.14.6. Managing Secure Connections to the Subscription Server
14.14.7. Starting and Stopping the Subscription Service
14.14.8. Checking Logs
14.14.9. Checking and Adding System Facts
14.14.10. Regenerating Identity Certificates
14.14.11. Getting the System UUID
14.14.12. Viewing Package Profiles
14.14.13. Retrieving the Consumer ID, Registration Tokens, and Other Information
14.15. About Certificates and Managing Entitlements
14.15.1. The Structure of Identity Certificates
14.15.2. The Structure of Entitlement Certificates
14.15.3. The Structure of Product Certificates
14.15.4. Anatomy of Satellite Certificates
III. Network-Related Configuration
15. Network Interfaces
15.1. Network Configuration Files
15.2. Interface Configuration Files
15.2.1. Ethernet Interfaces
15.2.2. IPsec Interfaces
15.2.3. Channel Bonding Interfaces
15.2.4. Alias and Clone Files
15.2.5. Dialup Interfaces
15.2.6. Other Interfaces
15.3. Interface Control Scripts
15.4. Configuring Static Routes
15.5. Network Function Files
15.6. Additional Resources
15.6.1. Installed Documentation
16. Network Configuration
16.1. Overview
16.2. Establishing an Ethernet Connection
16.3. Establishing an ISDN Connection
16.4. Establishing a Modem Connection
16.5. Establishing an xDSL Connection
16.6. Establishing a Token Ring Connection
16.7. Establishing a Wireless Connection
16.8. Managing DNS Settings
16.9. Managing Hosts
16.10. Working with Profiles
16.11. Device Aliases
16.12. Saving and Restoring the Network Configuration
17. Controlling Access to Services
17.1. Runlevels
17.2. TCP Wrappers
17.2.1. xinetd
17.3. Services Configuration Tool
17.4. ntsysv
17.5. chkconfig
17.6. Additional Resources
17.6.1. Installed Documentation
17.6.2. Useful Websites
18. Berkeley Internet Name Domain (BIND)
18.1. Introduction to DNS
18.1.1. Nameserver Zones
18.1.2. Nameserver Types
18.1.3. BIND as a Nameserver
18.2. /etc/named.conf
18.2.1. Common Statement Types
18.2.2. Other Statement Types
18.2.3. Comment Tags
18.3. Zone Files
18.3.1. Zone File Directives
18.3.2. Zone File Resource Records
18.3.3. Example Zone File
18.3.4. Reverse Name Resolution Zone Files
18.4. Using rndc
18.4.1. Configuring /etc/named.conf
18.4.2. Configuring /etc/rndc.conf
18.4.3. Command Line Options
18.5. Advanced Features of BIND
18.5.1. DNS Protocol Enhancements
18.5.2. Multiple Views
18.5.3. Security
18.5.4. IP version 6
18.6. Common Mistakes to Avoid
18.7. Additional Resources
18.7.1. Installed Documentation
18.7.2. Useful Websites
18.7.3. Related Books
19. OpenSSH
19.1. Features of SSH
19.1.1. Why Use SSH?
19.2. SSH Protocol Versions
19.3. Event Sequence of an SSH Connection
19.3.1. Transport Layer
19.3.2. Authentication
19.3.3. Channels
19.4. Configuring an OpenSSH Server
19.4.1. Requiring SSH for Remote Connections
19.5. OpenSSH Configuration Files
19.6. Configuring an OpenSSH Client
19.6.1. Using the ssh Command
19.6.2. Using the scp Command
19.6.3. Using the sftp Command
19.7. More Than a Secure Shell
19.7.1. X11 Forwarding
19.7.2. Port Forwarding
19.7.3. Generating Key Pairs
19.8. Additional Resources
19.8.1. Installed Documentation
19.8.2. Useful Websites
20. Network File System (NFS)
20.1. How It Works
20.1.1. Required Services
20.2. NFS Client Configuration
20.2.1. Mounting NFS File Systems using /etc/fstab
20.3. autofs
20.3.1. What's new in autofs version 5?
20.3.2. autofs Configuration
20.3.3. autofs Common Tasks
20.4. Common NFS Mount Options
20.5. Starting and Stopping NFS
20.6. NFS Server Configuration
20.6.1. Exporting or Sharing NFS File Systems
20.6.2. Command Line Configuration
20.6.3. Running NFS Behind a Firewall
20.6.4. Hostname Formats
20.7. The /etc/exports Configuration File
20.7.1. The exportfs Command
20.8. Securing NFS
20.8.1. Host Access
20.8.2. File Permissions
20.9. NFS and portmap
20.9.1. Troubleshooting NFS and portmap
20.10. Using NFS over TCP
20.11. Additional Resources
20.11.1. Installed Documentation
20.11.2. Useful Websites
20.11.3. Related Books
21. Samba
21.1. Introduction to Samba
21.1.1. Samba Features
21.2. Samba Daemons and Related Services
21.2.1. Samba Daemons
21.3. Connecting to a Samba Share
21.3.1. Command Line
21.3.2. Mounting the Share
21.4. Configuring a Samba Server
21.4.1. Graphical Configuration
21.4.2. Command Line Configuration
21.4.3. Encrypted Passwords
21.5. Starting and Stopping Samba
21.6. Samba Server Types and the smb.conf File
21.6.1. Stand-alone Server
21.6.2. Domain Member Server
21.6.3. Domain Controller
21.7. Samba Security Modes
21.7.1. User-Level Security
21.7.2. Share-Level Security
21.8. Samba Account Information Databases
21.9. Samba Network Browsing
21.9.1. Domain Browsing
21.9.2. WINS (Windows Internetworking Name Server)
21.10. Samba with CUPS Printing Support
21.10.1. Simple smb.conf Settings
21.11. Samba Distribution Programs
21.12. Additional Resources
21.12.1. Installed Documentation
21.12.2. Related Books
21.12.3. Useful Websites
22. Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP)
22.1. Why Use DHCP?
22.2. Configuring a DHCP Server
22.2.1. Configuration File
22.2.2. Lease Database
22.2.3. Starting and Stopping the Server
22.2.4. DHCP Relay Agent
22.3. Configuring a DHCP Client
22.4. Configuring a Multihomed DHCP Server
22.4.1. Host Configuration
22.5. Additional Resources
22.5.1. Installed Documentation
23. Apache HTTP Server
23.1. Apache HTTP Server 2.2
23.1.1. Features of Apache HTTP Server 2.2
23.2. Migrating Apache HTTP Server Configuration Files
23.2.1. Migrating Apache HTTP Server 2.0 Configuration Files
23.2.2. Migrating Apache HTTP Server 1.3 Configuration Files to 2.0
23.3. Starting and Stopping httpd
23.4. Apache HTTP Server Configuration
23.4.1. Basic Settings
23.4.2. Default Settings
23.5. Configuration Directives in httpd.conf
23.5.1. General Configuration Tips
23.5.2. Configuration Directives for SSL
23.5.3. MPM Specific Server-Pool Directives
23.6. Adding Modules
23.7. Virtual Hosts
23.7.1. Setting Up Virtual Hosts
23.8. Apache HTTP Secure Server Configuration
23.8.1. An Overview of Security-Related Packages
23.8.2. An Overview of Certificates and Security
23.8.3. Using Pre-Existing Keys and Certificates
23.8.4. Types of Certificates
23.8.5. Generating a Key
23.8.6. How to configure the server to use the new key
23.9. Additional Resources
23.9.1. Useful Websites
24. FTP
24.1. The File Transfer Protocol
24.1.1. Multiple Ports, Multiple Modes
24.2. FTP Servers
24.2.1. vsftpd
24.3. Files Installed with vsftpd
24.4. Starting and Stopping vsftpd
24.4.1. Starting Multiple Copies of vsftpd
24.5. vsftpd Configuration Options
24.5.1. Daemon Options
24.5.2. Log In Options and Access Controls
24.5.3. Anonymous User Options
24.5.4. Local User Options
24.5.5. Directory Options
24.5.6. File Transfer Options
24.5.7. Logging Options
24.5.8. Network Options
24.6. Additional Resources
24.6.1. Installed Documentation
24.6.2. Useful Websites
25. Email
25.1. Email Protocols
25.1.1. Mail Transport Protocols
25.1.2. Mail Access Protocols
25.2. Email Program Classifications
25.2.1. Mail Transport Agent
25.2.2. Mail Delivery Agent
25.2.3. Mail User Agent
25.3. Mail Transport Agents
25.3.1. Sendmail
25.3.2. Postfix
25.3.3. Fetchmail
25.4. Mail Transport Agent (MTA) Configuration
25.5. Mail Delivery Agents
25.5.1. Procmail Configuration
25.5.2. Procmail Recipes
25.6. Mail User Agents
25.6.1. Securing Communication
25.7. Additional Resources
25.7.1. Installed Documentation
25.7.2. Useful Websites
25.7.3. Related Books
26. Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP)
26.1. Why Use LDAP?
26.1.1. OpenLDAP Features
26.2. LDAP Terminology
26.3. OpenLDAP Daemons and Utilities
26.3.1. NSS, PAM, and LDAP
26.3.2. PHP4, LDAP, and the Apache HTTP Server
26.3.3. LDAP Client Applications
26.4. OpenLDAP Configuration Files
26.5. The /etc/openldap/schema/ Directory
26.6. OpenLDAP Setup Overview
26.6.1. Editing /etc/openldap/slapd.conf
26.7. Configuring a System to Authenticate Using OpenLDAP
26.7.1. PAM and LDAP
26.7.2. Migrating Old Authentication Information to LDAP Format
26.8. Migrating Directories from Earlier Releases
26.9. Additional Resources
26.9.1. Installed Documentation
26.9.2. Useful Websites
26.9.3. Related Books
27. Authentication Configuration
27.1. User Information
27.2. Authentication
27.3. Options
27.4. Command Line Version
28. Using and Caching Credentials with SSSD
28.1. About the sssd.conf File
28.2. Starting and Stopping SSSD
28.3. Configuring Services
28.3.1. Configuring the NSS Service
28.3.2. Configuring the PAM Service
28.4. Creating Domains
28.4.1. General Rules and Options for Configuring a Domain
28.4.2. Configuring an LDAP Domain
28.4.3. Configuring Kerberos Authentication with a Domain
28.4.4. Configuring a Proxy Domain
28.5. Configuring Access Control for SSSD Domains
28.5.1. Using the Simple Access Provider
28.5.2. Using the LDAP Access Filter
28.6. Configuring Domain Failover
28.6.1. Configuring Failover
28.6.2. Using SRV Records with Failover
28.7. Deleting Domain Cache Files
28.8. Using NSCD with SSSD
28.9. Troubleshooting SSSD
28.9.1. Using SSSD Log Files
28.9.2. Problems with SSSD Configuration
IV. System Configuration
29. Console Access
29.1. Disabling Shutdown Via Ctrl+Alt+Del
29.2. Disabling Console Program Access
29.3. Defining the Console
29.4. Making Files Accessible From the Console
29.5. Enabling Console Access for Other Applications
29.6. The floppy Group
30. The sysconfig Directory
30.1. Files in the /etc/sysconfig/ Directory
30.1.1. /etc/sysconfig/amd
30.1.2. /etc/sysconfig/apmd
30.1.3. /etc/sysconfig/arpwatch
30.1.4. /etc/sysconfig/authconfig
30.1.5. /etc/sysconfig/autofs
30.1.6. /etc/sysconfig/clock
30.1.7. /etc/sysconfig/desktop
30.1.8. /etc/sysconfig/dhcpd
30.1.9. /etc/sysconfig/exim
30.1.10. /etc/sysconfig/firstboot
30.1.11. /etc/sysconfig/gpm
30.1.12. /etc/sysconfig/hwconf
30.1.13. /etc/sysconfig/i18n
30.1.14. /etc/sysconfig/init
30.1.15. /etc/sysconfig/ip6tables-config
30.1.16. /etc/sysconfig/iptables-config
30.1.17. /etc/sysconfig/irda
30.1.18. /etc/sysconfig/keyboard
30.1.19. /etc/sysconfig/kudzu
30.1.20. /etc/sysconfig/named
30.1.21. /etc/sysconfig/network
30.1.22. /etc/sysconfig/nfs
30.1.23. /etc/sysconfig/ntpd
30.1.24. /etc/sysconfig/radvd
30.1.25. /etc/sysconfig/samba
30.1.26. /etc/sysconfig/selinux
30.1.27. /etc/sysconfig/sendmail
30.1.28. /etc/sysconfig/spamassassin
30.1.29. /etc/sysconfig/squid
30.1.30. /etc/sysconfig/system-config-securitylevel
30.1.31. /etc/sysconfig/system-config-selinux
30.1.32. /etc/sysconfig/system-config-users
30.1.33. /etc/sysconfig/system-logviewer
30.1.34. /etc/sysconfig/tux
30.1.35. /etc/sysconfig/vncservers
30.1.36. /etc/sysconfig/xinetd
30.2. Directories in the /etc/sysconfig/ Directory
30.3. Additional Resources
30.3.1. Installed Documentation
31. Date and Time Configuration
31.1. Time and Date Properties
31.2. Network Time Protocol (NTP) Properties
31.3. Time Zone Configuration
32. Keyboard Configuration
33. The X Window System
33.1. The X11R7.1 Release
33.2. Desktop Environments and Window Managers
33.2.1. Desktop Environments
33.2.2. Window Managers
33.3. X Server Configuration Files
33.3.1. xorg.conf
33.4. Fonts
33.4.1. Fontconfig
33.4.2. Core X Font System
33.5. Runlevels and X
33.5.1. Runlevel 3
33.5.2. Runlevel 5
33.6. Additional Resources
33.6.1. Installed Documentation
33.6.2. Useful Websites
34. X Window System Configuration
34.1. Display Settings
34.2. Display Hardware Settings
34.3. Dual Head Display Settings
35. Users and Groups
35.1. User and Group Configuration
35.1.1. Adding a New User
35.1.2. Modifying User Properties
35.1.3. Adding a New Group
35.1.4. Modifying Group Properties
35.2. User and Group Management Tools
35.2.1. Command Line Configuration
35.2.2. Adding a User
35.2.3. Adding a Group
35.2.4. Password Aging
35.2.5. Explaining the Process
35.3. Standard Users
35.4. Standard Groups
35.5. User Private Groups
35.5.1. Group Directories
35.6. Shadow Passwords
35.7. Additional Resources
35.7.1. Installed Documentation
36. Printer Configuration
36.1. Adding a Local Printer
36.2. Adding an IPP Printer
36.3. Adding a Samba (SMB) Printer
36.4. Adding a JetDirect Printer
36.5. Selecting the Printer Model and Finishing
36.5.1. Confirming Printer Configuration
36.6. Printing a Test Page
36.7. Modifying Existing Printers
36.7.1. The Settings Tab
36.7.2. The Policies Tab
36.7.3. The Access Control Tab
36.7.4. The Printer and Job OptionsTab
36.8. Managing Print Jobs
36.9. Additional Resources
36.9.1. Installed Documentation
36.9.2. Useful Websites
37. Automated Tasks
37.1. Cron
37.1.1. Configuring Cron Tasks
37.1.2. Controlling Access to Cron
37.1.3. Starting and Stopping the Service
37.2. At and Batch
37.2.1. Configuring At Jobs
37.2.2. Configuring Batch Jobs
37.2.3. Viewing Pending Jobs
37.2.4. Additional Command Line Options
37.2.5. Controlling Access to At and Batch
37.2.6. Starting and Stopping the Service
37.3. Additional Resources
37.3.1. Installed Documentation
38. Log Files
38.1. Locating Log Files
38.2. Viewing Log Files
38.3. Adding a Log File
38.4. Monitoring Log Files
V. System Monitoring
39. SystemTap
39.1. Introduction
39.2. Implementation
39.3. Using SystemTap
39.3.1. Tracing
40. Gathering System Information
40.1. System Processes
40.2. Memory Usage
40.3. File Systems
40.4. Hardware
40.5. Additional Resources
40.5.1. Installed Documentation
41. OProfile
41.1. Overview of Tools
41.2. Configuring OProfile
41.2.1. Specifying the Kernel
41.2.2. Setting Events to Monitor
41.2.3. Separating Kernel and User-space Profiles
41.3. Starting and Stopping OProfile
41.4. Saving Data
41.5. Analyzing the Data
41.5.1. Using opreport
41.5.2. Using opreport on a Single Executable
41.5.3. Getting more detailed output on the modules
41.5.4. Using opannotate
41.6. Understanding /dev/oprofile/
41.7. Example Usage
41.8. Graphical Interface
41.9. Additional Resources
41.9.1. Installed Docs
41.9.2. Useful Websites
VI. Kernel and Driver Configuration
42. Manually Upgrading the Kernel
42.1. Overview of Kernel Packages
42.2. Preparing to Upgrade
42.3. Downloading the Upgraded Kernel
42.4. Performing the Upgrade
42.5. Verifying the Initial RAM Disk Image
42.6. Verifying the Boot Loader
42.6.1. x86 Systems
42.6.2. Itanium Systems
42.6.3. IBM S/390 and IBM System z Systems
42.6.4. IBM eServer iSeries Systems
42.6.5. IBM eServer pSeries Systems
43. General Parameters and Modules
43.1. Kernel Module Utilities
43.2. Persistent Module Loading
43.3. Specifying Module Parameters
43.4. Storage parameters
43.5. Ethernet Parameters
43.5.1. Using Multiple Ethernet Cards
43.5.2. The Channel Bonding Module
43.6. Additional Resources
43.6.1. Installed Documentation
43.6.2. Useful Websites
44. The kdump Crash Recovery Service
44.1. Configuring the kdump Service
44.1.1. Configuring the kdump at First Boot
44.1.2. Using the Kernel Dump Configuration Utility
44.1.3. Configuring kdump on the Command Line
44.1.4. Testing the Configuration
44.2. Analyzing the Core Dump
44.2.1. Displaying the Message Buffer
44.2.2. Displaying a Backtrace
44.2.3. Displaying a Process Status
44.2.4. Displaying Virtual Memory Information
44.2.5. Displaying Open Files
44.3. Additional Resources
44.3.1. Installed Documentation
44.3.2. Useful Websites
VII. Security And Authentication
45. Security Overview
45.1. Introduction to Security
45.1.1. What is Computer Security?
45.1.2. Security Controls
45.1.3. Conclusion
45.2. Vulnerability Assessment
45.2.1. Thinking Like the Enemy
45.2.2. Defining Assessment and Testing
45.2.3. Evaluating the Tools
45.3. Attackers and Vulnerabilities
45.3.1. A Quick History of Hackers
45.3.2. Threats to Network Security
45.3.3. Threats to Server Security
45.3.4. Threats to Workstation and Home PC Security
45.4. Common Exploits and Attacks
45.5. Security Updates
45.5.1. Updating Packages
46. Securing Your Network
46.1. Workstation Security
46.1.1. Evaluating Workstation Security
46.1.2. BIOS and Boot Loader Security
46.1.3. Password Security
46.1.4. Administrative Controls
46.1.5. Available Network Services
46.1.6. Personal Firewalls
46.1.7. Security Enhanced Communication Tools
46.2. Server Security
46.2.1. Securing Services With TCP Wrappers and xinetd
46.2.2. Securing Portmap
46.2.3. Securing NIS
46.2.4. Securing NFS
46.2.5. Securing the Apache HTTP Server
46.2.6. Securing FTP
46.2.7. Securing Sendmail
46.2.8. Verifying Which Ports Are Listening
46.3. Single Sign-on (SSO)
46.3.1. Introduction
46.3.2. Getting Started with your new Smart Card
46.3.3. How Smart Card Enrollment Works
46.3.4. How Smart Card Login Works
46.3.5. Configuring Firefox to use Kerberos for SSO
46.4. Pluggable Authentication Modules (PAM)
46.4.1. Advantages of PAM
46.4.2. PAM Configuration Files
46.4.3. PAM Configuration File Format
46.4.4. Sample PAM Configuration Files
46.4.5. Creating PAM Modules
46.4.6. PAM and Administrative Credential Caching
46.4.7. PAM and Device Ownership
46.4.8. Additional Resources
46.5. TCP Wrappers and xinetd
46.5.1. TCP Wrappers
46.5.2. TCP Wrappers Configuration Files
46.5.3. xinetd
46.5.4. xinetd Configuration Files
46.5.5. Additional Resources
46.6. Kerberos
46.6.1. What is Kerberos?
46.6.2. Kerberos Terminology
46.6.3. How Kerberos Works
46.6.4. Kerberos and PAM
46.6.5. Configuring a Kerberos 5 Server
46.6.6. Configuring a Kerberos 5 Client
46.6.7. Domain-to-Realm Mapping
46.6.8. Setting Up Secondary KDCs
46.6.9. Setting Up Cross Realm Authentication
46.6.10. Additional Resources
46.7. Virtual Private Networks (VPNs)
46.7.1. How Does a VPN Work?
46.7.2. VPNs and Red Hat Enterprise Linux
46.7.3. IPsec
46.7.4. Creating an IPsec Connection
46.7.5. IPsec Installation
46.7.6. IPsec Host-to-Host Configuration
46.7.7. IPsec Network-to-Network Configuration
46.7.8. Starting and Stopping an IPsec Connection
46.8. Firewalls
46.8.1. Netfilter and IPTables
46.8.2. Basic Firewall Configuration
46.8.3. Using IPTables
46.8.4. Common IPTables Filtering
46.8.5. FORWARD and NAT Rules
46.8.6. Malicious Software and Spoofed IP Addresses
46.8.7. IPTables and Connection Tracking
46.8.8. IPv6
46.8.9. Additional Resources
46.9. IPTables
46.9.1. Packet Filtering
46.9.2. Differences Between IPTables and IPChains
46.9.3. Command Options for IPTables
46.9.4. Saving IPTables Rules
46.9.5. IPTables Control Scripts
46.9.6. IPTables and IPv6
46.9.7. Additional Resources
47. Security and SELinux
47.1. Access Control Mechanisms (ACMs)
47.1.1. Discretionary Access Control (DAC)
47.1.2. Access Control Lists (ACLs)
47.1.3. Mandatory Access Control (MAC)
47.1.4. Role-based Access Control (RBAC)
47.1.5. Multi-Level Security (MLS)
47.1.6. Multi-Category Security (MCS)
47.2. Introduction to SELinux
47.2.1. SELinux Overview
47.2.2. Files Related to SELinux
47.2.3. Additional Resources
47.3. Brief Background and History of SELinux
47.4. Multi-Category Security (MCS)
47.4.1. Introduction
47.4.2. Applications for Multi-Category Security
47.4.3. SELinux Security Contexts
47.5. Getting Started with Multi-Category Security (MCS)
47.5.1. Introduction
47.5.2. Comparing SELinux and Standard Linux User Identities
47.5.3. Configuring Categories
47.5.4. Assigning Categories to Users
47.5.5. Assigning Categories to Files
47.6. Multi-Level Security (MLS)
47.6.1. Why Multi-Level?
47.6.2. Security Levels, Objects and Subjects
47.6.3. MLS Policy
47.6.4. LSPP Certification
47.7. SELinux Policy Overview
47.7.1. What is the SELinux Policy?
47.7.2. Where is the Policy?
47.7.3. The Role of Policy in the Boot Process
47.7.4. Object Classes and Permissions
47.8. Targeted Policy Overview
47.8.1. What is the Targeted Policy?
47.8.2. Files and Directories of the Targeted Policy
47.8.3. Understanding the Users and Roles in the Targeted Policy
48. Working With SELinux
48.1. End User Control of SELinux
48.1.1. Moving and Copying Files
48.1.2. Checking the Security Context of a Process, User, or File Object
48.1.3. Relabeling a File or Directory
48.1.4. Creating Archives That Retain Security Contexts
48.2. Administrator Control of SELinux
48.2.1. Viewing the Status of SELinux
48.2.2. Relabeling a File System
48.2.3. Managing NFS Home Directories
48.2.4. Granting Access to a Directory or a Tree
48.2.5. Backing Up and Restoring the System
48.2.6. Enabling or Disabling Enforcement
48.2.7. Enable or Disable SELinux
48.2.8. Changing the Policy
48.2.9. Specifying the Security Context of Entire File Systems
48.2.10. Changing the Security Category of a File or User
48.2.11. Running a Command in a Specific Security Context
48.2.12. Useful Commands for Scripts
48.2.13. Changing to a Different Role
48.2.14. When to Reboot
48.3. Analyst Control of SELinux
48.3.1. Enabling Kernel Auditing
48.3.2. Dumping and Viewing Logs
49. Customizing SELinux Policy
49.1. Introduction
49.1.1. Modular Policy
49.2. Building a Local Policy Module
49.2.1. Using audit2allow to Build a Local Policy Module
49.2.2. Analyzing the Type Enforcement (TE) File
49.2.3. Loading the Policy Package
50. References
VIII. Red Hat Training And Certification
51. Red Hat Training and Certification
51.1. Three Ways to Train
51.2. Microsoft Certified Professional Resource Center
52. Certification Tracks
52.1. Free Pre-assessment tests
53. RH033: Red Hat Linux Essentials
53.1. Course Description
53.1.1. Prerequisites
53.1.2. Goal
53.1.3. Audience
53.1.4. Course Objectives
53.1.5. Follow-on Courses
54. RH035: Red Hat Linux Essentials for Windows Professionals
54.1. Course Description
54.1.1. Prerequisites
54.1.2. Goal
54.1.3. Audience
54.1.4. Course Objectives
54.1.5. Follow-on Courses
55. RH133: Red Hat Linux System Administration and Red Hat Certified Technician (RHCT) Certification
55.1. Course Description
55.1.1. Prerequisites
55.1.2. Goal
55.1.3. Audience
55.1.4. Course Objectives
55.1.5. Follow-on Courses
56. RH202 RHCT EXAM - The fastest growing credential in all of Linux.
56.1. Course Description
56.1.1. Prerequisites
57. RH253 Red Hat Linux Networking and Security Administration
57.1. Course Description
57.1.1. Prerequisites
57.1.2. Goal
57.1.3. Audience
57.1.4. Course Objectives
57.1.5. Follow-on Courses
58. RH300: RHCE Rapid track course (and RHCE exam)
58.1. Course Description
58.1.1. Prerequisites
58.1.2. Goal
58.1.3. Audience
58.1.4. Course Objectives
58.1.5. Follow-on Courses
59. RH302 RHCE EXAM
59.1. Course Description
59.1.1. Prerequisites
59.1.2. Content
60. RHS333: RED HAT enterprise security: network services
60.1. Course Description
60.1.1. Prerequisites
60.1.2. Goal
60.1.3. Audience
60.1.4. Course Objectives
60.1.5. Follow-on Courses
61. RH401: Red Hat Enterprise Deployment and systems management
61.1. Course Description
61.1.1. Prerequisites
61.1.2. Goal
61.1.3. Audience
61.1.4. Course Objectives
61.1.5. Follow-on Courses
62. RH423: Red Hat Enterprise Directory services and authentication
62.1. Course Description
62.1.1. Prerequisites
62.1.2. Goal
62.1.3. Audience
62.1.4. Course Objectives
62.1.5. Follow-on Courses
63. SELinux Courses
63.1. RHS427: Introduction to SELinux and Red Hat Targeted Policy
63.1.1. Audience
63.1.2. Course Summary
63.2. RHS429: Red Hat Enterprise SELinux Policy Administration
64. RH436: Red Hat Enterprise storage management
64.1. Course Description
64.1.1. Prerequisites
64.1.2. Goal
64.1.3. Audience
64.1.4. Course Objectives
64.1.5. Follow-on Courses
65. RH442: Red Hat Enterprise system monitoring and performance tuning
65.1. Course Description
65.1.1. Prerequisites
65.1.2. Goal
65.1.3. Audience
65.1.4. Course Objectives
65.1.5. Follow-on Courses
66. Red Hat Enterprise Linux Developer Courses
66.1. RHD143: Red Hat Linux Programming Essentials
66.2. RHD221 Red Hat Linux Device Drivers
66.3. RHD236 Red Hat Linux Kernel Internals
66.4. RHD256 Red Hat Linux Application Development and Porting
67. JBoss Courses
67.1. RHD161 JBoss and EJB3 for Java
67.1.1. Prerequisites
67.2. RHD163 JBoss for Web Developers
67.2.1. Prerequisites
67.3. RHD167: JBOSS - HIBERNATE ESSENTIALS
67.3.1. Prerequisites
67.3.2. Course Summary
67.4. RHD267: JBOSS - ADVANCED HIBERNATE
67.4.1. Prerequisites
67.5. RHD261:JBOSS for advanced J2EE developers
67.5.1. Prerequisites
67.6. RH336: JBOSS for Administrators
67.6.1. Prerequisites
67.6.2. Course Summary
67.7. RHD439: JBoss Clustering
67.7.1. Prerequisites
67.8. RHD449: JBoss jBPM
67.8.1. Description
67.8.2. Prerequisites
67.9. RHD451 JBoss Rules
67.9.1. Prerequisites
A. Revision History
B. Colophon

Introduction

Welcome to the Red Hat Enterprise Linux Deployment Guide.
The Red Hat Enterprise Linux Deployment Guide contains information on how to customize your Red Hat Enterprise Linux system to fit your needs. If you are looking for a comprehensive, task-oriented guide for configuring and customizing your system, this is the manual for you.
This manual discusses many intermediate topics such as the following:
  • Setting up a network interface card (NIC)
  • Configuring a Virtual Private Network (VPN)
  • Configuring Samba shares
  • Managing your software with RPM
  • Determining information about your system
  • Upgrading your kernel
This manual is divided into the following main categories:
  • File systems
  • Package management
  • Network-related configuration
  • System configuration
  • System monitoring
  • Kernel and Driver Configuration
  • Security and Authentication
  • Red Hat Training and Certification
This guide assumes you have a basic understanding of your Red Hat Enterprise Linux system. If you need help installing Red Hat Enterprise Linux, refer to the Red Hat Enterprise Linux Installation Guide.

1. Document Conventions

In this manual, certain words are represented in different fonts, typefaces, sizes, and weights. This highlighting is systematic; different words are represented in the same style to indicate their inclusion in a specific category. The types of words that are represented this way include the following:
command
Linux commands (and other operating system commands, when used) are represented this way. This style should indicate to you that you can type the word or phrase on the command line and press Enter to invoke a command. Sometimes a command contains words that would be displayed in a different style on their own (such as file names). In these cases, they are considered to be part of the command, so the entire phrase is displayed as a command. For example:
Use the cat testfile command to view the contents of a file, named testfile, in the current working directory.
file name
File names, directory names, paths, and RPM package names are represented this way. This style indicates that a particular file or directory exists with that name on your system. Examples:
The .bashrc file in your home directory contains bash shell definitions and aliases for your own use.
The /etc/fstab file contains information about different system devices and file systems.
Install the webalizer RPM if you want to use a Web server log file analysis program.
application
This style indicates that the program is an end-user application (as opposed to system software). For example:
Use Mozilla to browse the Web.
key
A key on the keyboard is shown in this style. For example:
To use Tab completion to list particular files in a directory, type ls, then a character, and finally the Tab key. Your terminal displays the list of files in the working directory that begin with that character.
key+combination
A combination of keystrokes is represented in this way. For example:
The Ctrl+Alt+Backspace key combination exits your graphical session and returns you to the graphical login screen or the console.
text found on a GUI interface
A title, word, or phrase found on a GUI interface screen or window is shown in this style. Text shown in this style indicates a particular GUI screen or an element on a GUI screen (such as text associated with a checkbox or field). Example:
Select the Require Password checkbox if you would like your screensaver to require a password before stopping.
top level of a menu on a GUI screen or window
A word in this style indicates that the word is the top level of a pulldown menu. If you click on the word on the GUI screen, the rest of the menu should appear. For example:
Under File on a GNOME terminal, the New Tab option allows you to open multiple shell prompts in the same window.
Instructions to type in a sequence of commands from a GUI menu look like the following example:
Go to Applications (the main menu on the panel) > Programming > Emacs Text Editor to start the Emacs text editor.
button on a GUI screen or window
This style indicates that the text can be found on a clickable button on a GUI screen. For example:
Click on the Back button to return to the webpage you last viewed.
computer output
Text in this style indicates text displayed to a shell prompt such as error messages and responses to commands. For example:
The ls command displays the contents of a directory. For example:
Desktop    about.html    logs     paulwesterberg.png
Mail    backupfiles    mail     reports
The output returned in response to the command (in this case, the contents of the directory) is shown in this style.
prompt
A prompt, which is a computer's way of signifying that it is ready for you to input something, is shown in this style. Examples:
$
#
[stephen@maturin stephen]$
leopard login:
user input
Text that the user types, either on the command line or into a text box on a GUI screen, is displayed in this style. In the following example, text is displayed in this style:
To boot your system into the text based installation program, you must type in the text command at the boot: prompt.
<replaceable>
Text used in examples that is meant to be replaced with data provided by the user is displayed in this style. In the following example, <version-number> is displayed in this style:
The directory for the kernel source is /usr/src/kernels/<version-number>/, where <version-number> is the version and type of kernel installed on this system.
Additionally, we use several different strategies to draw your attention to certain pieces of information. In order of urgency, these items are marked as a note, tip, important, caution, or warning. For example:

Note

Remember that Linux is case sensitive. In other words, a rose is not a ROSE is not a rOsE.

Tip

The directory /usr/share/doc/ contains additional documentation for packages installed on your system.

Important

If you modify the DHCP configuration file, the changes do not take effect until you restart the DHCP daemon.

Caution

Do not perform routine tasks as root — use a regular user account unless you need to use the root account for system administration tasks.

Warning

Be careful to remove only the necessary partitions. Removing other partitions could result in data loss or a corrupted system environment.

2. Send in Your Feedback

If you find an error in the Red Hat Enterprise Linux Deployment Guide, or if you have thought of a way to make this manual better, we would like to hear from you! Submit a report in Bugzilla (http://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/) against the component Deployment_Guide.
If you have a suggestion for improving the documentation, try to be as specific as possible. If you have found an error, include the section number and some of the surrounding text so we can find it easily.

Part I. File Systems

File system refers to the files and directories stored on a computer. A file system can have different formats called file system types. These formats determine how the information is stored as files and directories. Some file system types store redundant copies of the data, while some file system types make hard drive access faster. This part discusses the ext3, swap, RAID, and LVM file system types. It also discusses the parted utility to manage partitions and access control lists (ACLs) to customize file permissions.

Table of Contents

1. File System Structure
1.1. Why Share a Common Structure?
1.2. Overview of File System Hierarchy Standard (FHS)
1.2.1. FHS Organization
1.3. Special File Locations Under Red Hat Enterprise Linux
2. Using the mount Command
2.1. Listing Currently Mounted File Systems
2.2. Mounting a File System
2.2.1. Specifying the File System Type
2.2.2. Specifying the Mount Options
2.2.3. Sharing Mounts
2.2.4. Moving a Mount Point
2.3. Unmounting a File System
2.4. Additional Resources
2.4.1. Installed Documentation
2.4.2. Useful Websites
3. The ext3 File System
3.1. Features of ext3
3.2. Creating an ext3 File System
3.3. Converting to an ext3 File System
3.4. Reverting to an ext2 File System
4. The proc File System
4.1. A Virtual File System
4.1.1. Viewing Virtual Files
4.1.2. Changing Virtual Files
4.2. Top-level Files within the proc File System
4.2.1. /proc/apm
4.2.2. /proc/buddyinfo
4.2.3. /proc/cmdline
4.2.4. /proc/cpuinfo
4.2.5. /proc/crypto
4.2.6. /proc/devices
4.2.7. /proc/dma
4.2.8. /proc/execdomains
4.2.9. /proc/fb
4.2.10. /proc/filesystems
4.2.11. /proc/interrupts
4.2.12. /proc/iomem
4.2.13. /proc/ioports
4.2.14. /proc/kcore
4.2.15. /proc/kmsg
4.2.16. /proc/loadavg
4.2.17. /proc/locks
4.2.18. /proc/mdstat
4.2.19. /proc/meminfo
4.2.20. /proc/misc
4.2.21. /proc/modules
4.2.22. /proc/mounts
4.2.23. /proc/mtrr
4.2.24. /proc/partitions
4.2.25. /proc/pci
4.2.26. /proc/slabinfo
4.2.27. /proc/stat
4.2.28. /proc/swaps
4.2.29. /proc/sysrq-trigger
4.2.30. /proc/uptime
4.2.31. /proc/version
4.3. Directories within /proc/
4.3.1. Process Directories
4.3.2. /proc/bus/
4.3.3. /proc/driver/
4.3.4. /proc/fs
4.3.5. /proc/ide/
4.3.6. /proc/irq/
4.3.7. /proc/net/
4.3.8. /proc/scsi/
4.3.9. /proc/sys/
4.3.10. /proc/sysvipc/
4.3.11. /proc/tty/
4.3.12. /proc/<PID>/
4.4. Using the sysctl Command
4.5. Additional Resources
4.5.1. Installed Documentation
4.5.2. Useful Websites
5. Redundant Array of Independent Disks (RAID)
5.1. What is RAID?
5.1.1. Who Should Use RAID?
5.1.2. Hardware RAID versus Software RAID
5.1.3. RAID Levels and Linear Support
5.2. Configuring Software RAID
5.2.1. Creating the RAID Partitions
5.2.2. Creating the RAID Devices and Mount Points
5.3. Managing Software RAID
5.3.1. Reviewing RAID Configuration
5.3.2. Creating a New RAID Device
5.3.3. Replacing a Faulty Device
5.3.4. Extending a RAID Device
5.3.5. Removing a RAID Device
5.3.6. Preserving the Configuration
5.4. Additional Resources
5.4.1. Installed Documentation
6. Swap Space
6.1. What is Swap Space?
6.2. Adding Swap Space
6.2.1. Extending Swap on an LVM2 Logical Volume
6.2.2. Creating an LVM2 Logical Volume for Swap
6.2.3. Creating a Swap File
6.3. Removing Swap Space
6.3.1. Reducing Swap on an LVM2 Logical Volume
6.3.2. Removing an LVM2 Logical Volume for Swap
6.3.3. Removing a Swap File
6.4. Moving Swap Space
7. Managing Disk Storage
7.1. Standard Partitions using parted
7.1.1. Viewing the Partition Table
7.1.2. Creating a Partition
7.1.3. Removing a Partition
7.1.4. Resizing a Partition
7.2. LVM Partition Management
8. Implementing Disk Quotas
8.1. Configuring Disk Quotas
8.1.1. Enabling Quotas
8.1.2. Remounting the File Systems
8.1.3. Creating the Quota Database Files
8.1.4. Assigning Quotas per User
8.1.5. Assigning Quotas per Group
8.1.6. Setting the Grace Period for Soft Limits
8.2. Managing Disk Quotas
8.2.1. Enabling and Disabling
8.2.2. Reporting on Disk Quotas
8.2.3. Keeping Quotas Accurate
8.3. Additional Resources
8.3.1. Installed Documentation
8.3.2. Related Books
9. Access Control Lists
9.1. Mounting File Systems
9.1.1. NFS
9.2. Setting Access ACLs
9.3. Setting Default ACLs
9.4. Retrieving ACLs
9.5. Archiving File Systems With ACLs
9.6. Compatibility with Older Systems
9.7. Additional Resources
9.7.1. Installed Documentation
9.7.2. Useful Websites
10. LVM (Logical Volume Manager)
10.1. What is LVM?
10.1.1. What is LVM2?
10.2. LVM Configuration
10.3. Automatic Partitioning
10.4. Manual LVM Partitioning
10.4.1. Creating the /boot Partition
10.4.2. Creating the LVM Physical Volumes
10.4.3. Creating the LVM Volume Groups
10.4.4. Creating the LVM Logical Volumes
10.5. Using the LVM utility system-config-lvm
10.5.1. Utilizing uninitialized entities
10.5.2. Adding Unallocated Volumes to a volume group
10.5.3. Migrating extents
10.5.4. Adding a new hard disk using LVM
10.5.5. Adding a new volume group
10.5.6. Extending a volume group
10.5.7. Editing a Logical Volume
10.6. Additional Resources
10.6.1. Installed Documentation
10.6.2. Useful Websites

Chapter 1. File System Structure

1.1. Why Share a Common Structure?

The file system structure is the most basic level of organization in an operating system. Almost all of the ways an operating system interacts with its users, applications, and security model are dependent upon the way it organizes files on storage devices. Providing a common file system structure ensures users and programs are able to access and write files.
File systems break files down into two logical categories:
  • Shareable vs. unshareable files
  • Variable vs. static files
Shareable files are those that can be accessed locally and by remote hosts; unshareable files are only available locally. Variable files, such as documents, can be changed at any time; static files, such as binaries, do not change without an action from the system administrator.
The reason for looking at files in this manner is to help correlate the function of the file with the permissions assigned to the directories which hold them. The way in which the operating system and its users interact with a given file determines the directory in which it is placed, whether that directory is mounted with read-only or read/write permissions, and the level of access each user has to that file. The top level of this organization is crucial. Access to the underlying directories can be restricted or security problems could manifest themselves if, from the top level down, it does not adhere to a rigid structure.

1.2. Overview of File System Hierarchy Standard (FHS)

Red Hat Enterprise Linux uses the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard (FHS) file system structure, which defines the names, locations, and permissions for many file types and directories.
The FHS document is the authoritative reference to any FHS-compliant file system, but the standard leaves many areas undefined or extensible. This section is an overview of the standard and a description of the parts of the file system not covered by the standard.
Compliance with the standard means many things, but the two most important are compatibility with other compliant systems and the ability to mount a /usr/ partition as read-only. This second point is important because the directory contains common executables and should not be changed by users. Also, since the /usr/ directory is mounted as read-only, it can be mounted from the CD-ROM or from another machine via a read-only NFS mount.

1.2.1. FHS Organization

The directories and files noted here are a small subset of those specified by the FHS document. Refer to the latest FHS document for the most complete information.
The complete standard is available online at http://www.pathname.com/fhs/.

1.2.1.1. The /boot/ Directory

The /boot/ directory contains static files required to boot the system, such as the Linux kernel. These files are essential for the system to boot properly.

Warning

Do not remove the /boot/ directory. Doing so renders the system unbootable.

1.2.1.2. The /dev/ Directory

The /dev/ directory contains device nodes that either represent devices that are attached to the system or virtual devices that are provided by the kernel. These device nodes are essential for the system to function properly. The udev daemon takes care of creating and removing all these device nodes in /dev/.
Devices in the /dev directory and subdirectories are either character (providing only a serial stream of input/output) or block (accessible randomly). Character devices include mouse, keyboard, modem while block devices include hard disk, floppy drive etc. If you have GNOME or KDE installed in your system, devices such as external drives or cds are automatically detected when connected (e.g via usb) or inserted (e.g via CD or DVD drive) and a popup window displaying the contents is automatically displayed. Files in the /dev directory are essential for the system to function properly.
Table 1.1. Examples of common files in the /dev
File Description
/dev/hda The master device on primary IDE channel.
/dev/hdb The slave device on primary IDE channel.
/dev/tty0 The first virtual console.
/dev/tty1 The second virtual console.
/dev/sda The first device on primary SCSI or SATA channel.
/dev/lp0 The first parallel port.

1.2.1.3. The /etc/ Directory

The /etc/ directory is reserved for configuration files that are local to the machine. No binaries are to be placed in /etc/. Any binaries that were once located in /etc/ should be placed into /sbin/ or /bin/.
Examples of directories in /etc are the X11/ and skel/:
/etc
   |- X11/
   |- skel/
The /etc/X11/ directory is for X Window System configuration files, such as xorg.conf. The /etc/skel/ directory is for "skeleton" user files, which are used to populate a home directory when a user is first created. Applications also store their configuration files in this directory and may reference them when they are executed.

1.2.1.4. The /lib/ Directory

The /lib/ directory should contain only those libraries needed to execute the binaries in /bin/ and /sbin/. These shared library images are particularly important for booting the system and executing commands within the root file system.

1.2.1.5. The /media/ Directory

The /media/ directory contains subdirectories used as mount points for removable media such as usb storage media, DVDs, CD-ROMs, and Zip disks.

1.2.1.6. The /mnt/ Directory

The /mnt/ directory is reserved for temporarily mounted file systems, such as NFS file system mounts. For all removable media, please use the /media/ directory. Automatically detected removable media will be mounted in the /media directory.

Note

The /mnt directory must not be used by installation programs.

1.2.1.7. The /opt/ Directory

The /opt/ directory provides storage for most application software packages.
A package placing files in the /opt/ directory creates a directory bearing the same name as the package. This directory, in turn, holds files that otherwise would be scattered throughout the file system, giving the system administrator an easy way to determine the role of each file within a particular package.
For example, if sample is the name of a particular software package located within the /opt/ directory, then all of its files are placed in directories inside the /opt/sample/ directory, such as /opt/sample/bin/ for binaries and /opt/sample/man/ for manual pages.
Packages that encompass many different sub-packages, data files, extra fonts, clipart etc are also located in the /opt/ directory, giving that large package a way to organize itself. In this way, our sample package may have different tools that each go in their own sub-directories, such as /opt/sample/tool1/ and /opt/sample/tool2/, each of which can have their own bin/, man/, and other similar directories.

1.2.1.8. The /proc/ Directory

The /proc/ directory contains special files that either extract information from or send information to the kernel. Examples include system memory, cpu information, hardware configuration etc.
Due to the great variety of data available within /proc/ and the many ways this directory can be used to communicate with the kernel, an entire chapter has been devoted to the subject. For more information, refer to Chapter 4, The proc File System.

1.2.1.9. The /sbin/ Directory

The /sbin/ directory stores executables used by the root user. The executables in /sbin/ are used at boot time, for system administration and to perform system recovery operations. Of this directory, the FHS says:
/sbin contains binaries essential for booting, restoring, recovering, and/or repairing the system in addition to the binaries in /bin. Programs executed after /usr/ is known to be mounted (when there are no problems) are generally placed into /usr/sbin. Locally-installed system administration programs should be placed into /usr/local/sbin.
At a minimum, the following programs should be in /sbin/:
arp, clock,
halt, init,
fsck.*, grub,
ifconfig, mingetty,
mkfs.*, mkswap,
reboot, route,
shutdown, swapoff,
swapon

1.2.1.10. The /srv/ Directory

The /srv/ directory contains site-specific data served by your system running Red Hat Enterprise Linux. This directory gives users the location of data files for a particular service, such as FTP, WWW, or CVS. Data that only pertains to a specific user should go in the /home/ directory.

1.2.1.11. The /sys/ Directory

The /sys/ directory utilizes the new sysfs virtual file system specific to the 2.6 kernel. With the increased support for hot plug hardware devices in the 2.6 kernel, the /sys/ directory contains information similarly held in /proc/, but displays a hierarchical view of specific device information in regards to hot plug devices.

1.2.1.12. The /usr/ Directory

The /usr/ directory is for files that can be shared across multiple machines. The /usr/ directory is often on its own partition and is mounted read-only. At a minimum, the following directories should be subdirectories of /usr/:
/usr
   |- bin/
   |- etc/
   |- games/
   |- include/
   |- kerberos/
   |- lib/
   |- libexec/
   |- local/
   |- sbin/
   |- share/
   |- src/
   |- tmp -> ../var/tmp/
Under the /usr/ directory, the bin/ subdirectory contains executables, etc/ contains system-wide configuration files, games is for games, include/ contains C header files, kerberos/ contains binaries and other Kerberos-related files, and lib/ contains object files and libraries that are not designed to be directly utilized by users or shell scripts. The libexec/ directory contains small helper programs called by other programs, sbin/ is for system administration binaries (those that do not belong in the /sbin/ directory), share/ contains files that are not architecture-specific, src/ is for source code.

1.2.1.13. The /usr/local/ Directory

The FHS says:
The /usr/local hierarchy is for use by the system administrator when installing software locally. It needs to be safe from being overwritten when the system software is updated. It may be used for programs and data that are shareable among a group of hosts, but not found in /usr.
The /usr/local/ directory is similar in structure to the /usr/ directory. It has the following subdirectories, which are similar in purpose to those in the /usr/ directory:
/usr/local
	|- bin/
	|- etc/
	|- games/
	|- include/
	|- lib/
	|- libexec/
	|- sbin/
	|- share/
	|- src/
In Red Hat Enterprise Linux, the intended use for the /usr/local/ directory is slightly different from that specified by the FHS. The FHS says that /usr/local/ should be where software that is to remain safe from system software upgrades is stored. Since software upgrades can be performed safely with RPM Package Manager (RPM), it is not necessary to protect files by putting them in /usr/local/. Instead, the /usr/local/ directory is used for software that is local to the machine.
For instance, if the /usr/ directory is mounted as a read-only NFS share from a remote host, it is still possible to install a package or program under the /usr/local/ directory.

1.2.1.14. The /var/ Directory

Since the FHS requires Linux to mount /usr/ as read-only, any programs that write log files or need spool/ or lock/ directories should write them to the /var/ directory. The FHS states /var/ is for:
...variable data files. This includes spool directories and files, administrative and logging data, and transient and temporary files.
Below are some of the directories found within the /var/ directory:
/var
   |- account/
   |- arpwatch/
   |- cache/
   |- crash/
   |- db/
   |- empty/
   |- ftp/
   |- gdm/
   |- kerberos/
   |- lib/
   |- local/
   |- lock/
   |- log/
   |- mail -> spool/mail/
   |- mailman/
   |- named/
   |- nis/
   |- opt/
   |- preserve/
   |- run/
   +- spool/
       |- at/
       |- clientmqueue/
       |- cron/
       |- cups/
       |- exim/
       |- lpd/
       |- mail/
       |- mailman/
       |- mqueue/
       |- news/
       |- postfix/
       |- repackage/
       |- rwho/
       |- samba/
       |- squid/
       |- squirrelmail/
       |- up2date/
       |- uucp
       |- uucppublic/
       |- vbox/
|- tmp/
|- tux/
|- www/
|- yp/
System log files, such as messages and lastlog, go in the /var/log/ directory. The /var/lib/rpm/ directory contains RPM system databases. Lock files go in the /var/lock/ directory, usually in directories for the program using the file. The /var/spool/ directory has subdirectories for programs in which data files are stored.

1.3. Special File Locations Under Red Hat Enterprise Linux

Red Hat Enterprise Linux extends the FHS structure slightly to accommodate special files.
Most files pertaining to RPM are kept in the /var/lib/rpm/ directory. For more information on RPM, refer to the chapter Chapter 11, Package Management with RPM.
The /var/cache/yum/ directory contains files used by the Package Updater, including RPM header information for the system. This location may also be used to temporarily store RPMs downloaded while updating the system. For more information about Red Hat Network, refer to Chapter 14, Product Subscriptions and Entitlements.
Another location specific to Red Hat Enterprise Linux is the /etc/sysconfig/ directory. This directory stores a variety of configuration information. Many scripts that run at boot time use the files in this directory. Refer to Chapter 30, The sysconfig Directory for more information about what is within this directory and the role these files play in the boot process.

Chapter 2. Using the mount Command

On Linux, UNIX, and similar operating systems, file systems on different partitions and removable devices like CDs, DVDs, or USB flash drives can be attached to a certain point (that is, the mount point) in the directory tree, and detached again. To attach or detach a file system, you can use the mount or umount command respectively. This chapter describes the basic usage of these commands, and covers some advanced topics such as moving a mount point or creating shared subtrees.

2.1. Listing Currently Mounted File Systems

To display all currently attached file systems, run the mount command with no additional arguments:
mount
This command displays the list of known mount points. Each line provides important information about the device name, the file system type, the directory in which it is mounted, and relevant mount options in the following form:
device on directory type type (options)
By default, the output includes various virtual file systems such as sysfs, tmpfs, and others. To display only the devices with a certain file system type, supply the -t option on the command line:
mount -t type
For a list of common file system types, refer to Table 2.1, “Common File System Types”. For an example on how to use the mount command to list the mounted file systems, see Example 2.1, “Listing Currently Mounted ext3 File Systems”.
Example 2.1. Listing Currently Mounted ext3 File Systems
Usually, both / and /boot partitions are formatted to use ext3. To display only the mount points that use this file system, type the following at a shell prompt:
~]$ mount -t ext3
/dev/mapper/VolGroup00-LogVol00 on / type ext3 (rw)
/dev/vda1 on /boot type ext3 (rw)

2.2. Mounting a File System

To attach a certain file system, use the mount command in the following form:
mount [option] device directory
When the mount command is run, it reads the content of the /etc/fstab configuration file to see if the given file system is listed. This file contains a list of device names and the directory in which the selected file systems should be mounted, as well as the file system type and mount options. Because of this, when you are mounting a file system that is specified in this file, you can use one of the following variants of the command:
mount [option] directory
mount [option] device
Note that unless you are logged in as root, you must have permissions to mount the file system (see Section 2.2.2, “Specifying the Mount Options”).

2.2.1. Specifying the File System Type

In most cases, mount detects the file system automatically. However, there are certain file systems, such as NFS (Network File System) or CIFS (Common Internet File System), that are not recognized, and need to be specified manually. To specify the file system type, use the mount command in the following form:
mount -t type device directory
Table 2.1, “Common File System Types” provides a list of common file system types that can be used with the mount command. For a complete list of all available file system types, consult the relevant manual page as referred to in Section 2.4.1, “Installed Documentation”.
Table 2.1. Common File System Types
Type Description
ext2 The ext2 file system.
ext3 The ext3 file system.
iso9660 The ISO 9660 file system. It is commonly used by optical media, typically CDs.
jfs The JFS file system created by IBM.
nfs The NFS file system. It is commonly used to access files over the network.
nfs4 The NFSv4 file system. It is commonly used to access files over the network.
ntfs The NTFS file system. It is commonly used on machines that are running the Windows operating system.
udf The UDF file system. It is commonly used by optical media, typically DVDs.
vfat The FAT file system. It is commonly used on machines that are running the Windows operating system, and on certain digital media such as USB flash drives or floppy disks.

Example 2.2. Mounting a USB Flash Drive
Older USB flash drives often use the FAT file system. Assuming that such drive uses the /dev/sdc1 device and that the /media/flashdisk/ directory exists, you can mount it to this directory by typing the following at a shell prompt as root:
~]# mount -t vfat /dev/sdc1 /media/flashdisk

2.2.2. Specifying the Mount Options

To specify additional mount options, use the command in the following form:
mount -o options
When supplying multiple options, do not insert a space after a comma, or mount will incorrectly interpret the values following spaces as additional parameters.
Table 2.2, “Common Mount Options” provides a list of common mount options. For a complete list of all available options, consult the relevant manual page as referred to in Section 2.4.1, “Installed Documentation”.
Table 2.2. Common Mount Options
Option Description
async Allows the asynchronous input/output operations on the file system.
auto Allows the file system to be mounted automatically using the mount -a command.
defaults Provides an alias for async,auto,dev,exec,nouser,rw,suid.
exec Allows the execution of binary files on the particular file system.
loop Mounts an image as a loop device.
noauto Disallows the automatic mount of the file system using the mount -a command.
noexec Disallows the execution of binary files on the particular file system.
nouser Disallows an ordinary user (that is, other than root) to mount and unmount the file system.
remount Remounts the file system in case it is already mounted.
ro Mounts the file system for reading only.
rw Mounts the file system for both reading and writing.
user Allows an ordinary user (that is, other than root) to mount and unmount the file system.

See Example 2.3, “Mounting an ISO Image” for an example usage.
Example 2.3. Mounting an ISO Image
An ISO image (or a disk image in general) can be mounted by using the loop device. Assuming that the ISO image of the Fedora 14 installation disc is present in the current working directory and that the /media/cdrom/ directory exists, you can mount the image to this directory by running the following command as root:
~]# mount -o ro,loop Fedora-14-x86_64-Live-Desktop.iso /media/cdrom
Note that ISO 9660 is by design a read-only file system.

2.2.3. Sharing Mounts

Occasionally, certain system administration tasks require access to the same file system from more than one place in the directory tree (for example, when preparing a chroot environment). To address such requirements, the mount command implements the --bind option that provides a means for duplicating certain mounts. Its usage is as follows:
mount --bind old_directory new_directory
Although the above command allows a user to access the file system from both places, it does not apply on the file systems that are mounted within the original directory. To include these mounts as well, type:
mount --rbind old_directory new_directory
Additionally, to provide as much flexibility as possible, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.8 implements the functionality known as shared subtrees. This feature allows you to use the following four mount types:
Shared Mount
A shared mount allows you to create an exact replica of a given mount point. When a shared mount is created, any mount within the original mount point is reflected in it, and vice versa. To create a shared mount, type the following at a shell prompt:
mount --make-shared mount_point
Alternatively, you can change the mount type for the selected mount point and all mount points under it:
mount --make-rshared mount_point
Example 2.4. Creating a Shared Mount Point
There are two places where other file systems are commonly mounted: the /media directory for removable media, and the /mnt directory for temporarily mounted file systems. By using a shared mount, you can make these two directories share the same content. To do so, as root, mark the /media directory as shared:
~]# mount --bind /media /media
~]# mount --make-shared /media
Then create its duplicate in /mnt by using the following command:
~]# mount --bind /media /mnt
You can now verify that a mount within /media also appears in /mnt. For example, if you have non-empty media in your CD-ROM drive and the /media/cdrom/ directory exists, run the following commands:
~]# mount /dev/cdrom /media/cdrom
~]# ls /media/cdrom
EFI  GPL  isolinux  LiveOS
~]# ls /mnt/cdrom
EFI  GPL  isolinux  LiveOS
Similarly, you can verify that any file system mounted in the /mnt directory is reflected in /media. For instance, if you have a non-empty USB flash drive that uses the /dev/sdc1 device plugged in and the /mnt/flashdisk/ directory is present, type:
~]# mount /dev/sdc1 /mnt/flashdisk
~]# ls /media/flashdisk
en-US  publican.cfg
~]# ls /mnt/flashdisk
en-US  publican.cfg

Slave Mount
A slave mount allows you to create a limited duplicate of a given mount point. When a slave mount is created, any mount within the original mount point is reflected in it, but no mount within a slave mount is reflected in its original. To create a slave mount, type the following at a shell prompt:
mount --make-slave mount_point
Alternatively, you can change the mount type for the selected mount point and all mount points under it:
mount --make-rslave mount_point
Example 2.5. Creating a Slave Mount Point
Imagine you want the content of the /media directory to appear in /mnt as well, but you do not want any mounts in the /mnt directory to be reflected in /media. To do so, as root, first mark the /media directory as shared:
~]# mount --bind /media /media
~]# mount --make-shared /media
Then create its duplicate in /mnt, but mark it as slave:
~]# mount --bind /media /mnt
~]# mount --make-slave /mnt
You can now verify that a mount within /media also appears in /mnt. For example, if you have non-empty media in your CD-ROM drive and the /media/cdrom/ directory exists, run the following commands:
~]# mount /dev/cdrom /media/cdrom
~]# ls /media/cdrom
EFI  GPL  isolinux  LiveOS
~]# ls /mnt/cdrom
EFI  GPL  isolinux  LiveOS
You can also verify that file systems mounted in the /mnt directory are not reflected in /media. For instance, if you have a non-empty USB flash drive that uses the /dev/sdc1 device plugged in and the /mnt/flashdisk/ directory is present, type: :
~]# mount /dev/sdc1 /mnt/flashdisk
~]# ls /media/flashdisk
~]# ls /mnt/flashdisk
en-US  publican.cfg

Private Mount
A private mount allows you to create an ordinary mount. When a private mount is created, no subsequent mounts within the original mount point are reflected in it, and no mount within a private mount is reflected in its original. To create a private mount, type the following at a shell prompt:
mount --make-private mount_point
Alternatively, you can change the mount type for the selected mount point and all mount points under it:
mount --make-rprivate mount_point
Example 2.6. Creating a Private Mount Point
Taking into account the scenario in Example 2.4, “Creating a Shared Mount Point”, assume that you have previously created a shared mount point by using the following commands as root:
~]# mount --bind /media /media
~]# mount --make-shared /media
~]# mount --bind /media /mnt
To mark the /mnt directory as private, type:
~]# mount --make-private /mnt
You can now verify that none of the mounts within /media appears in /mnt. For example, if you have non-empty media in your CD-ROM drive and the /media/cdrom/ directory exists, run the following commands:
~]# mount /dev/cdrom /media/cdrom
~]# ls /media/cdrom
EFI  GPL  isolinux  LiveOS
~]# ls /mnt/cdrom
~]#
You can also verify that file systems mounted in the /mnt directory are not reflected in /media. For instance, if you have a non-empty USB flash drive that uses the /dev/sdc1 device plugged in and the /mnt/flashdisk/ directory is present, type:
~]# mount /dev/sdc1 /mnt/flashdisk
~]# ls /media/flashdisk
~]# ls /mnt/flashdisk
en-US  publican.cfg

Unbindable Mount
An unbindable mount allows you to prevent a given mount point from being duplicated whatsoever. To create an unbindable mount, type the following at a shell prompt:
mount --make-unbindable mount_point
Alternatively, you can change the mount type for the selected mount point and all mount points under it:
mount --make-runbindable mount_point
Example 2.7. Creating an Unbindable Mount Point
To prevent the /media directory from being shared, as root, type the following at a shell prompt:
~]# mount --bind /media /media
~]# mount --make-unbindable /media
This way, any subsequent attempt to make a duplicate of this mount will fail with an error:
~]# mount --bind /media /mnt
mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /media/,
       missing code page or other error
       In some cases useful info is found in syslog - try
       dmesg | tail  or so

2.2.4. Moving a Mount Point

To change the directory in which a file system is mounted, use the following command:
mount --move old_directory new_directory
Example 2.8. Moving an Existing NFS Mount Point
Imagine that you have an NFS storage that contains user directories. Assuming that this storage is already mounted in /mnt/userdirs/, as root, you can move this mount point to /home by using the following command:
~]# mount --move /mnt/userdirs /home
To verify the mount point has been moved, list the content of both directories:
~]# ls /mnt/userdirs
~]# ls /home
jill  joe

2.3. Unmounting a File System

To detach a previously mounted file system, use either of the following variants of the umount command:
umount directory
umount device
Note that unless you are logged in as root, you must have permissions to unmount the file system (see Section 2.2.2, “Specifying the Mount Options”). See Example 2.9, “Unmounting a CD” for an example usage.

Important: Make Sure the File System Is Not in Use

When a file system is in use (for example, when a process is reading a file on this file system), running the umount command will fail with an error. To determine which processes are accessing the file system, use the fuser command in the following form:
fuser -m directory
For example, to list the processes that are accessing a file system mounted to the /media/cdrom/ directory, type:
~]$ fuser -m /media/cdrom
/media/cdrom:         1793  2013  2022  2435 10532c 10672c
Example 2.9. Unmounting a CD
To unmount a CD that was previously mounted to the /media/cdrom/ directory, type the following at a shell prompt:
~]$ umount /media/cdrom

2.4. Additional Resources

The following resources provide an in-depth documentation on the subject.

2.4.1. Installed Documentation

  • man 8 mount — The manual page for the mount command that provides a full documentation on its usage.
  • man 8 umount — The manual page for the umount command that provides a full documentation on its usage.
  • man 5 fstab — The manual page providing a thorough description of the /etc/fstab file format.

2.4.2. Useful Websites

  • Shared subtrees — An LWN article covering the concept of shared subtrees.
  • sharedsubtree.txt — Extensive documentation that is shipped with the shared subtrees patches.

Chapter 3. The ext3 File System

The default file system is the journaling ext3 file system.

3.1. Features of ext3

The ext3 file system is essentially an enhanced version of the ext2 file system. These improvements provide the following advantages:
Availability
After an unexpected power failure or system crash (also called an unclean system shutdown), each mounted ext2 file system on the machine must be checked for consistency by the e2fsck program. This is a time-consuming process that can delay system boot time significantly, especially with large volumes containing a large number of files. During this time, any data on the volumes is unreachable.
The journaling provided by the ext3 file system means that this sort of file system check is no longer necessary after an unclean system shutdown. The only time a consistency check occurs using ext3 is in certain rare hardware failure cases, such as hard drive failures. The time to recover an ext3 file system after an unclean system shutdown does not depend on the size of the file system or the number of files; rather, it depends on the size of the journal used to maintain consistency. The default journal size takes about a second to recover, depending on the speed of the hardware.
Data Integrity
The ext3 file system prevents loss of data integrity in the event that an unclean system shutdown occurs. The ext3 file system allows you to choose the type and level of protection that your data receives. By default, the ext3 volumes are configured to keep a high level of data consistency with regard to the state of the file system.
Speed
Despite writing some data more than once, ext3 has a higher throughput in most cases than ext2 because ext3's journaling optimizes hard drive head motion. You can choose from three journaling modes to optimize speed, but doing so means trade-offs in regards to data integrity if the system was to fail.
Easy Transition
It is easy to migrate from ext2 to ext3 and gain the benefits of a robust journaling file system without reformatting. Refer to Section 3.3, “Converting to an ext3 File System” for more on how to perform this task.
The following sections walk you through the steps for creating and tuning ext3 partitions. For ext2 partitions, skip the partitioning and formatting sections below and go directly to Section 3.3, “Converting to an ext3 File System”.

3.2. Creating an ext3 File System

After installation, it is sometimes necessary to create a new ext3 file system. For example, if you add a new disk drive to the system, you may want to partition the drive and use the ext3 file system.
The steps for creating an ext3 file system are as follows:
  1. Format the partition with the ext3 file system using mkfs.
  2. Label the partition using e2label.

3.3. Converting to an ext3 File System

The tune2fs allows you to convert an ext2 filesystem to ext3.

Note

Always use the e2fsck utility to check your filesystem before and after using tune2fs. A default installation of Red Hat Enterprise Linux uses ext3 for all file systems.
To convert an ext2 filesystem to ext3, log in as root and type the following command in a terminal:
tune2fs -j <block_device>
where <block_device> contains the ext2 filesystem you wish to convert.
A valid block device could be one of two types of entries:
  • A mapped device — A logical volume in a volume group, for example, /dev/mapper/VolGroup00-LogVol02.
  • A static device — A traditional storage volume, for example, /dev/hdbX, where hdb is a storage device name and X is the partition number.
Issue the df command to display mounted file systems.
For the remainder of this section, the sample commands use the following value for the block device:
/dev/mapper/VolGroup00-LogVol02
You must recreate the initrd image so that it will contain the ext3 kernel module. To create this, run the mkinitrd program. For information on using the mkinitrd command, type man mkinitrd. Also, make sure your GRUB configuration loads the initrd.
If you fail to make this change, the system still boots, but the file system is mounted as ext2 instead of ext3.

3.4. Reverting to an ext2 File System

If you wish to revert a partition from ext3 to ext2 for any reason, you must first unmount the partition by logging in as root and typing,
umount /dev/mapper/VolGroup00-LogVol02
Next, change the file system type to ext2 by typing the following command as root:
tune2fs -O ^has_journal /dev/mapper/VolGroup00-LogVol02
Check the partition for errors by typing the following command as root:
e2fsck -y /dev/mapper/VolGroup00-LogVol02
Then mount the partition again as ext2 file system by typing:
mount -t ext2 /dev/mapper/VolGroup00-LogVol02 /mount/point
In the above command, replace /mount/point with the mount point of the partition.
Next, remove the .journal file at the root level of the partition by changing to the directory where it is mounted and typing:
rm -f .journal
You now have an ext2 partition.
If you want to permanently change the partition to ext2, remember to update the /etc/fstab file.

Chapter 4. The proc File System

The Linux kernel has two primary functions: to control access to physical devices on the computer and to schedule when and how processes interact with these devices. The /proc/ directory — also called the proc file system — contains a hierarchy of special files which represent the current state of the kernel — allowing applications and users to peer into the kernel's view of the system.
Within the /proc/ directory, one can find a wealth of information detailing the system hardware and any processes currently running. In addition, some of the files within the /proc/ directory tree can be manipulated by users and applications to communicate configuration changes to the kernel.

4.1. A Virtual File System

Under Linux, all data are stored as files. Most users are familiar with the two primary types of files: text and binary. But the /proc/ directory contains another type of file called a virtual file. It is for this reason that /proc/ is often referred to as a virtual file system.
These virtual files have unique qualities. Most of them are listed as zero bytes in size and yet when one is viewed, it can contain a large amount of information. In addition, most of the time and date settings on virtual files reflect the current time and date, indicative of the fact they are constantly updated.
Virtual files such as /proc/interrupts, /proc/meminfo, /proc/mounts, and /proc/partitions provide an up-to-the-moment glimpse of the system's hardware. Others, like the /proc/filesystems file and the /proc/sys/ directory provide system configuration information and interfaces.
For organizational purposes, files containing information on a similar topic are grouped into virtual directories and sub-directories. For instance, /proc/ide/ contains information for all physical IDE devices. Likewise, process directories contain information about each running process on the system.

4.1.1. Viewing Virtual Files

By using the cat, more, or less commands on files within the /proc/ directory, users can immediately access enormous amounts of information about the system. For example, to display the type of CPU a computer has, type cat /proc/cpuinfo to receive output similar to the following:
processor	: 0
vendor_id	: AuthenticAMD
cpu family	: 5
model		: 9
model name	: AMD-K6(tm) 3D+
Processor stepping	: 1 cpu
MHz		: 400.919
cache size	: 256 KB
fdiv_bug	: no
hlt_bug		: no
f00f_bug	: no
coma_bug	: no
fpu		: yes
fpu_exception	: yes
cpuid level	: 1
wp		: yes
flags		: fpu vme de pse tsc msr mce cx8 pge mmx syscall 3dnow k6_mtrr
bogomips	: 799.53
When viewing different virtual files in the /proc/ file system, some of the information is easily understandable while some is not human-readable. This is in part why utilities exist to pull data from virtual files and display it in a useful way. Examples of these utilities include lspci, apm, free, and top.

Note

Some of the virtual files in the /proc/ directory are readable only by the root user.

4.1.2. Changing Virtual Files

As a general rule, most virtual files within the /proc/ directory are read-only. However, some can be used to adjust settings in the kernel. This is especially true for files in the /proc/sys/ subdirectory.
To change the value of a virtual file, use the echo command and a greater than symbol (>) to redirect the new value to the file. For example, to change the hostname on the fly, type:
echo www.example.com > /proc/sys/kernel/hostname 
Other files act as binary or Boolean switches. Typing cat /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward returns either a 0 or a 1. A 0 indicates that the kernel is not forwarding network packets. Using the echo command to change the value of the ip_forward file to 1 immediately turns packet forwarding on.

Tip

Another command used to alter settings in the /proc/sys/ subdirectory is /sbin/sysctl. For more information on this command, refer to Section 4.4, “Using the sysctl Command”
For a listing of some of the kernel configuration files available in the /proc/sys/ subdirectory, refer to Section 4.3.9, “ /proc/sys/.

4.2. Top-level Files within the proc File System

Below is a list of some of the more useful virtual files in the top-level of the /proc/ directory.

Note

In most cases, the content of the files listed in this section are not the same as those installed on your machine. This is because much of the information is specific to the hardware on which Red Hat Enterprise Linux is running for this documentation effort.

4.2.1.  /proc/apm

This file provides information about the state of the Advanced Power Management (APM) system and is used by the apm command. If a system with no battery is connected to an AC power source, this virtual file would look similar to the following:
1.16 1.2 0x07 0x01 0xff 0x80 -1% -1 ?
Running the apm -v command on such a system results in output similar to the following:
APM BIOS 1.2 (kernel driver 1.16ac) AC on-line, no system battery
For systems which do not use a battery as a power source, apm is able do little more than put the machine in standby mode. The apm command is much more useful on laptops. For example, the following output is from the command cat /proc/apm on a laptop while plugged into a power outlet:
1.16 1.2 0x03 0x01 0x03 0x09 100% -1 ?
When the same laptop is unplugged from its power source for a few minutes, the content of the apm file changes to something like the following:
1.16 1.2 0x03 0x00 0x00 0x01 99% 1792 min
The apm -v command now yields more useful data, such as the following:
APM BIOS 1.2 (kernel driver 1.16) AC off-line, battery status high: 99% (1 day, 5:52)

4.2.2.  /proc/buddyinfo

This file is used primarily for diagnosing memory fragmentation issues. Using the buddy algorithm, each column represents the number of pages of a certain order (a certain size) that are available at any given time. For example, for zone DMA (direct memory access), there are 90 of 2^(0*PAGE_SIZE) chunks of memory. Similarly, there are 6 of 2^(1*PAGE_SIZE) chunks, and 2 of 2^(2*PAGE_SIZE) chunks of memory available.
The DMA row references the first 16 MB on a system, the HighMem row references all memory greater than 4 GB on a system, and the Normal row references all memory in between.
The following is an example of the output typical of /proc/buddyinfo:
Node 0, zone      DMA     90      6      2      1      1      ...
Node 0, zone   Normal   1650    310      5      0      0      ...
Node 0, zone  HighMem      2      0      0      1      1      ...

4.2.3.  /proc/cmdline

This file shows the parameters passed to the kernel at the time it is started. A sample /proc/cmdline file looks like the following:
ro root=/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00 rhgb quiet 3
This output tells us the following:
ro
The root device is mounted read-only at boot time. The presence of ro on the kernel boot line overrides any instances of rw.
root=/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00
This tells us on which disk device or, in this case, on which logical volume, the root filesystem image is located. With our sample /proc/cmdline output, the root filesystem image is located on the first logical volume (LogVol00) of the first LVM volume group (VolGroup00). On a system not using Logical Volume Management, the root file system might be located on /dev/sda1 or /dev/sda2, meaning on either the first or second partition of the first SCSI or SATA disk drive, depending on whether we have a separate (preceding) boot or swap partition on that drive.
For more information on LVM used in Red Hat Enterprise Linux, refer to http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/LVM-HOWTO/index.html.
rhgb
A short lowercase acronym that stands for Red Hat Graphical Boot, providing "rhgb" on the kernel command line signals that graphical booting is supported, assuming that /etc/inittab shows that the default runlevel is set to 5 with a line like this:
id:5:initdefault:
quiet
Indicates that all verbose kernel messages except those which are extremely serious should be suppressed at boot time.

4.2.4.  /proc/cpuinfo

This virtual file identifies the type of processor used by your system. The following is an example of the output typical of /proc/cpuinfo:
processor	: 0
vendor_id	: GenuineIntel
cpu family	: 15
model		: 2
model name	: Intel(R) Xeon(TM) CPU 2.40GHz
stepping	: 7 cpu
MHz		: 2392.371
cache size	: 512 KB
physical id	: 0
siblings	: 2
runqueue	: 0
fdiv_bug	: no
hlt_bug		: no
f00f_bug	: no
coma_bug	: no
fpu		: yes
fpu_exception	: yes
cpuid level	: 2
wp		: yes
flags		: fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca  cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm
bogomips	: 4771.02
  • processor — Provides each processor with an identifying number. On systems that have one processor, only a 0 is present.
  • cpu family — Authoritatively identifies the type of processor in the system. For an Intel-based system, place the number in front of "86" to determine the value. This is particularly helpful for those attempting to identify the architecture of an older system such as a 586, 486, or 386. Because some RPM packages are compiled for each of these particular architectures, this value also helps users determine which packages to install.
  • model name — Displays the common name of the processor, including its project name.
  • cpu MHz — Shows the precise speed in megahertz for the processor to the thousandths decimal place.
  • cache size — Displays the amount of level 2 memory cache available to the processor.
  • siblings — Displays the number of sibling CPUs on the same physical CPU for architectures which use hyper-threading.
  • flags — Defines a number of different qualities about the processor, such as the presence of a floating point unit (FPU) and the ability to process MMX instructions.

4.2.5.  /proc/crypto

This file lists all installed cryptographic ciphers used by the Linux kernel, including additional details for each. A sample /proc/crypto file looks like the following:
name         : sha1
module       : kernel
type         : digest
blocksize    : 64
digestsize   : 20
name         : md5
module       : md5
type         : digest
blocksize    : 64
digestsize   : 16

4.2.6.  /proc/devices

This file displays the various character and block devices currently configured (not including devices whose modules are not loaded). Below is a sample output from this file:
Character devices:
  1 mem
  4 /dev/vc/0
  4 tty
  4 ttyS
  5 /dev/tty
  5 /dev/console
  5 /dev/ptmx
  7 vcs
  10 misc
  13 input
  29 fb
  36 netlink
  128 ptm
  136 pts
  180 usb

Block devices:
  1 ramdisk
  3 ide0
  9 md
  22 ide1
  253 device-mapper
  254 mdp
The output from /proc/devices includes the major number and name of the device, and is broken into two major sections: Character devices and Block devices.
Character devices are similar to block devices, except for two basic differences:
  1. Character devices do not require buffering. Block devices have a buffer available, allowing them to order requests before addressing them. This is important for devices designed to store information — such as hard drives — because the ability to order the information before writing it to the device allows it to be placed in a more efficient order.
  2. Character devices send data with no preconfigured size. Block devices can send and receive information in blocks of a size configured per device.
For more information about devices refer to the following installed documentation:
/usr/share/doc/kernel-doc-<version>/Documentation/devices.txt

4.2.7.  /proc/dma

This file contains a list of the registered ISA DMA channels in use. A sample /proc/dma files looks like the following:
4: cascade

4.2.8.  /proc/execdomains

This file lists the execution domains currently supported by the Linux kernel, along with the range of personalities they support.
0-0   Linux           [kernel]
Think of execution domains as the "personality" for an operating system. Because other binary formats, such as Solaris, UnixWare, and FreeBSD, can be used with Linux, programmers can change the way the operating system treats system calls from these binaries by changing the personality of the task. Except for the PER_LINUX execution domain, different personalities can be implemented as dynamically loadable modules.

4.2.9.  /proc/fb

This file contains a list of frame buffer devices, with the frame buffer device number and the driver that controls it. Typical output of /proc/fb for systems which contain frame buffer devices looks similar to the following:
0 VESA VGA

4.2.10.  /proc/filesystems

This file displays a list of the file system types currently supported by the kernel. Sample output from a generic /proc/filesystems file looks similar to the following:
nodev   sysfs
nodev   rootfs
nodev   bdev
nodev   proc
nodev   sockfs
nodev   binfmt_misc
nodev   usbfs
nodev   usbdevfs
nodev   futexfs
nodev   tmpfs
nodev   pipefs
nodev   eventpollfs
nodev   devpts
	ext2
nodev   ramfs
nodev   hugetlbfs
	iso9660
nodev   mqueue
	ext3
nodev   rpc_pipefs
nodev   autofs
The first column signifies whether the file system is mounted on a block device. Those beginning with nodev are not mounted on a device. The second column lists the names of the file systems supported.
The mount command cycles through the file systems listed here when one is not specified as an argument.

4.2.11.  /proc/interrupts

This file records the number of interrupts per IRQ on the x86 architecture. A standard /proc/interrupts looks similar to the following:
  CPU0
  0:   80448940          XT-PIC  timer
  1:     174412          XT-PIC  keyboard
  2:          0          XT-PIC  cascade
  8:          1          XT-PIC  rtc
 10:     410964          XT-PIC  eth0
 12:      60330          XT-PIC  PS/2 Mouse
 14:    1314121          XT-PIC  ide0
 15:    5195422          XT-PIC  ide1
NMI:          0
ERR:          0
For a multi-processor machine, this file may look slightly different:
	   CPU0       CPU1
  0: 1366814704          0          XT-PIC  timer
  1:        128        340    IO-APIC-edge  keyboard
  2:          0          0          XT-PIC  cascade
  8:          0          1    IO-APIC-edge  rtc
 12:       5323       5793    IO-APIC-edge  PS/2 Mouse
 13:          1          0          XT-PIC  fpu
 16:   11184294   15940594   IO-APIC-level  Intel EtherExpress Pro 10/100 Ethernet
 20:    8450043   11120093   IO-APIC-level  megaraid
 30:      10432      10722   IO-APIC-level  aic7xxx
 31:         23         22   IO-APIC-level  aic7xxx
NMI:          0
ERR:          0
The first column refers to the IRQ number. Each CPU in the system has its own column and its own number of interrupts per IRQ. The next column reports the type of interrupt, and the last column contains the name of the device that is located at that IRQ.
Each of the types of interrupts seen in this file, which are architecture-specific, mean something different. For x86 machines, the following values are common:
  • XT-PIC — This is the old AT computer interrupts.
  • IO-APIC-edge — The voltage signal on this interrupt transitions from low to high, creating an edge, where the interrupt occurs and is only signaled once. This kind of interrupt, as well as the IO-APIC-level interrupt, are only seen on systems with processors from the 586 family and higher.
  • IO-APIC-level — Generates interrupts when its voltage signal is high until the signal is low again.

4.2.12.  /proc/iomem

This file shows you the current map of the system's memory for each physical device:
00000000-0009fbff : System RAM
0009fc00-0009ffff : reserved
000a0000-000bffff : Video RAM area
000c0000-000c7fff : Video ROM
000f0000-000fffff : System ROM
00100000-07ffffff : System RAM
00100000-00291ba8 : Kernel code
00291ba9-002e09cb : Kernel data
e0000000-e3ffffff : VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82C597 [Apollo VP3] e4000000-e7ffffff : PCI Bus #01
e4000000-e4003fff : Matrox Graphics, Inc. MGA G200 AGP
e5000000-e57fffff : Matrox Graphics, Inc. MGA G200 AGP
e8000000-e8ffffff : PCI Bus #01
e8000000-e8ffffff : Matrox Graphics, Inc. MGA G200 AGP
ea000000-ea00007f : Digital Equipment Corporation DECchip 21140 [FasterNet]
ea000000-ea00007f : tulip ffff0000-ffffffff : reserved
The first column displays the memory registers used by each of the different types of memory. The second column lists the kind of memory located within those registers and displays which memory registers are used by the kernel within the system RAM or, if the network interface card has multiple Ethernet ports, the memory registers assigned for each port.

4.2.13.  /proc/ioports

The output of /proc/ioports provides a list of currently registered port regions used for input or output communication with a device. This file can be quite long. The following is a partial listing:
0000-001f : dma1
0020-003f : pic1
0040-005f : timer
0060-006f : keyboard
0070-007f : rtc
0080-008f : dma page reg
00a0-00bf : pic2
00c0-00df : dma2
00f0-00ff : fpu
0170-0177 : ide1
01f0-01f7 : ide0
02f8-02ff : serial(auto)
0376-0376 : ide1
03c0-03df : vga+
03f6-03f6 : ide0
03f8-03ff : serial(auto)
0cf8-0cff : PCI conf1
d000-dfff : PCI Bus #01
e000-e00f : VIA Technologies, Inc. Bus Master IDE
e000-e007 : ide0
e008-e00f : ide1
e800-e87f : Digital Equipment Corporation DECchip 21140 [FasterNet]
e800-e87f : tulip
The first column gives the I/O port address range reserved for the device listed in the second column.

4.2.14.  /proc/kcore

This file represents the physical memory of the system and is stored in the core file format. Unlike most /proc/ files, kcore displays a size. This value is given in bytes and is equal to the size of the physical memory (RAM) used plus 4 KB.
The contents of this file are designed to be examined by a debugger, such as gdb, and is not human readable.

Caution

Do not view the /proc/kcore virtual file. The contents of the file scramble text output on the terminal. If this file is accidentally viewed, press Ctrl+C to stop the process and then type reset to bring back the command line prompt.

4.2.15.  /proc/kmsg

This file is used to hold messages generated by the kernel. These messages are then picked up by other programs, such as /sbin/klogd or /bin/dmesg.

4.2.16.  /proc/loadavg

This file provides a look at the load average in regard to both the CPU and IO over time, as well as additional data used by uptime and other commands. A sample /proc/loadavg file looks similar to the following:
0.20 0.18 0.12 1/80 11206
The first three columns measure CPU and IO utilization of the last one, five, and 15 minute periods. The fourth column shows the number of currently running processes and the total number of processes. The last column displays the last process ID used.
In addition, load average also refers to the number of processes ready to run (i.e. in the run queue, waiting for a CPU share.

4.2.17.  /proc/locks

This file displays the files currently locked by the kernel. The contents of this file contain internal kernel debugging data and can vary tremendously, depending on the use of the system. A sample /proc/locks file for a lightly loaded system looks similar to the following:
1: POSIX  ADVISORY  WRITE 3568 fd:00:2531452 0 EOF
2: FLOCK  ADVISORY  WRITE 3517 fd:00:2531448 0 EOF
3: POSIX  ADVISORY  WRITE 3452 fd:00:2531442 0 EOF
4: POSIX  ADVISORY  WRITE 3443 fd:00:2531440 0 EOF
5: POSIX  ADVISORY  WRITE 3326 fd:00:2531430 0 EOF
6: POSIX  ADVISORY  WRITE 3175 fd:00:2531425 0 EOF
7: POSIX  ADVISORY  WRITE 3056 fd:00:2548663 0 EOF
Each lock has its own line which starts with a unique number. The second column refers to the class of lock used, with FLOCK signifying the older-style UNIX file locks from a flock system call and POSIX representing the newer POSIX locks from the lockf system call.
The third column can have two values: ADVISORY or MANDATORY. ADVISORY means that the lock does not prevent other people from accessing the data; it only prevents other attempts to lock it. MANDATORY means that no other access to the data is permitted while the lock is held. The fourth column reveals whether the lock is allowing the holder READ or WRITE access to the file. The fifth column shows the ID of the process holding the lock. The sixth column shows the ID of the file being locked, in the format of MAJOR-DEVICE:MINOR-DEVICE:INODE-NUMBER . The seventh and eighth column shows the start and end of the file's locked region.

4.2.18.  /proc/mdstat

This file contains the current information for multiple-disk, RAID configurations. If the system does not contain such a configuration, then /proc/mdstat looks similar to the following:
Personalities :  read_ahead not set unused devices: <none>
This file remains in the same state as seen above unless a software RAID or md device is present. In that case, view /proc/mdstat to find the current status of mdX RAID devices.
The /proc/mdstat file below shows a system with its md0 configured as a RAID 1 device, while it is currently re-syncing the disks:
Personalities : [linear] [raid1] read_ahead 1024 sectors
md0: active raid1 sda2[1] sdb2[0] 9940 blocks [2/2] [UU] resync=1% finish=12.3min algorithm 2 [3/3] [UUU]
unused devices: <none>

4.2.19.  /proc/meminfo

This is one of the more commonly used files in the /proc/ directory, as it reports a large amount of valuable information about the systems RAM usage.
The following sample /proc/meminfo virtual file is from a system with 256 MB of RAM and 512 MB of swap space:
MemTotal:       255908 kB
MemFree:         69936 kB
Buffers:         15812 kB
Cached:         115124 kB
SwapCached:          0 kB
Active:          92700 kB
Inactive:        63792 kB
HighTotal:           0 kB
HighFree:            0 kB
LowTotal:       255908 kB
LowFree:         69936 kB
SwapTotal:      524280 kB
SwapFree:       524280 kB
Dirty:               4 kB
Writeback:           0 kB
Mapped:          42236 kB
Slab:            25912 kB
Committed_AS:   118680 kB
PageTables:       1236 kB
VmallocTotal:  3874808 kB
VmallocUsed:      1416 kB
VmallocChunk:  3872908 kB
HugePages_Total:     0
HugePages_Free:      0
Hugepagesize:     4096 kB
Much of the information here is used by the free, top, and ps commands. In fact, the output of the free command is similar in appearance to the contents and structure of /proc/meminfo. But by looking directly at /proc/meminfo, more details are revealed:
  • MemTotal — Total amount of physical RAM, in kilobytes.
  • MemFree — The amount of physical RAM, in kilobytes, left unused by the system.
  • Buffers — The amount of physical RAM, in kilobytes, used for file buffers.
  • Cached — The amount of physical RAM, in kilobytes, used as cache memory.
  • SwapCached — The amount of swap, in kilobytes, used as cache memory.
  • Active — The total amount of buffer or page cache memory, in kilobytes, that is in active use. This is memory that has been recently used and is usually not reclaimed for other purposes.
  • Inactive — The total amount of buffer or page cache memory, in kilobytes, that are free and available. This is memory that has not been recently used and can be reclaimed for other purposes.
  • HighTotal and HighFree — The total and free amount of memory, in kilobytes, that is not directly mapped into kernel space. The HighTotal value can vary based on the type of kernel used.
  • LowTotal and LowFree — The total and free amount of memory, in kilobytes, that is directly mapped into kernel space. The LowTotal value can vary based on the type of kernel used.
  • SwapTotal — The total amount of swap available, in kilobytes.
  • SwapFree — The total amount of swap free, in kilobytes.
  • Dirty — The total amount of memory, in kilobytes, waiting to be written back to the disk.
  • Writeback — The total amount of memory, in kilobytes, actively being written back to the disk.
  • Mapped — The total amount of memory, in kilobytes, which have been used to map devices, files, or libraries using the mmap command.
  • Slab — The total amount of memory, in kilobytes, used by the kernel to cache data structures for its own use.
  • Committed_AS — The total amount of memory, in kilobytes, estimated to complete the workload. This value represents the worst case scenario value, and also includes swap memory.
  • PageTables — The total amount of memory, in kilobytes, dedicated to the lowest page table level.
  • VMallocTotal — The total amount of memory, in kilobytes, of total allocated virtual address space.
  • VMallocUsed — The total amount of memory, in kilobytes, of used virtual address space.
  • VMallocChunk — The largest contiguous block of memory, in kilobytes, of available virtual address space.
  • HugePages_Total — The total number of hugepages for the system. The number is derived by dividing Hugepagesize by the megabytes set aside for hugepages specified in /proc/sys/vm/hugetlb_pool. This statistic only appears on the x86, Itanium, and AMD64 architectures.
  • HugePages_Free — The total number of hugepages available for the system. This statistic only appears on the x86, Itanium, and AMD64 architectures.
  • Hugepagesize — The size for each hugepages unit in kilobytes. By default, the value is 4096 KB on uniprocessor kernels for 32 bit architectures. For SMP, hugemem kernels, and AMD64, the default is 2048 KB. For Itanium architectures, the default is 262144 KB. This statistic only appears on the x86, Itanium, and AMD64 architectures.

4.2.20.  /proc/misc

This file lists miscellaneous drivers registered on the miscellaneous major device, which is device number 10:
63 device-mapper 175 agpgart 135 rtc 134 apm_bios
The first column is the minor number of each device, while the second column shows the driver in use.

4.2.21.  /proc/modules

This file displays a list of all modules loaded into the kernel. Its contents vary based on the configuration and use of your system, but it should be organized in a similar manner to this sample /proc/modules file output:

Note

This example has been reformatted into a readable format. Most of this information can also be viewed via the /sbin/lsmod command.
nfs      170109  0 -          Live 0x129b0000
lockd    51593   1 nfs,       Live 0x128b0000
nls_utf8 1729    0 -          Live 0x12830000
vfat     12097   0 -          Live 0x12823000
fat      38881   1 vfat,      Live 0x1287b000
autofs4  20293   2 -          Live 0x1284f000
sunrpc   140453  3 nfs,lockd, Live 0x12954000
3c59x    33257   0 -          Live 0x12871000
uhci_hcd 28377   0 -          Live 0x12869000
md5      3777    1 -          Live 0x1282c000
ipv6     211845 16 -          Live 0x128de000
ext3     92585   2 -          Live 0x12886000
jbd      65625   1 ext3,      Live 0x12857000
dm_mod   46677   3 -          Live 0x12833000
The first column contains the name of the module.
The second column refers to the memory size of the module, in bytes.
The third column lists how many instances of the module are currently loaded. A value of zero represents an unloaded module.
The fourth column states if the module depends upon another module to be present in order to function, and lists those other modules.
The fifth column lists what load state the module is in: Live, Loading, or Unloading are the only possible values.
The sixth column lists the current kernel memory offset for the loaded module. This information can be useful for debugging purposes, or for profiling tools such as oprofile.

4.2.22.  /proc/mounts

This file provides a list of all mounts in use by the system:
rootfs / rootfs rw 0 0
/proc /proc proc rw,nodiratime 0 0 none
/dev ramfs rw 0 0
/dev/mapper/VolGroup00-LogVol00 / ext3 rw 0 0
none /dev ramfs rw 0 0
/proc /proc proc rw,nodiratime 0 0
/sys /sys sysfs rw 0 0
none /dev/pts devpts rw 0 0
usbdevfs /proc/bus/usb usbdevfs rw 0 0
/dev/hda1 /boot ext3 rw 0 0
none /dev/shm tmpfs rw 0 0
none /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc binfmt_misc rw 0 0
sunrpc /var/lib/nfs/rpc_pipefs rpc_pipefs rw 0 0
The output found here is similar to the contents of /etc/mtab, except that /proc/mount is more up-to-date.
The first column specifies the device that is mounted, the second column reveals the mount point, and the third column tells the file system type, and the fourth column tells you if it is mounted read-only (ro) or read-write (rw). The fifth and sixth columns are dummy values designed to match the format used in /etc/mtab.

4.2.23.  /proc/mtrr

This file refers to the current Memory Type Range Registers (MTRRs) in use with the system. If the system architecture supports MTRRs, then the /proc/mtrr file may look similar to the following:
reg00: base=0x00000000 (   0MB), size= 256MB: write-back, count=1
reg01: base=0xe8000000 (3712MB), size=  32MB: write-combining, count=1
MTRRs are used with the Intel P6 family of processors (Pentium II and higher) and control processor access to memory ranges. When using a video card on a PCI or AGP bus, a properly configured /proc/mtrr file can increase performance more than 150%.
Most of the time, this value is properly configured by default. More information on manually configuring this file can be found locally at the following location:
/usr/share/doc/kernel-doc-<version>/Documentation/mtrr.txt

4.2.24.  /proc/partitions

This file contains partition block allocation information. A sampling of this file from a basic system looks similar to the following:
major minor  #blocks  name
  3     0   19531250 hda
  3     1     104391 hda1
  3     2   19422585 hda2
253     0   22708224 dm-0
253     1     524288 dm-1
Most of the information here is of little importance to the user, except for the following columns:
  • major — The major number of the device with this partition. The major number in the /proc/partitions, (3), corresponds with the block device ide0, in /proc/devices.
  • minor — The minor number of the device with this partition. This serves to separate the partitions into different physical devices and relates to the number at the end of the name of the partition.
  • #blocks — Lists the number of physical disk blocks contained in a particular partition.
  • name — The name of the partition.

4.2.25.  /proc/pci

This file contains a full listing of every PCI device on the system. Depending on the number of PCI devices, /proc/pci can be rather long. A sampling of this file from a basic system looks similar to the following:
Bus  0, device 0, function 0: Host bridge: Intel Corporation 440BX/ZX - 82443BX/ZX Host bridge (rev 3). Master Capable. Latency=64. Prefetchable 32 bit memory at 0xe4000000 [0xe7ffffff].
Bus  0, device 1, function 0: PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 440BX/ZX - 82443BX/ZX AGP bridge (rev 3).   Master Capable. Latency=64. Min Gnt=128.
Bus  0, device 4, function 0: ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82371AB PIIX4 ISA (rev 2).
Bus  0, device 4, function 1: IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82371AB PIIX4 IDE (rev 1). Master Capable. Latency=32. I/O at 0xd800 [0xd80f].
Bus  0, device 4, function 2: USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82371AB PIIX4 USB (rev 1). IRQ 5. Master Capable. Latency=32. I/O at 0xd400 [0xd41f].
Bus  0, device 4, function 3: Bridge: Intel Corporation 82371AB PIIX4 ACPI (rev 2). IRQ 9.
Bus  0, device 9, function 0: Ethernet controller: Lite-On Communications Inc LNE100TX (rev 33). IRQ 5. Master Capable. Latency=32. I/O at 0xd000 [0xd0ff].
Bus  0, device 12, function  0: VGA compatible controller: S3 Inc. ViRGE/DX or /GX (rev 1). IRQ 11. Master Capable. Latency=32. Min Gnt=4.Max Lat=255.
This output shows a list of all PCI devices, sorted in the order of bus, device, and function. Beyond providing the name and version of the device, this list also gives detailed IRQ information so an administrator can quickly look for conflicts.

Tip

To get a more readable version of this information, type:
lspci -vb

4.2.26.  /proc/slabinfo

This file gives full information about memory usage on the slab level. Linux kernels greater than version 2.2 use slab pools to manage memory above the page level. Commonly used objects have their own slab pools.
Instead of parsing the highly verbose /proc/slabinfo file manually, the /usr/bin/slabtop program displays kernel slab cache information in real time. This program allows for custom configurations, including column sorting and screen refreshing.
A sample screen shot of /usr/bin/slabtop usually looks like the following example:
Active / Total Objects (% used)    : 133629 / 147300 (90.7%)
Active / Total Slabs (% used)      : 11492 / 11493 (100.0%)
Active / Total Caches (% used)     : 77 / 121 (63.6%)
Active / Total Size (% used)       : 41739.83K / 44081.89K (94.7%)
Minimum / Average / Maximum Object : 0.01K / 0.30K / 128.00K
OBJS   ACTIVE USE      OBJ   SIZE     SLABS OBJ/SLAB CACHE SIZE NAME
44814  43159  96%    0.62K   7469      6     29876K ext3_inode_cache
36900  34614  93%    0.05K    492     75      1968K buffer_head
35213  33124  94%    0.16K   1531     23      6124K dentry_cache
7364   6463  87%    0.27K    526      14      2104K radix_tree_node
2585   1781  68%    0.08K     55      47       220K vm_area_struct
2263   2116  93%    0.12K     73      31       292K size-128
1904   1125  59%    0.03K     16      119        64K size-32
1666    768  46%    0.03K     14      119        56K anon_vma
1512   1482  98%    0.44K    168       9       672K inode_cache
1464   1040  71%    0.06K     24      61        96K size-64
1320    820  62%    0.19K     66      20       264K filp
678    587  86%    0.02K      3      226        12K dm_io
678    587  86%    0.02K      3      226        12K dm_tio
576    574  99%    0.47K     72        8       288K proc_inode_cache
528    514  97%    0.50K     66        8       264K size-512
492    372  75%    0.09K     12       41        48K bio
465    314  67%    0.25K     31       15       124K size-256
452    331  73%    0.02K      2      226         8K biovec-1
420    420 100%    0.19K     21       20        84K skbuff_head_cache
305    256  83%    0.06K      5       61        20K biovec-4
290      4   1%    0.01K      1      290         4K revoke_table
264    264 100%    4.00K    264        1      1056K size-4096
260    256  98%    0.19K     13       20        52K biovec-16
260    256  98%    0.75K     52        5       208K biovec-64
Some of the more commonly used statistics in /proc/slabinfo that are included into /usr/bin/slabtop include:
  • OBJS — The total number of objects (memory blocks), including those in use (allocated), and some spares not in use.
  • ACTIVE — The number of objects (memory blocks) that are in use (allocated).
  • USE — Percentage of total objects that are active. ((ACTIVE/OBJS)(100))
  • OBJ SIZE — The size of the objects.
  • SLABS — The total number of slabs.
  • OBJ/SLAB — The number of objects that fit into a slab.
  • CACHE SIZE — The cache size of the slab.
  • NAME — The name of the slab.
For more information on the /usr/bin/slabtop program, refer to the slabtop man page.

4.2.27.  /proc/stat

This file keeps track of a variety of different statistics about the system since it was last restarted. The contents of /proc/stat, which can be quite long, usually begins like the following example:
cpu  259246 7001 60190 34250993 137517 772 0
cpu0 259246 7001 60190 34250993 137517 772 0
intr 354133732 347209999 2272 0 4 4 0 0 3 1 1249247 0 0 80143 0 422626 5169433
ctxt 12547729
btime 1093631447
processes 130523
procs_running 1
procs_blocked 0
preempt 5651840
cpu  209841 1554 21720 118519346 72939 154 27168
cpu0 42536 798 4841 14790880 14778 124 3117
cpu1 24184 569 3875 14794524 30209 29 3130
cpu2 28616 11 2182 14818198 4020 1 3493
cpu3 35350 6 2942 14811519 3045 0 3659
cpu4 18209 135 2263 14820076 12465 0 3373
cpu5 20795 35 1866 14825701 4508 0 3615
cpu6 21607 0 2201 14827053 2325 0 3334
cpu7 18544 0 1550 14831395 1589 0 3447
intr 15239682 14857833 6 0 6 6 0 5 0 1 0 0 0 29 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 94982 0 286812
ctxt 4209609
btime 1078711415
processes 21905
procs_running 1
procs_blocked 0
Some of the more commonly used statistics include:
  • cpu — Measures the number of jiffies (1/100 of a second for x86 systems) that the system has been in user mode, user mode with low priority (nice), system mode, idle task, I/O wait, IRQ (hardirq), and softirq respectively. The IRQ (hardirq) is the direct response to a hardware event. The IRQ takes minimal work for queuing the "heavy" work up for the softirq to execute. The softirq runs at a lower priority than the IRQ and therefore may be interrupted more frequently. The total for all CPUs is given at the top, while each individual CPU is listed below with its own statistics. The following example is a 4-way Intel Pentium Xeon configuration with multi-threading enabled, therefore showing four physical processors and four virtual processors totaling eight processors.
  • page — The number of memory pages the system has written in and out to disk.
  • swap — The number of swap pages the system has brought in and out.
  • intr — The number of interrupts the system has experienced.
  • btime — The boot time, measured in the number of seconds since January 1, 1970, otherwise known as the epoch.

4.2.28.  /proc/swaps

This file measures swap space and its utilization. For a system with only one swap partition, the output of /proc/swaps may look similar to the following:
Filename                          Type        Size     Used    Priority
/dev/mapper/VolGroup00-LogVol01   partition   524280   0       -1
While some of this information can be found in other files in the /proc/ directory, /proc/swaps provides a snapshot of every swap file name, the type of swap space, the total size, and the amount of space in use (in kilobytes). The priority column is useful when multiple swap files are in use. The lower the priority, the more likely the swap file is to be used.

4.2.29.  /proc/sysrq-trigger

Using the echo command to write to this file, a remote root user can execute most System Request Key commands remotely as if at the local terminal. To echo values to this file, the /proc/sys/kernel/sysrq must be set to a value other than 0. For more information about the System Request Key, refer to Section 4.3.9.3, “ /proc/sys/kernel/.
Although it is possible to write to this file, it cannot be read, even by the root user.

4.2.30.  /proc/uptime

This file contains information detailing how long the system has been on since its last restart. The output of /proc/uptime is quite minimal:
350735.47 234388.90
The first number is the total number of seconds the system has been up. The second number is how much of that time the machine has spent idle, in seconds.

4.2.31.  /proc/version

This file specifies the version of the Linux kernel and gcc in use, as well as the version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux installed on the system:
Linux version 2.6.8-1.523 (user@foo.redhat.com) (gcc version 3.4.1 20040714 \  (Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3.4.1-7)) #1 Mon Aug 16 13:27:03 EDT 2004
This information is used for a variety of purposes, including the version data presented when a user logs in.

4.3. Directories within /proc/

Common groups of information concerning the kernel are grouped into directories and subdirectories within the /proc/ directory.

4.3.1. Process Directories

Every /proc/ directory contains a number of directories with numerical names. A listing of them may be similar to the following:
dr-xr-xr-x    3 root     root            0 Feb 13 01:28 1
dr-xr-xr-x    3 root     root            0 Feb 13 01:28 1010
dr-xr-xr-x    3 xfs      xfs             0 Feb 13 01:28 1087
dr-xr-xr-x    3 daemon   daemon          0 Feb 13 01:28 1123
dr-xr-xr-x    3 root     root            0 Feb 13 01:28 11307
dr-xr-xr-x    3 apache   apache          0 Feb 13 01:28 13660
dr-xr-xr-x    3 rpc      rpc             0 Feb 13 01:28 637
dr-xr-xr-x    3 rpcuser  rpcuser         0 Feb 13 01:28 666
These directories are called process directories, as they are named after a program's process ID and contain information specific to that process. The owner and group of each process directory is set to the user running the process. When the process is terminated, its /proc/ process directory vanishes.
Each process directory contains the following files:
  • cmdline — Contains the command issued when starting the process.
  • cwd — A symbolic link to the current working directory for the process.
  • environ — A list of the environment variables for the process. The environment variable is given in all upper-case characters, and the value is in lower-case characters.
  • exe — A symbolic link to the executable of this process.
  • fd — A directory containing all of the file descriptors for a particular process. These are given in numbered links:
    total 0
    lrwx------    1 root     root           64 May  8 11:31 0 -> /dev/null
    lrwx------    1 root     root           64 May  8 11:31 1 -> /dev/null
    lrwx------    1 root     root           64 May  8 11:31 2 -> /dev/null
    lrwx------    1 root     root           64 May  8 11:31 3 -> /dev/ptmx
    lrwx------    1 root     root           64 May  8 11:31 4 -> socket:[7774817]
    lrwx------    1 root     root           64 May  8 11:31 5 -> /dev/ptmx
    lrwx------    1 root     root           64 May  8 11:31 6 -> socket:[7774829]
    lrwx------    1 root     root           64 May  8 11:31 7 -> /dev/ptmx
  • maps — A list of memory maps to the various executables and library files associated with this process. This file can be rather long, depending upon the complexity of the process, but sample output from the sshd process begins like the following:
    08048000-08086000 r-xp 00000000 03:03 391479     /usr/sbin/sshd
    08086000-08088000 rw-p 0003e000 03:03 391479	/usr/sbin/sshd
    08088000-08095000 rwxp 00000000 00:00 0
    40000000-40013000 r-xp 0000000 03:03 293205	/lib/ld-2.2.5.so
    40013000-40014000 rw-p 00013000 03:03 293205	/lib/ld-2.2.5.so
    40031000-40038000 r-xp 00000000 03:03 293282	/lib/libpam.so.0.75
    40038000-40039000 rw-p 00006000 03:03 293282	/lib/libpam.so.0.75
    40039000-4003a000 rw-p 00000000 00:00 0
    4003a000-4003c000 r-xp 00000000 03:03 293218	/lib/libdl-2.2.5.so
    4003c000-4003d000 rw-p 00001000 03:03 293218	/lib/libdl-2.2.5.so
  • mem — The memory held by the process. This file cannot be read by the user.
  • root — A link to the root directory of the process.
  • stat — The status of the process.
  • statm — The status of the memory in use by the process. Below is a sample /proc/statm file:
    263 210 210 5 0 205 0
    The seven columns relate to different memory statistics for the process. From left to right, they report the following aspects of the memory used:
    1. Total program size, in kilobytes.
    2. Size of memory portions, in kilobytes.
    3. Number of pages that are shared.
    4. Number of pages that are code.
    5. Number of pages of data/stack.
    6. Number of library pages.
    7. Number of dirty pages.
  • status — The status of the process in a more readable form than stat or statm. Sample output for sshd looks similar to the following:
    Name:	sshd
    State:	S (sleeping)
    Tgid:	797
    Pid:	797
    PPid:	1
    TracerPid:	0
    Uid:	0	0	0	0
    Gid:	0	0	0	0
    FDSize:	32
    Groups:
    VmSize:	    3072 kB
    VmLck:	       0 kB
    VmRSS:	     840 kB
    VmData:	     104 kB
    VmStk:	      12 kB
    VmExe:	     300 kB
    VmLib:	    2528 kB
    SigPnd:	0000000000000000
    SigBlk:	0000000000000000
    SigIgn:	8000000000001000
    SigCgt:	0000000000014005
    CapInh:	0000000000000000
    CapPrm:	00000000fffffeff
    CapEff:	00000000fffffeff
    The information in this output includes the process name and ID, the state (such as S (sleeping) or R (running)), user/group ID running the process, and detailed data regarding memory usage.

4.3.1.1.  /proc/self/

The /proc/self/ directory is a link to the currently running process. This allows a process to look at itself without having to know its process ID.
Within a shell environment, a listing of the /proc/self/ directory produces the same contents as listing the process directory for that process.

4.3.2.  /proc/bus/

This directory contains information specific to the various buses available on the system. For example, on a standard system containing PCI and USB buses, current data on each of these buses is available within a subdirectory within /proc/bus/ by the same name, such as /proc/bus/pci/.
The subdirectories and files available within /proc/bus/ vary depending on the devices connected to the system. However, each bus type has at least one directory. Within these bus directories are normally at least one subdirectory with a numerical name, such as 001, which contain binary files.
For example, the /proc/bus/usb/ subdirectory contains files that track the various devices on any USB buses, as well as the drivers required for them. The following is a sample listing of a /proc/bus/usb/ directory:
total 0 dr-xr-xr-x    1 root     root            0 May  3 16:25 001
-r--r--r--    1 root     root            0 May  3 16:25 devices
-r--r--r--    1 root     root            0 May  3 16:25 drivers
The /proc/bus/usb/001/ directory contains all devices on the first USB bus and the devices file identifies the USB root hub on the motherboard.
The following is a example of a /proc/bus/usb/devices file:
T:  Bus=01 Lev=00 Prnt=00 Port=00 Cnt=00 Dev#=  1 Spd=12  MxCh= 2
B:  Alloc=  0/900 us ( 0%), #Int=  0, #Iso=  0
D:  Ver= 1.00 Cls=09(hub  ) Sub=00 Prot=00 MxPS= 8 #Cfgs=  1
P:  Vendor=0000 ProdID=0000 Rev= 0.00
S:  Product=USB UHCI Root Hub
S:  SerialNumber=d400
C:* #Ifs= 1 Cfg#= 1 Atr=40 MxPwr=  0mA
I:  If#= 0 Alt= 0 #EPs= 1 Cls=09(hub  ) Sub=00 Prot=00 Driver=hub
E:  Ad=81(I) Atr=03(Int.) MxPS=   8 Ivl=255ms

4.3.3.  /proc/driver/

This directory contains information for specific drivers in use by the kernel.
A common file found here is rtc which provides output from the driver for the system's Real Time Clock (RTC), the device that keeps the time while the system is switched off. Sample output from /proc/driver/rtc looks like the following:
rtc_time        : 16:21:00
rtc_date        : 2004-08-31
rtc_epoch       : 1900
alarm           : 21:16:27
DST_enable      : no
BCD             : yes
24hr            : yes
square_wave     : no
alarm_IRQ       : no
update_IRQ      : no
periodic_IRQ    : no
periodic_freq   : 1024
batt_status     : okay
For more information about the RTC, refer to the following installed documentation:
/usr/share/doc/kernel-doc-<version>/Documentation/rtc.txt.

4.3.4.  /proc/fs

This directory shows which file systems are exported. If running an NFS server, typing cat /proc/fs/nfsd/exports displays the file systems being shared and the permissions granted for those file systems. For more on file system sharing with NFS, refer to Chapter 20, Network File System (NFS).

4.3.5.  /proc/ide/

This directory contains information about IDE devices on the system. Each IDE channel is represented as a separate directory, such as /proc/ide/ide0 and /proc/ide/ide1. In addition, a drivers file is available, providing the version number of the various drivers used on the IDE channels:
ide-floppy version 0.99.
newide ide-cdrom version 4.61
ide-disk version 1.18
Many chipsets also provide a file in this directory with additional data concerning the drives connected through the channels. For example, a generic Intel PIIX4 Ultra 33 chipset produces the /proc/ide/piix file which reveals whether DMA or UDMA is enabled for the devices on the IDE channels:
Intel PIIX4 Ultra 33 Chipset.
------------- Primary Channel ---------------- Secondary Channel -------------
		enabled                          enabled

------------- drive0 --------- drive1 -------- drive0 ---------- drive1 ------
DMA enabled:    yes              no              yes               no
UDMA enabled:   yes              no              no                no
UDMA enabled:   2                X               X                 X
UDMA DMA PIO
Navigating into the directory for an IDE channel, such as ide0, provides additional information. The channel file provides the channel number, while the model identifies the bus type for the channel (such as pci).

4.3.5.1. Device Directories

Within each IDE channel directory is a device directory. The name of the device directory corresponds to the drive letter in the /dev/ directory. For instance, the first IDE drive on ide0 would be hda.

Note

There is a symbolic link to each of these device directories in the /proc/ide/ directory.
Each device directory contains a collection of information and statistics. The contents of these directories vary according to the type of device connected. Some of the more useful files common to many devices include:
  • cache — The device cache.
  • capacity — The capacity of the device, in 512 byte blocks.
  • driver — The driver and version used to control the device.
  • geometry — The physical and logical geometry of the device.
  • media — The type of device, such as a disk.
  • model — The model name or number of the device.
  • settings — A collection of current device parameters. This file usually contains quite a bit of useful, technical information. A sample settings file for a standard IDE hard disk looks similar to the following:
    name                value          min          max          mode
    ----                -----          ---          ---          ----
    acoustic            0              0            254          rw
    address             0              0            2            rw
    bios_cyl            38752          0            65535        rw
    bios_head           16             0            255          rw
    bios_sect           63             0            63           rw
    bswap               0              0            1            r
    current_speed       68             0            70           rw
    failures            0              0            65535        rw
    init_speed          68             0            70           rw
    io_32bit            0              0            3            rw
    keepsettings        0              0            1            rw
    lun                 0              0            7            rw
    max_failures        1              0            65535        rw
    multcount           16             0            16           rw
    nice1               1              0            1            rw
    nowerr              0              0            1            rw
    number              0              0            3            rw
    pio_mode            write-only     0            255          w
    unmaskirq           0              0            1            rw
    using_dma           1              0            1            rw
    wcache              1              0            1            rw

4.3.6.  /proc/irq/

This directory is used to set IRQ to CPU affinity, which allows the system to connect a particular IRQ to only one CPU. Alternatively, it can exclude a CPU from handling any IRQs.
Each IRQ has its own directory, allowing for the individual configuration of each IRQ. The /proc/irq/prof_cpu_mask file is a bitmask that contains the default values for the smp_affinity file in the IRQ directory. The values in smp_affinity specify which CPUs handle that particular IRQ.
For more information about the /proc/irq/ directory, refer to the following installed documentation:
/usr/share/doc/kernel-doc-<version>/Documentation/filesystems/proc.txt

4.3.7.  /proc/net/

This directory provides a comprehensive look at various networking parameters and statistics. Each directory and virtual file within this directory describes aspects of the system's network configuration. Below is a partial list of the /proc/net/ directory:
  • arp — Lists the kernel's ARP table. This file is particularly useful for connecting a hardware address to an IP address on a system.
  • atm/ directory — The files within this directory contain Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) settings and statistics. This directory is primarily used with ATM networking and ADSL cards.
  • dev — Lists the various network devices configured on the system, complete with transmit and receive statistics. This file displays the number of bytes each interface has sent and received, the number of packets inbound and outbound, the number of errors seen, the number of packets dropped, and more.
  • dev_mcast — Lists Layer2 multicast groups on which each device is listening.
  • igmp — Lists the IP multicast addresses which this system joined.
  • ip_conntrack — Lists tracked network connections for machines that are forwarding IP connections.
  • ip_tables_names — Lists the types of iptables in use. This file is only present if iptables is active on the system and contains one or more of the following values: filter, mangle, or nat.
  • ip_mr_cache — Lists the multicast routing cache.
  • ip_mr_vif — Lists multicast virtual interfaces.
  • netstat — Contains a broad yet detailed collection of networking statistics, including TCP timeouts, SYN cookies sent and received, and much more.
  • psched — Lists global packet scheduler parameters.
  • raw — Lists raw device statistics.
  • route — Lists the kernel's routing table.
  • rt_cache — Contains the current routing cache.
  • snmp — List of Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) data for various networking protocols in use.
  • sockstat — Provides socket statistics.
  • tcp — Contains detailed TCP socket information.
  • tr_rif — Lists the token ring RIF routing table.
  • udp — Contains detailed UDP socket information.
  • unix — Lists UNIX domain sockets currently in use.
  • wireless — Lists wireless interface data.

4.3.8.  /proc/scsi/

This directory is analogous to the /proc/ide/ directory, but it is for connected SCSI devices.
The primary file in this directory is /proc/scsi/scsi, which contains a list of every recognized SCSI device. From this listing, the type of device, as well as the model name, vendor, SCSI channel and ID data is available.
For example, if a system contains a SCSI CD-ROM, a tape drive, a hard drive, and a RAID controller, this file looks similar to the following:
Attached devices:
Host: scsi1
Channel: 00
Id: 05
Lun: 00
Vendor: NEC
Model: CD-ROM DRIVE:466
Rev: 1.06
Type:   CD-ROM
ANSI SCSI revision: 02
Host: scsi1
Channel: 00
Id: 06
Lun: 00
Vendor: ARCHIVE
Model: Python 04106-XXX
Rev: 7350
Type:   Sequential-Access
ANSI SCSI revision: 02
Host: scsi2
Channel: 00
Id: 06
Lun: 00
Vendor: DELL
Model: 1x6 U2W SCSI BP
Rev: 5.35
Type:   Processor
ANSI SCSI revision: 02
Host: scsi2
Channel: 02
Id: 00
Lun: 00
Vendor: MegaRAID
Model: LD0 RAID5 34556R
Rev: 1.01
Type:   Direct-Access
ANSI SCSI revision: 02
Each SCSI driver used by the system has its own directory within /proc/scsi/, which contains files specific to each SCSI controller using that driver. From the previous example, aic7xxx/ and megaraid/ directories are present, since two drivers are in use. The files in each of the directories typically contain an I/O address range, IRQ information, and statistics for the SCSI controller using that driver. Each controller can report a different type and amount of information. The Adaptec AIC-7880 Ultra SCSI host adapter's file in this example system produces the following output:
Adaptec AIC7xxx driver version: 5.1.20/3.2.4
Compile Options:
TCQ Enabled By Default : Disabled
AIC7XXX_PROC_STATS     : Enabled
AIC7XXX_RESET_DELAY    : 5
Adapter Configuration:
SCSI Adapter: Adaptec AIC-7880 Ultra SCSI host adapter
Ultra Narrow Controller     PCI MMAPed
I/O Base: 0xfcffe000
Adapter SEEPROM Config: SEEPROM found and used.
Adaptec SCSI BIOS: Enabled
IRQ: 30
SCBs: Active 0, Max Active 1, Allocated 15, HW 16, Page 255
Interrupts: 33726
BIOS Control Word: 0x18a6
Adapter Control Word: 0x1c5f
Extended Translation: Enabled
Disconnect Enable Flags: 0x00ff
Ultra Enable Flags: 0x0020
Tag Queue Enable Flags: 0x0000
Ordered Queue Tag Flags: 0x0000
Default Tag Queue Depth: 8
Tagged Queue By Device array for aic7xxx
host instance 1:       {255,255,255,255,255,255,255,255,255,255,255,255,255,255,255,255}
Actual queue depth per device for aic7xxx host instance 1:       {1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1}
Statistics:

(scsi1:0:5:0) Device using Narrow/Sync transfers at 20.0 MByte/sec, offset 15
Transinfo settings: current(12/15/0/0), goal(12/15/0/0), user(12/15/0/0)
Total transfers 0 (0 reads and 0 writes)
		< 2K      2K+     4K+     8K+    16K+    32K+    64K+   128K+
Reads:        0       0       0       0       0       0       0       0
Writes:       0       0       0       0       0       0       0       0

(scsi1:0:6:0) Device using Narrow/Sync transfers at 10.0 MByte/sec, offset 15
Transinfo settings: current(25/15/0/0), goal(12/15/0/0), user(12/15/0/0)
Total transfers 132 (0 reads and 132 writes)
		< 2K      2K+     4K+     8K+    16K+    32K+    64K+   128K+
Reads:        0       0       0       0       0       0       0       0
Writes:       0       0       0       1     131       0       0       0
This output reveals the transfer speed to the SCSI devices connected to the controller based on channel ID, as well as detailed statistics concerning the amount and sizes of files read or written by that device. For example, this controller is communicating with the CD-ROM at 20 megabytes per second, while the tape drive is only communicating at 10 megabytes per second.

4.3.9.  /proc/sys/

The /proc/sys/ directory is different from others in /proc/ because it not only provides information about the system but also allows the system administrator to immediately enable and disable kernel features.

Caution

Use caution when changing settings on a production system using the various files in the /proc/sys/ directory. Changing the wrong setting may render the kernel unstable, requiring a system reboot.
For this reason, be sure the options are valid for that file before attempting to change any value in /proc/sys/.
A good way to determine if a particular file can be configured, or if it is only designed to provide information, is to list it with the -l option at the shell prompt. If the file is writable, it may be used to configure the kernel. For example, a partial listing of /proc/sys/fs looks like the following:
-r--r--r--    1 root     root            0 May 10 16:14 dentry-state
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root            0 May 10 16:14 dir-notify-enable
-r--r--r--    1 root     root            0 May 10 16:14 dquot-nr
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root            0 May 10 16:14 file-max
-r--r--r--    1 root     root            0 May 10 16:14 file-nr
In this listing, the files dir-notify-enable and file-max can be written to and, therefore, can be used to configure the kernel. The other files only provide feedback on current settings.
Changing a value within a /proc/sys/ file is done by echoing the new value into the file. For example, to enable the System Request Key on a running kernel, type the command:
echo 1 > /proc/sys/kernel/sysrq
This changes the value for sysrq from 0 (off) to 1 (on).
A few /proc/sys/ configuration files contain more than one value. To correctly send new values to them, place a space character between each value passed with the echo command, such as is done in this example:
echo 4 2 45 > /proc/sys/kernel/acct

Note

Any configuration changes made using the echo command disappear when the system is restarted. To make configuration changes take effect after the system is rebooted, refer to Section 4.4, “Using the sysctl Command”.
The /proc/sys/ directory contains several subdirectories controlling different aspects of a running kernel.

4.3.9.1.  /proc/sys/dev/

This directory provides parameters for particular devices on the system. Most systems have at least two directories, cdrom/ and raid/. Customized kernels can have other directories, such as parport/, which provides the ability to share one parallel port between multiple device drivers.
The cdrom/ directory contains a file called info, which reveals a number of important CD-ROM parameters:
CD-ROM information, Id: cdrom.c 3.20 2003/12/17
drive name:             hdc
drive speed:            48
drive # of slots:       1
Can close tray:         1
Can open tray:          1
Can lock tray:          1
Can change speed:       1
Can select disk:        0
Can read multisession:  1
Can read MCN:           1
Reports media changed:  1
Can play audio:         1
Can write CD-R:         0
Can write CD-RW:        0
Can read DVD:           0
Can write DVD-R:        0
Can write DVD-RAM:      0
Can read MRW:           0
Can write MRW:          0
Can write RAM:          0
This file can be quickly scanned to discover the qualities of an unknown CD-ROM. If multiple CD-ROMs are available on a system, each device is given its own column of information.
Various files in /proc/sys/dev/cdrom, such as autoclose and checkmedia, can be used to control the system's CD-ROM. Use the echo command to enable or disable these features.
If RAID support is compiled into the kernel, a /proc/sys/dev/raid/ directory becomes available with at least two files in it: speed_limit_min and speed_limit_max. These settings determine the acceleration of RAID devices for I/O intensive tasks, such as resyncing the disks.

4.3.9.2.  /proc/sys/fs/

This directory contains an array of options and information concerning various aspects of the file system, including quota, file handle, inode, and dentry information.
The binfmt_misc/ directory is used to provide kernel support for miscellaneous binary formats.
The important files in /proc/sys/fs/ include:
  • dentry-state — Provides the status of the directory cache. The file looks similar to the following:
    57411	52939	45	0	0	0
    The first number reveals the total number of directory cache entries, while the second number displays the number of unused entries. The third number tells the number of seconds between when a directory has been freed and when it can be reclaimed, and the fourth measures the pages currently requested by the system. The last two numbers are not used and display only zeros.
  • dquot-nr — Lists the maximum number of cached disk quota entries.
  • file-max — Lists the maximum number of file handles that the kernel allocates. Raising the value in this file can resolve errors caused by a lack of available file handles.
  • file-nr — Lists the number of allocated file handles, used file handles, and the maximum number of file handles.
  • overflowgid and overflowuid — Defines the fixed group ID and user ID, respectively, for use with file systems that only support 16-bit group and user IDs.
  • super-max — Controls the maximum number of superblocks available.
  • super-nr — Displays the current number of superblocks in use.

4.3.9.3.  /proc/sys/kernel/

This directory contains a variety of different configuration files that directly affect the operation of the kernel. Some of the most important files include:
  • acct — Controls the suspension of process accounting based on the percentage of free space available on the file system containing the log. By default, the file looks like the following:
    4	2	30
    The first value dictates the percentage of free space required for logging to resume, while the second value sets the threshold percentage of free space when logging is suspended. The third value sets the interval, in seconds, that the kernel polls the file system to see if logging should be suspended or resumed.
  • cap-bound — Controls the capability bounding settings, which provides a list of capabilities for any process on the system. If a capability is not listed here, then no process, no matter how privileged, can do it. The idea is to make the system more secure by ensuring that certain things cannot happen, at least beyond a certain point in the boot process.
    For a valid list of values for this virtual file, refer to the following installed documentation:
    /lib/modules/<kernel-version>/build/include/linux/capability.h.
  • ctrl-alt-del — Controls whether Ctrl+Alt+Delete gracefully restarts the computer using init (0) or forces an immediate reboot without syncing the dirty buffers to disk (1).
  • domainname — Configures the system domain name, such as example.com.
  • exec-shield — Configures the Exec Shield feature of the kernel. Exec Shield provides protection against certain types of buffer overflow attacks.
    There are two possible values for this virtual file:
    • 0 — Disables Exec Shield.
    • 1 — Enables Exec Shield. This is the default value.

    Important

    If a system is running security-sensitive applications that were started while Exec Shield was disabled, these applications must be restarted when Exec Shield is enabled in order for Exec Shield to take effect.
  • exec-shield-randomize — Enables location randomization of various items in memory. This helps deter potential attackers from locating programs and daemons in memory. Each time a program or daemon starts, it is put into a different memory location each time, never in a static or absolute memory address.
    There are two possible values for this virtual file:
    • 0 — Disables randomization of Exec Shield. This may be useful for application debugging purposes.
    • 1 — Enables randomization of Exec Shield. This is the default value. Note: The exec-shield file must also be set to 1 for exec-shield-randomize to be effective.
  • hostname — Configures the system hostname, such as www.example.com.
  • hotplug — Configures the utility to be used when a configuration change is detected by the system. This is primarily used with USB and Cardbus PCI. The default value of /sbin/hotplug should not be changed unless testing a new program to fulfill this role.
  • modprobe — Sets the location of the program used to load kernel modules. The default value is /sbin/modprobe which means kmod calls it to load the module when a kernel thread calls kmod.
  • msgmax — Sets the maximum size of any message sent from one process to another and is set to 8192 bytes by default. Be careful when raising this value, as queued messages between processes are stored in non-swappable kernel memory. Any increase in msgmax would increase RAM requirements for the system.
  • msgmnb — Sets the maximum number of bytes in a single message queue. The default is 16384.
  • msgmni — Sets the maximum number of message queue identifiers. The default is 16.
  • osrelease — Lists the Linux kernel release number. This file can only be altered by changing the kernel source and recompiling.
  • ostype — Displays the type of operating system. By default, this file is set to Linux, and this value can only be changed by changing the kernel source and recompiling.
  • overflowgid and overflowuid — Defines the fixed group ID and user ID, respectively, for use with system calls on architectures that only support 16-bit group and user IDs.
  • panic — Defines the number of seconds the kernel postpones rebooting when the system experiences a kernel panic. By default, the value is set to 0, which disables automatic rebooting after a panic.
  • printk — This file controls a variety of settings related to printing or logging error messages. Each error message reported by the kernel has a loglevel associated with it that defines the importance of the message. The loglevel values break down in this order:
    • 0 — Kernel emergency. The system is unusable.
    • 1 — Kernel alert. Action must be taken immediately.
    • 2 — Condition of the kernel is considered critical.
    • 3 — General kernel error condition.
    • 4 — General kernel warning condition.
    • 5 — Kernel notice of a normal but significant condition.
    • 6 — Kernel informational message.
    • 7 — Kernel debug-level messages.
    Four values are found in the printk file:
    6     4     1     7
    Each of these values defines a different rule for dealing with error messages. The first value, called the console loglevel, defines the lowest priority of messages printed to the console. (Note that, the lower the priority, the higher the loglevel number.) The second value sets the default loglevel for messages without an explicit loglevel attached to them. The third value sets the lowest possible loglevel configuration for the console loglevel. The last value sets the default value for the console loglevel.
  • random/ directory — Lists a number of values related to generating random numbers for the kernel.
  • rtsig-max — Configures the maximum number of POSIX real-time signals that the system may have queued at any one time. The default value is 1024.
  • rtsig-nr — Lists the current number of POSIX real-time signals queued by the kernel.
  • sem — Configures semaphore settings within the kernel. A semaphore is a System V IPC object that is used to control utilization of a particular process.
  • shmall— Sets the total amount of shared memory pages that can be used at one time, system-wide. By default, this value is 2097152.
  • shmmax — Sets the largest shared memory segment size allowed by the kernel. By default, this value is 33554432. However, the kernel supports much larger values than this.
  • shmmni — Sets the maximum number of shared memory segments for the whole system. By default, this value is 4096.
  • sysrq — Activates the System Request Key, if this value is set to anything other than zero (0), the default.
    The System Request Key allows immediate input to the kernel through simple key combinations. For example, the System Request Key can be used to immediately shut down or restart a system, sync all mounted file systems, or dump important information to the console. To initiate a System Request Key, type Alt+SysRq+ <system request code> . Replace <system request code> with one of the following system request codes:
    • r — Disables raw mode for the keyboard and sets it to XLATE (a limited keyboard mode which does not recognize modifiers such as Alt, Ctrl, or Shift for all keys).
    • k — Kills all processes active in a virtual console. Also called Secure Access Key (SAK), it is often used to verify that the login prompt is spawned from init and not a Trojan copy designed to capture usernames and passwords.
    • b — Reboots the kernel without first unmounting file systems or syncing disks attached to the system.
    • c — Crashes the system without first unmounting file systems or syncing disks attached to the system.
    • o — Shuts off the system.
    • s — Attempts to sync disks attached to the system.
    • u — Attempts to unmount and remount all file systems as read-only.
    • p — Outputs all flags and registers to the console.
    • t — Outputs a list of processes to the console.
    • m — Outputs memory statistics to the console.
    • 0 through 9 — Sets the log level for the console.
    • e — Kills all processes except init using SIGTERM.
    • i — Kills all processes except init using SIGKILL.
    • l — Kills all processes using SIGKILL (including init). The system is unusable after issuing this System Request Key code.
    • h — Displays help text.
    This feature is most beneficial when using a development kernel or when experiencing system freezes.

    Caution

    The System Request Key feature is considered a security risk because an unattended console provides an attacker with access to the system. For this reason, it is turned off by default.
    Refer to /usr/share/doc/kernel-doc-<version>/Documentation/sysrq.txt for more information about the System Request Key.
  • sysrq-key — Defines the key code for the System Request Key (84 is the default).
  • sysrq-sticky — Defines whether the System Request Key is a chorded key combination. The accepted values are as follows:
    • 0Alt+SysRq and the system request code must be pressed simultaneously. This is the default value.
    • 1Alt+SysRq must be pressed simultaneously, but the system request code can be pressed anytime before the number of seconds specified in /proc/sys/kernel/sysrq-timer elapses.
  • sysrq-timer — Specifies the number of seconds allowed to pass before the system request code must be pressed. The default value is 10.
  • tainted — Indicates whether a non-GPL module is loaded.
    • 0 — No non-GPL modules are loaded.
    • 1 — At least one module without a GPL license (including modules with no license) is loaded.
    • 2 — At least one module was force-loaded with the command insmod -f.
  • threads-max — Sets the maximum number of threads to be used by the kernel, with a default value of 2048.
  • version — Displays the date and time the kernel was last compiled. The first field in this file, such as #3, relates to the number of times a kernel was built from the source base.

4.3.9.4.  /proc/sys/net/

This directory contains subdirectories concerning various networking topics. Various configurations at the time of kernel compilation make different directories available here, such as ethernet/, ipv4/, ipx/, and ipv6/. By altering the files within these directories, system administrators are able to adjust the network configuration on a running system.
Given the wide variety of possible networking options available with Linux, only the most common /proc/sys/net/ directories are discussed.
The /proc/sys/net/core/ directory contains a variety of settings that control the interaction between the kernel and networking layers. The most important of these files are:
  • message_burst — Sets the amount of time in tenths of a second required to write a new warning message. This setting is used to mitigate Denial of Service (DoS) attacks. The default setting is 50.
  • message_cost — Sets a cost on every warning message. The higher the value of this file (default of 5), the more likely the warning message is ignored. This setting is used to mitigate DoS attacks.
    The idea of a DoS attack is to bombard the targeted system with requests that generate errors and fill up disk partitions with log files or require all of the system's resources to handle the error logging. The settings in message_burst and message_cost are designed to be modified based on the system's acceptable risk versus the need for comprehensive logging.
  • netdev_max_backlog — Sets the maximum number of packets allowed to queue when a particular interface receives packets faster than the kernel can process them. The default value for this file is 300.
  • optmem_max — Configures the maximum ancillary buffer size allowed per socket.
  • rmem_default — Sets the receive socket buffer default size in bytes.
  • rmem_max — Sets the receive socket buffer maximum size in bytes.
  • wmem_default — Sets the send socket buffer default size in bytes.
  • wmem_max — Sets the send socket buffer maximum size in bytes.
The /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ directory contains additional networking settings. Many of these settings, used in conjunction with one another, are useful in preventing attacks on the system or when using the system to act as a router.

Caution

An erroneous change to these files may affect remote connectivity to the system.
The following is a list of some of the more important files within the /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ directory:
  • icmp_destunreach_rate, icmp_echoreply_rate, icmp_paramprob_rate, and icmp_timeexeed_rate — Set the maximum ICMP send packet rate, in 1/100 of a second, to hosts under certain conditions. A setting of 0 removes any delay and is not a good idea.
  • icmp_echo_ignore_all and icmp_echo_ignore_broadcasts — Allows the kernel to ignore ICMP ECHO packets from every host or only those originating from broadcast and multicast addresses, respectively. A value of 0 allows the kernel to respond, while a value of 1 ignores the packets.
  • ip_default_ttl — Sets the default Time To Live (TTL), which limits the number of hops a packet may make before reaching its destination. Increasing this value can diminish system performance.
  • ip_forward — Permits interfaces on the system to forward packets to one other. By default, this file is set to 0. Setting this file to 1 enables network packet forwarding.
  • ip_local_port_range — Specifies the range of ports to be used by TCP or UDP when a local port is needed. The first number is the lowest port to be used and the second number specifies the highest port. Any systems that expect to require more ports than the default 1024 to 4999 should use a range from 32768 to 61000.
  • tcp_syn_retries — Provides a limit on the number of times the system re-transmits a SYN packet when attempting to make a connection.
  • tcp_retries1 — Sets the number of permitted re-transmissions attempting to answer an incoming connection. Default of 3.
  • tcp_retries2 — Sets the number of permitted re-transmissions of TCP packets. Default of 15.
The file called
/usr/share/doc/kernel-doc-<version>/Documentation/networking/ ip-sysctl.txt
contains a complete list of files and options available in the /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ directory.
A number of other directories exist within the /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ directory and each covers a different aspect of the network stack. The /proc/sys/net/ipv4/conf/ directory allows each system interface to be configured in different ways, including the use of default settings for unconfigured devices (in the /proc/sys/net/ipv4/conf/default/ subdirectory) and settings that override all special configurations (in the /proc/sys/net/ipv4/conf/all/ subdirectory).
The /proc/sys/net/ipv4/neigh/ directory contains settings for communicating with a host directly connected to the system (called a network neighbor) and also contains different settings for systems more than one hop away.
Routing over IPV4 also has its own directory, /proc/sys/net/ipv4/route/. Unlike conf/ and neigh/, the /proc/sys/net/ipv4/route/ directory contains specifications that apply to routing with any interfaces on the system. Many of these settings, such as max_size, max_delay, and min_delay, relate to controlling the size of the routing cache. To clear the routing cache, write any value to the flush file.
Additional information about these directories and the possible values for their configuration files can be found in:
/usr/share/doc/kernel-doc-<version>/Documentation/filesystems/proc.txt

4.3.9.5.  /proc/sys/vm/

This directory facilitates the configuration of the Linux kernel's virtual memory (VM) subsystem. The kernel makes extensive and intelligent use of virtual memory, which is commonly referred to as swap space.
The following files are commonly found in the /proc/sys/vm/ directory:
  • block_dump — Configures block I/O debugging when enabled. All read/write and block dirtying operations done to files are logged accordingly. This can be useful if diagnosing disk spin up and spin downs for laptop battery conservation. All output when block_dump is enabled can be retrieved via dmesg. The default value is 0.

    Tip

    If block_dump is enabled at the same time as kernel debugging, it is prudent to stop the klogd daemon, as it generates erroneous disk activity caused by block_dump.
  • dirty_background_ratio — Starts background writeback of dirty data at this percentage of total memory, via a pdflush daemon. The default value is 10.
  • dirty_expire_centisecs — Defines when dirty in-memory data is old enough to be eligible for writeout. Data which has been dirty in-memory for longer than this interval is written out next time a pdflush daemon wakes up. The default value is 3000, expressed in hundredths of a second.
  • dirty_ratio — Starts active writeback of dirty data at this percentage of total memory for the generator of dirty data, via pdflush. The default value is 40.
  • dirty_writeback_centisecs — Defines the interval between pdflush daemon wakeups, which periodically writes dirty in-memory data out to disk. The default value is 500, expressed in hundredths of a second.
  • laptop_mode — Minimizes the number of times that a hard disk needs to spin up by keeping the disk spun down for as long as possible, therefore conserving battery power on laptops. This increases efficiency by combining all future I/O processes together, reducing the frequency of spin ups. The default value is 0, but is automatically enabled in case a battery on a laptop is used.
    This value is controlled automatically by the acpid daemon once a user is notified battery power is enabled. No user modifications or interactions are necessary if the laptop supports the ACPI (Advanced Configuration and Power Interface) specification.
    For more information, refer to the following installed documentation:
    /usr/share/doc/kernel-doc-<version>/Documentation/laptop-mode.txt
  • lower_zone_protection — Determines how aggressive the kernel is in defending lower memory allocation zones. This is effective when utilized with machines configured with highmem memory space enabled. The default value is 0, no protection at all. All other integer values are in megabytes, and lowmem memory is therefore protected from being allocated by users.
    For more information, refer to the following installed documentation:
    /usr/share/doc/kernel-doc-<version>/Documentation/filesystems/proc.txt
  • max_map_count — Configures the maximum number of memory map areas a process may have. In most cases, the default value of 65536 is appropriate.
  • min_free_kbytes — Forces the Linux VM (virtual memory manager) to keep a minimum number of kilobytes free. The VM uses this number to compute a pages_min value for each lowmem zone in the system. The default value is in respect to the total memory on the machine.
  • nr_hugepages — Indicates the current number of configured hugetlb pages in the kernel.
    For more information, refer to the following installed documentation:
    /usr/share/doc/kernel-doc-<version>/Documentation/vm/hugetlbpage.txt
  • nr_pdflush_threads — Indicates the number of pdflush daemons that are currently running. This file is read-only, and should not be changed by the user. Under heavy I/O loads, the default value of two is increased by the kernel.
  • overcommit_memory — Configures the conditions under which a large memory request is accepted or denied. The following three modes are available:
    • 0 — The kernel performs heuristic memory over commit handling by estimating the amount of memory available and failing requests that are blatantly invalid. Unfortunately, since memory is allocated using a heuristic rather than a precise algorithm, this setting can sometimes allow available memory on the system to be overloaded. This is the default setting.
    • 1 — The kernel performs no memory over commit handling. Under this setting, the potential for memory overload is increased, but so is performance for memory intensive tasks (such as those executed by some scientific software).
    • 2 — The kernel fails requests for memory that add up to all of swap plus the percent of physical RAM specified in /proc/sys/vm/overcommit_ratio. This setting is best for those who desire less risk of memory overcommitment.

      Note

      This setting is only recommended for systems with swap areas larger than physical memory.
  • overcommit_ratio — Specifies the percentage of physical RAM considered when /proc/sys/vm/overcommit_memory is set to 2. The default value is 50.
  • page-cluster — Sets the number of pages read in a single attempt. The default value of 3, which actually relates to 16 pages, is appropriate for most systems.
  • swappiness — Determines how much a machine should swap. The higher the value, the more swapping occurs. The default value, as a percentage, is set to 60.
All kernel-based documentation can be found in the following locally installed location:
/usr/share/doc/kernel-doc-<version>/Documentation/, which contains additional information.

4.3.10.  /proc/sysvipc/

This directory contains information about System V IPC resources. The files in this directory relate to System V IPC calls for messages (msg), semaphores (sem), and shared memory (shm).

4.3.11.  /proc/tty/

This directory contains information about the available and currently used tty devices on the system. Originally called teletype devices, any character-based data terminals are called tty devices.
In Linux, there are three different kinds of tty devices. Serial devices are used with serial connections, such as over a modem or using a serial cable. Virtual terminals create the common console connection, such as the virtual consoles available when pressing Alt+<F-key> at the system console. Pseudo terminals create a two-way communication that is used by some higher level applications, such as XFree86. The drivers file is a list of the current tty devices in use, as in the following example:
serial               /dev/cua        5  64-127 serial:callout
serial               /dev/ttyS       4  64-127 serial
pty_slave            /dev/pts      136   0-255 pty:slave
pty_master           /dev/ptm      128   0-255 pty:master
pty_slave            /dev/ttyp       3   0-255 pty:slave
pty_master           /dev/pty        2   0-255 pty:master
/dev/vc/0            /dev/vc/0       4       0 system:vtmaster
/dev/ptmx            /dev/ptmx       5       2 system
/dev/console         /dev/console    5       1 system:console
/dev/tty             /dev/tty        5       0 system:/dev/tty
unknown              /dev/vc/%d      4    1-63 console
The /proc/tty/driver/serial file lists the usage statistics and status of each of the serial tty lines.
In order for tty devices to be used as network devices, the Linux kernel enforces line discipline on the device. This allows the driver to place a specific type of header with every block of data transmitted over the device, making it possible for the remote end of the connection to a block of data as just one in a stream of data blocks. SLIP and PPP are common line disciplines, and each are commonly used to connect systems to one other over a serial link.
Registered line disciplines are stored in the ldiscs file, and more detailed information is available within the ldisc/ directory.

4.3.12.  /proc/<PID>/

Out of Memory (OOM) refers to a computing state where all available memory, including swap space, has been allocated. When this situation occurs, it will cause the system to panic and stop functioning as expected. There is a switch that controls OOM behavior in /proc/sys/vm/panic_on_oom. When set to 1 the kernel will panic on OOM. A setting of 0 instructs the kernel to call a function named oom_killer on an OOM. Usually, oom_killer can kill rogue processes and the system will survive.
The easiest way to change this is to echo the new value to /proc/sys/vm/panic_on_oom.
~]# cat /proc/sys/vm/panic_on_oom
1
~]# echo 0 > /proc/sys/vm/panic_on_oom
~]# cat /proc/sys/vm/panic_on_oom
0
It is also possible to prioritize which processes get killed by adjusting the oom_killer score. In /proc/<PID>/ there are two tools labelled oom_adj and oom_score. Valid scores for oom_adj are in the range -16 to +15. To see the current oom_killer score, view the oom_score for the process. oom_killer will kill processes with the highest scores first.
This example adjusts the oom_score of a process with a PID of 12465 to make it less likely that oom_killer will kill it.
~]# cat /proc/12465/oom_score
79872
~]# echo -5 > /proc/12465/oom_adj
~]# cat /proc/12465/oom_score
78
There is also a special value of -17, which disables oom_killer for that process. In the example below, oom_score returns a value of 0, indicating that this process would not be killed.
~]# cat /proc/12465/oom_score
78
~]# echo -17 > /proc/12465/oom_adj
~]# cat /proc/12465/oom_score
0
A function called badness() is used to determine the actual score for each process. This is done by adding up 'points' for each examined process. The process scoring is done in the following way:
  1. The basis of each process's score is its memory size.
  2. The memory size of any of the process's children (not including a kernel thread) is also added to the score
  3. The process's score is increased for 'niced' processes and decreased for long running processes.
  4. Processes with the CAP_SYS_ADMIN and CAP_SYS_RAWIO capabilities have their scores reduced.
  5. The final score is then bitshifted by the value saved in the oom_adj file.
Thus, a process with the highest oom_score value will most probably be a non-privileged, recently started process that, along with its children, uses a large amount of memory, has been 'niced', and handles no raw I/O.

4.4. Using the sysctl Command

The /sbin/sysctl command is used to view, set, and automate kernel settings in the /proc/sys/ directory.
For a quick overview of all settings configurable in the /proc/sys/ directory, type the /sbin/sysctl -a command as root. This creates a large, comprehensive list, a small portion of which looks something like the following:
net.ipv4.route.min_delay = 2 kernel.sysrq = 0 kernel.sem = 250     32000     32     128
This is the same information seen if each of the files were viewed individually. The only difference is the file location. For example, the /proc/sys/net/ipv4/route/min_delay file is listed as net.ipv4.route.min_delay, with the directory slashes replaced by dots and the proc.sys portion assumed.
The sysctl command can be used in place of echo to assign values to writable files in the /proc/sys/ directory. For example, instead of using the command
echo 1 > /proc/sys/kernel/sysrq
use the equivalent sysctl command as follows:
~]# sysctl -w kernel.sysrq="1"
kernel.sysrq = 1
While quickly setting single values like this in /proc/sys/ is helpful during testing, this method does not work as well on a production system as special settings within /proc/sys/ are lost when the machine is rebooted. To preserve custom settings, add them to the /etc/sysctl.conf file.
Each time the system boots, the init program runs the /etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit script. This script contains a command to execute sysctl using /etc/sysctl.conf to determine the values passed to the kernel. Any values added to /etc/sysctl.conf therefore take effect each time the system boots.

4.5. Additional Resources

Below are additional sources of information about proc file system.

4.5.1. Installed Documentation

Some of the best documentation about the proc file system is installed on the system by default.
  • /usr/share/doc/kernel-doc-<version>/Documentation/filesystems/proc.txt — Contains assorted, but limited, information about all aspects of the /proc/ directory.
  • /usr/share/doc/kernel-doc-<version>/Documentation/sysrq.txt — An overview of System Request Key options.
  • /usr/share/doc/kernel-doc-<version>/Documentation/sysctl/ — A directory containing a variety of sysctl tips, including modifying values that concern the kernel (kernel.txt), accessing file systems (fs.txt), and virtual memory use (vm.txt).
  • /usr/share/doc/kernel-doc-<version>/Documentation/networking/ip-sysctl.txt — A detailed overview of IP networking options.

4.5.2. Useful Websites

  • http://www.linuxhq.com/ — This website maintains a complete database of source, patches, and documentation for various versions of the Linux kernel.

Chapter 5. Redundant Array of Independent Disks (RAID)

The basic idea behind RAID is to combine multiple small, inexpensive disk drives into an array to accomplish performance or redundancy goals not attainable with one large and expensive drive. This array of drives appears to the computer as a single logical storage unit or drive.

5.1. What is RAID?

RAID allows information to access several disks. RAID uses techniques such as disk striping (RAID Level 0), disk mirroring (RAID Level 1), and disk striping with parity (RAID Level 5) to achieve redundancy, lower latency, increased bandwidth, and maximized ability to recover from hard disk crashes.
RAID consistently distributes data across each drive in the array. RAID then breaks down the data into consistently-sized chunks (commonly 32K or 64k, although other values are acceptable). Each chunk is then written to a hard drive in the RAID array according to the RAID level employed. When the data is read, the process is reversed, giving the illusion that the multiple drives in the array are actually one large drive.

5.1.1. Who Should Use RAID?

System Administrators and others who manage large amounts of data would benefit from using RAID technology. Primary reasons to deploy RAID include:
  • Enhances speed
  • Increases storage capacity using a single virtual disk
  • Minimizes disk failure

5.1.2. Hardware RAID versus Software RAID

There are two possible RAID approaches: hardware RAID and software RAID.
Hardware RAID
The hardware-based array manages the RAID subsystem independently from the host. It presents a single disk per RAID array to the host.
A hardware RAID device connects to the SCSI controller and presents the RAID arrays as a single SCSI drive. An external RAID system moves all RAID handling intelligence into a controller located in the external disk subsystem. The whole subsystem is connected to the host via a normal SCSI controller and appears to the host as a single disk.
RAID controller cards function like a SCSI controller to the operating system, and handle all the actual drive communications. The user plugs the drives into the RAID controller (just like a normal SCSI controller) and then adds them to the RAID controllers configuration, and the operating system won't know the difference.
Software RAID
Software RAID implements the various RAID levels in the kernel disk (block device) code. It offers the cheapest possible solution, as expensive disk controller cards or hot-swap chassis[1] are not required. Software RAID also works with cheaper IDE disks as well as SCSI disks. With today's faster CPUs, software RAID outperforms hardware RAID.
The Linux kernel contains an MD driver that allows the RAID solution to be completely hardware independent. The performance of a software-based array depends on the server CPU performance and load.
To learn more about software RAID, here are the key features:
  • Threaded rebuild process
  • Kernel-based configuration
  • Portability of arrays between Linux machines without reconstruction
  • Backgrounded array reconstruction using idle system resources
  • Hot-swappable drive support
  • Automatic CPU detection to take advantage of certain CPU optimizations

5.1.3. RAID Levels and Linear Support

RAID supports various configurations, including levels 0, 1, 4, 5, and linear. These RAID types are defined as follows:
Level 0
RAID level 0, often called striping, is a performance-oriented striped data mapping technique. This means the data being written to the array is broken down into strips and written across the member disks of the array, allowing high I/O performance at low inherent cost but provides no redundancy. The storage capacity of a level 0 array is equal to the total capacity of the member disks in a hardware RAID or the total capacity of member partitions in a software RAID.
Level 1
RAID level 1, or mirroring, has been used longer than any other form of RAID. Level 1 provides redundancy by writing identical data to each member disk of the array, leaving a mirrored copy on each disk. Mirroring remains popular due to its simplicity and high level of data availability. Level 1 operates with two or more disks that may use parallel access for high data-transfer rates when reading but more commonly operate independently to provide high I/O transaction rates. Level 1 provides very good data reliability and improves performance for read-intensive applications but at a relatively high cost. The storage capacity of the level 1 array is equal to the capacity of one of the mirrored hard disks in a hardware RAID or one of the mirrored partitions in a software RAID.

Note

RAID level 1 comes at a high cost because you write the same information to all of the disks in the array, which wastes drive space. For example, if you have RAID level 1 set up so that your root (/) partition exists on two 40G drives, you have 80G total but are only able to access 40G of that 80G. The other 40G acts like a mirror of the first 40G.
Level 4
RAID level 4 uses parity[2] concentrated on a single disk drive to protect data. It is better suited to transaction I/O rather than large file transfers. Because the dedicated parity disk represents an inherent bottleneck, level 4 is seldom used without accompanying technologies such as write-back caching. Although RAID level 4 is an option in some RAID partitioning schemes, it is not an option allowed in Red Hat Enterprise Linux RAID installations. The storage capacity of hardware RAID level 4 is equal to the capacity of member disks, minus the capacity of one member disk. The storage capacity of software RAID level 4 is equal to the capacity of the member partitions, minus the size of one of the partitions if they are of equal size.

Note

RAID level 4 takes up the same amount of space as RAID level 5, but level 5 has more advantages. For this reason, level 4 is not supported.
Level 5
RAID level 5 is the most common type of RAID. By distributing parity across some or all of an array's member disk drives, RAID level 5 eliminates the write bottleneck inherent in level 4. The only performance bottleneck is the parity calculation process. With modern CPUs and software RAID, that usually is not a very big problem. As with level 4, the result is asymmetrical performance, with reads substantially outperforming writes. Level 5 is often used with write-back caching to reduce the asymmetry. The storage capacity of hardware RAID level 5 is equal to the capacity of member disks, minus the capacity of one member disk. The storage capacity of software RAID level 5 is equal to the capacity of the member partitions, minus the size of one of the partitions if they are of equal size.
Linear RAID
Linear RAID is a simple grouping of drives to create a larger virtual drive. In linear RAID, the chunks are allocated sequentially from one member drive, going to the next drive only when the first is completely filled. This grouping provides no performance benefit, as it is unlikely that any I/O operations will be split between member drives. Linear RAID also offers no redundancy and, in fact, decreases reliability — if any one member drive fails, the entire array cannot be used. The capacity is the total of all member disks.

5.2. Configuring Software RAID

Users can configure software RAID during the graphical installation process, the text-based installation process, or during a kickstart installation. This section discusses software RAID configuration during the installation process using the Disk Druid application, and covers the following steps:
  1. Creating software RAID partitions on physical hard drives.
  2. Creating RAID devices from the software RAID partitions.
  3. (Optional) Configuring LVM from the RAID devices.
  4. Creating file systems from the RAID devices.
To configure software RAID, select Create custom layout from the pulldown list on the Disk Partitioning Setup screen, click the Next button, and follow the instructions in the rest of this section. The example screenshots in this section use two 10 GB disk drives (/dev/hda and /dev/hdb) to illustrate the creation of simple RAID 1 and RAID 0 configurations, and detail how to create a simple RAID configuration by implementing multiple RAID devices.

5.2.1. Creating the RAID Partitions

In a typical situation, the disk drives are new or are formatted. Both drives are shown as raw devices with no partition configuration in Figure 5.1, “Two Blank Drives, Ready For Configuration”.
Two Blank Drives, Ready For Configuration
Two Blank Drives, Ready For Configuration
Figure 5.1. Two Blank Drives, Ready For Configuration

  1. In Disk Druid, click the RAID button to enter the software RAID creation screen.
  2. Choose Create a software RAID partition to create a RAID partition as shown in Figure 5.2, “RAID Partition Options”. Note that no other RAID options (such as entering a mount point) are available until RAID partitions, as well as RAID devices, are created. Click OK to confirm the choice.
    RAID Partition Options
    RAID Partition Options
    Figure 5.2. RAID Partition Options

  3. A software RAID partition must be constrained to one drive. For Allowable Drives, select the drive to use for RAID. If you have multiple drives, by default all drives are selected and you must deselect the drives you do not want.
    Adding a RAID Partition
    Adding a RAID Partition
    Figure 5.3. Adding a RAID Partition

  4. Edit the Size (MB) field, and enter the size that you want the partition to be (in MB).
  5. Select Fixed Size to specify partition size. Select Fill all space up to (MB) and enter a value (in MB) to specify partition size range. Select Fill to maximum allowable size to allow maximum available space of the hard disk. Note that if you make more than one space growable, they share the available free space on the disk.
  6. Select Force to be a primary partition if you want the partition to be a primary partition. A primary partition is one of the first four partitions on the hard drive. If unselected, the partition is created as a logical partition. If other operating systems are already on the system, unselecting this option should be considered. For more information on primary versus logical/extended partitions, refer to the appendix section of the Red Hat Enterprise Linux Installation Guide.
Repeat these steps to create as many partitions as needed for your RAID setup. Notice that all the partitions do not have to be RAID partitions. For example, you can configure only the /boot partition as a software RAID device, leaving the root partition (/), /home, and swap as regular file systems. Figure 5.4, “RAID 1 Partitions Ready, Pre-Device and Mount Point Creation” shows successfully allocated space for the RAID 1 configuration (for /boot), which is now ready for RAID device and mount point creation:
RAID 1 Partitions Ready, Pre-Device and Mount Point Creation
RAID 1 Partitions Ready, Pre-Device and Mount Point Creation
Figure 5.4. RAID 1 Partitions Ready, Pre-Device and Mount Point Creation

5.2.2. Creating the RAID Devices and Mount Points

Once you create all of your partitions as software RAID partitions, you must create the RAID device and mount point.
  1. On the main partitioning screen, click the RAID button. The RAID Options dialog appears as shown in Figure 5.5, “RAID Options”.
    RAID Options
    RAID Select Option
    Figure 5.5. RAID Options

  2. Select the Create a RAID device option, and click OK. As shown in Figure 5.6, “Making a RAID Device and Assigning a Mount Point”, the Make RAID Device dialog appears, allowing you to make a RAID device and assign a mount point.
    Making a RAID Device and Assigning a Mount Point
    Making a RAID Device and Assigning a Mount Point
    Figure 5.6. Making a RAID Device and Assigning a Mount Point

  3. Select a mount point from the Mount Point pulldown list.
  4. Choose the file system type for the partition from the File System Type pulldown list. At this point you can either configure a dynamic LVM file system or a traditional static ext2/ext3 file system. For more information on LVM and its configuration during the installation process, refer to Chapter 10, LVM (Logical Volume Manager). If LVM is not required, continue on with the following instructions.
  5. From the RAID Device pulldown list, select a device name such as md0.
  6. From the RAID Level, choose the required RAID level.

    Note

    If you are making a RAID partition of /boot, you must choose RAID level 1, and it must use one of the first two drives (IDE first, SCSI second). If you are not creating a separate RAID partition of /boot, and you are making a RAID partition for the root file system (that is, /), it must be RAID level 1 and must use one of the first two drives (IDE first, SCSI second).
  7. The RAID partitions created appear in the RAID Members list. Select which of these partitions should be used to create the RAID device.
  8. If configuring RAID 1 or RAID 5, specify the number of spare partitions in the Number of spares field. If a software RAID partition fails, the spare is automatically used as a replacement. For each spare you want to specify, you must create an additional software RAID partition (in addition to the partitions for the RAID device). Select the partitions for the RAID device and the partition(s) for the spare(s).
  9. Click OK to confirm the setup. The RAID device appears in the Drive Summary list.
  10. Repeat this chapter's entire process for configuring additional partitions, devices, and mount points, such as the root partition (/), home partition (/home), or swap.
After completing the entire configuration, the figure as shown in Figure 5.7, “Sample RAID Configuration” resembles the default configuration, except for the use of RAID.
Sample RAID Configuration
Sample RAID Configuration
Figure 5.7. Sample RAID Configuration

The figure as shown in Figure 5.8, “Sample RAID With LVM Configuration” is an example of a RAID and LVM configuration.
Sample RAID With LVM Configuration
Sample RAID With LVM Configuration
Figure 5.8. Sample RAID With LVM Configuration

You can proceed with your installation process by clicking Next. Refer to the Red Hat Enterprise Linux Installation Guide for further instructions.

5.3. Managing Software RAID

This section discusses software RAID configuration and management after the installation, and covers the following topics:
  • Reviewing existing software RAID configuration.
  • Creating a new RAID device.
  • Replacing a faulty device in an array.
  • Adding a new device to an existing array.
  • Deactivating and removing an existing RAID device.
  • Saving the configuration.
All examples in this section use the software RAID configuration from the previous section.

5.3.1. Reviewing RAID Configuration

When a software RAID is in use, basic information about all presently active RAID devices are stored in the /proc/mdstat special file. To list these devices, display the content of this file by typing the following at a shell prompt:
cat /proc/mdstat
To determine whether a certain device is a RAID device or a component device, run the command in the following form as root:
mdadm --query device
In order to examine a RAID device in more detail, use the following command:
mdadm --detail raid_device
Similarly, to examine a component device, type:
mdadm --examine component_device
While the mdadm --detail command displays information about a RAID device, mdadm --examine only relays information about a RAID device as it relates to a given component device. This distinction is particularly important when working with a RAID device that itself is a component of another RAID device.
The mdadm --query command, as well as both mdadm --detail and mdadm --examine commands allow you to specify multiple devices at once.
Example 5.1. Reviewing RAID configuration
Assume the system uses configuration from Figure 5.7, “Sample RAID Configuration”. You can verify that /dev/md0 is a RAID device by typing the following at a shell prompt:
~]# mdadm --query /dev/md0
/dev/md0: 125.38MiB raid1 2 devices, 0 spares. Use mdadm --detail for more detail.
/dev/md0: No md super block found, not an md component.
As you can see, the above command produces only a brief overview of the RAID device and its configuration. To display more detailed information, use the following command instead:
~]# mdadm --detail /dev/md0
/dev/md0:
        Version : 0.90
  Creation Time : Tue Jun 28 16:05:49 2011
     Raid Level : raid1
     Array Size : 128384 (125.40 MiB 131.47 MB)
  Used Dev Size : 128384 (125.40 MiB 131.47 MB)
   Raid Devices : 2
  Total Devices : 2
Preferred Minor : 0
    Persistence : Superblock is persistent

    Update Time : Thu Jun 30 17:06:34 2011
          State : clean
 Active Devices : 2
Working Devices : 2
 Failed Devices : 0
  Spare Devices : 0

           UUID : 49c5ac74:c2b79501:5c28cb9c:16a6dd9f
         Events : 0.6

    Number   Major   Minor   RaidDevice State
       0       3        1        0      active sync   /dev/hda1
       1       3       65        1      active sync   /dev/hdb1
Finally, to list all presently active RAID devices, type:
~]$ cat /proc/mdstat
Personalities : [raid0] [raid1]
md0 : active raid1 hdb1[1] hda1[0]
      128384 blocks [2/2] [UU]
      
md1 : active raid0 hdb2[1] hda2[0]
      1573888 blocks 256k chunks

md2 : active raid0 hdb3[1] hda3[0]
      19132928 blocks 256k chunks

unused devices: <none>

5.3.2. Creating a New RAID Device

To create a new RAID device, use the command in the following form as root:
mdadm --create raid_device --level=level --raid-devices=number component_device
This is the simplest way to create a RAID array. There are many more options that allow you to specify the number of spare devices, the block size of a stripe array, if the array has a write-intent bitmap, and much more. All these options can have a significant impact on the performance, but are beyond the scope of this document. For more detailed information, refer to the CREATE MODE section of the mdadm(8) manual page.
Example 5.2. Creating a new RAID device
Assume that the system has two unused SCSI disk drives available, and that each of these devices has exactly one partition of the same size:
~]# ls /dev/sd*
/dev/sda  /dev/sda1  /dev/sdb  /dev/sdb1
To create /dev/md3 as a new RAID level 1 array from /dev/sda1 and /dev/sdb1, run the following command:
~]# mdadm --create /dev/md3 --level=1 --raid-devices=2 /dev/sda1 /dev/sdb1
mdadm: array /dev/md3 started.

5.3.3. Replacing a Faulty Device

To replace a particular device in a software RAID, first make sure it is marked as faulty by running the following command as root:
mdadm raid_device --fail component_device
Then remove the faulty device from the array by using the command in the following form:
mdadm raid_device --remove component_device
Once the device is operational again, you can re-add it to the array:
mdadm raid_device --add component_device
Example 5.3. Replacing a faulty device
Assume the system has an active RAID device, /dev/md3, with the following layout (that is, the RAID device created in Example 5.2, “Creating a new RAID device”):
~]# mdadm --detail /dev/md3 | tail -n 3
    Number   Major   Minor   RaidDevice State
       0       8        1        0      active sync   /dev/sda1
       1       8       17        1      active sync   /dev/sdb1
Imagine the first disk drive fails and needs to be replaced. To do so, first mark the /dev/sdb1 device as faulty:
~]# mdadm /dev/md3 --fail /dev/sdb1
mdadm: set /dev/sdb1 faulty in /dev/md3
Then remove it from the RAID device:
~]# mdadm /dev/md3 --remove /dev/sdb1
mdadm: hot removed /dev/sdb1
As soon as the hardware is replaced, you can add the device back to the array by using the following command:
~]# mdadm /dev/md3 --add /dev/sdb1
mdadm: added /dev/sdb1

5.3.4. Extending a RAID Device

To add a new device to an existing array, use the command in the following form as root:
mdadm raid_device --add component_device
This will add the device as a spare device. To grow the array to use this device actively, type the following at a shell prompt:
mdadm --grow raid_device --raid-devices=number
Example 5.4. Extending a RAID device
Assume the system has an active RAID device, /dev/md3, with the following layout (that is, the RAID device created in Example 5.2, “Creating a new RAID device”):
~]# mdadm --detail /dev/md3 | tail -n 3
    Number   Major   Minor   RaidDevice State
       0       8        1        0      active sync   /dev/sda1
       1       8       17        1      active sync   /dev/sdb1
Also assume that a new SCSI disk drive, /dev/sdc, has been added and has exactly one partition. To add it to the /dev/md3 array, type the following at a shell prompt:
~]# mdadm /dev/md3 --add /dev/sdc1
mdadm: added /dev/sdc1
This will add /dev/sdc1 as a spare device. To change the size of the array to actually use it, type:
~]# mdadm --grow /dev/md3 --raid-devices=3

5.3.5. Removing a RAID Device

To remove an existing RAID device, first deactivate it by running the following command as root:
mdadm --stop raid_device
Once deactivated, remove the RAID device itself:
mdadm --remove raid_device
Finally, zero superblocks on all devices that were associated with the particular array:
mdadm --zero-superblock component_device
Example 5.5. Removing a RAID device
Assume the system has an active RAID device, /dev/md3, with the following layout (that is, the RAID device created in Example 5.4, “Extending a RAID device”):
~]# mdadm --detail /dev/md3 | tail -n 4
    Number   Major   Minor   RaidDevice State
       0       8        1        0      active sync   /dev/sda1
       1       8       17        1      active sync   /dev/sdb1
       2       8       33        2      active sync   /dev/sdc1
In order to remove this device, first stop it by typing the following at a shell prompt:
~]# mdadm --stop /dev/md3
mdadm: stopped /dev/md3
Once stopped, you can remove the /dev/md3 device by running the following command:
~]# mdadm --remove /dev/md3
Finally, to remove the superblocks from all associated devices, type:
~]# mdadm --zero-superblock /dev/sda1 /dev/sdb1 /dev/sdc1

5.3.6. Preserving the Configuration

By default, changes made by the mdadm command only apply to the current session, and will not survive a system restart. At boot time, the mdmonitor service reads the content of the /etc/mdadm.conf configuration file to see which RAID devices to start. If the software RAID was configured during the graphical installation process, this file contains directives listed in Table 5.1, “Common mdadm.conf directives” by default.
Table 5.1. Common mdadm.conf directives
Option Description
ARRAY
Allows you to identify a particular array.
DEVICE
Allows you to specify a list of devices to scan for a RAID component (for example, /dev/hda1). You can also use the keyword partitions to use all partitions listed in /proc/partitions, or containers to specify an array container.
MAILADDR Allows you to specify an email address to use in case of an alert.

To list what ARRAY lines are presently in use regardless of the configuration, run the following command as root:
mdadm --detail --scan
Use the output of this command to determine which lines to add to the /etc/mdadm.conf file. You can also display the ARRAY line for a particular device:
mdadm --detail --brief raid_device
By redirecting the output of this command, you can add such a line to the configuration file with a single command:
mdadm --detail --brief raid_device >> /etc/mdadm.conf
Example 5.6. Preserving the configuration
By default, the /etc/mdadm.conf contains the software RAID configuration created during the system installation:
# mdadm.conf written out by anaconda
DEVICE partitions
MAILADDR root
ARRAY /dev/md0 level=raid1 num-devices=2 UUID=49c5ac74:c2b79501:5c28cb9c:16a6dd9f
ARRAY /dev/md1 level=raid0 num-devices=2 UUID=76914c11:5bfa2c00:dc6097d1:a1f4506d
ARRAY /dev/md2 level=raid0 num-devices=2 UUID=2b5d38d0:aea898bf:92be20e2:f9d893c5
Assuming you have created the /dev/md3 device as shown in Example 5.2, “Creating a new RAID device”, you can make it persistent by running the following command:
~]# mdadm --detail --brief /dev/md3 >> /etc/mdadm.conf

5.4. Additional Resources

For more information on RAID, refer to the following resources.

5.4.1. Installed Documentation

  • mdadm man page — A manual page for the mdadm utility.
  • mdadm.conf man page — A manual page that provides a comprehensive list of available /etc/mdadm.conf configuration options.


[1] A hot-swap chassis allows you to remove a hard drive without having to power-down your system.
[2] Parity information is calculated based on the contents of the rest of the member disks in the array. This information can then be used to reconstruct data when one disk in the array fails. The reconstructed data can then be used to satisfy I/O requests to the failed disk before it is replaced and to repopulate the failed disk after it has been replaced.

Chapter 6. Swap Space

6.1. What is Swap Space?

Swap space in Linux is used when the amount of physical memory (RAM) is full. If the system needs more memory resources and the RAM is full, inactive pages in memory are moved to the swap space. While swap space can help machines with a small amount of RAM, it should not be considered a replacement for more RAM. Swap space is located on hard drives, which have a slower access time than physical memory.
Swap space can be a dedicated swap partition (recommended), a swap file, or a combination of swap partitions and swap files.
In years past, the recommended amount of swap space increased linearly with the amount of RAM in the system. But because the amount of memory in modern systems has increased into the hundreds of gigabytes, it is now recognized that the amount of swap space that a system needs is a function of the memory workload running on that system. However, given that swap space is usually designated at install time, and that it can be difficult to determine beforehand the memory workload of a system, we recommend determining system swap using the following table.

Important

File systems and LVM2 volumes assigned as swap space cannot be in use when being modified. For example, no system processes can be assigned the swap space, as well as no amount of swap should be allocated and used by the kernel. Use the free and cat /proc/swaps commands to verify how much and where swap is in use.
The best way to achieve swap space modifications is to boot your system in rescue mode, and then follow the instructions (for each scenario) in the remainder of this chapter. Refer to the Red Hat Enterprise Linux Installation Guide for instructions on booting into rescue mode. When prompted to mount the file system, select Skip.

6.2. Adding Swap Space

Sometimes it is necessary to add more swap space after installation. For example, you may upgrade the amount of RAM in your system from 128 MB to 256 MB, but there is only 256 MB of swap space. It might be advantageous to increase the amount of swap space to 512 MB if you perform memory-intense operations or run applications that require a large amount of memory.
You have three options: create a new swap partition, create a new swap file, or extend swap on an existing LVM2 logical volume. It is recommended that you extend an existing logical volume.

6.2.1. Extending Swap on an LVM2 Logical Volume

To extend an LVM2 swap logical volume (assuming /dev/VolGroup00/LogVol01 is the volume you want to extend):
  1. Disable swapping for the associated logical volume:
    swapoff -v /dev/VolGroup00/LogVol01
  2. Resize the LVM2 logical volume by 256 MB:
    lvm lvresize /dev/VolGroup00/LogVol01 -L +256M
  3. Format the new swap space:
    mkswap /dev/VolGroup00/LogVol01
  4. Enable the extended logical volume:
    swapon -va
  5. Test that the logical volume has been extended properly:
    cat /proc/swaps
    free

6.2.2. Creating an LVM2 Logical Volume for Swap

To add a swap volume group (assuming /dev/VolGroup00/LogVol02 is the swap volume you want to add):
  1. Create the LVM2 logical volume of size 256 MB:
    lvm lvcreate VolGroup00 -n LogVol02 -L 256M
  2. Format the new swap space:
    mkswap /dev/VolGroup00/LogVol02
  3. Add the following entry to the /etc/fstab file:
    /dev/VolGroup00/LogVol02   swap     swap    defaults     0 0
  4. Enable the extended logical volume:
    swapon -va
  5. Test that the logical volume has been extended properly:
    cat /proc/swaps
    free

6.2.3. Creating a Swap File

To add a swap file:
  1. Determine the size of the new swap file in megabytes and multiply by 1024 to determine the number of blocks. For example, the block size of a 64 MB swap file is 65536.
  2. At a shell prompt as root, type the following command with count being equal to the desired block size:
    dd if=/dev/zero of=/swapfile bs=1024 count=65536
  3. Setup the swap file with the command:
    mkswap /swapfile
  4. To enable the swap file immediately but not automatically at boot time:
    swapon /swapfile
  5. To enable it at boot time, edit /etc/fstab to include the following entry:
    /swapfile          swap            swap    defaults        0 0
    The next time the system boots, it enables the new swap file.
  6. After adding the new swap file and enabling it, verify it is enabled by viewing the output of the command cat /proc/swaps or free.

6.3. Removing Swap Space

Sometimes it can be prudent to reduce swap space after installation. For example, say you downgraded the amount of RAM in your system from 1 GB to 512 MB, but there is 2 GB of swap space still assigned. It might be advantageous to reduce the amount of swap space to 1 GB, since the larger 2 GB could be wasting disk space.
You have three options: remove an entire LVM2 logical volume used for swap, remove a swap file, or reduce swap space on an existing LVM2 logical volume.

6.3.1. Reducing Swap on an LVM2 Logical Volume

To reduce an LVM2 swap logical volume (assuming /dev/VolGroup00/LogVol01 is the volume you want to reduce):
  1. Disable swapping for the associated logical volume:
    swapoff -v /dev/VolGroup00/LogVol01
  2. Reduce the LVM2 logical volume by 512 MB:
    lvm lvreduce /dev/VolGroup00/LogVol01 -L -512M
  3. Format the new swap space:
    mkswap /dev/VolGroup00/LogVol01
  4. Enable the extended logical volume:
    swapon -va
  5. Test that the logical volume has been reduced properly:
    cat /proc/swaps
    free

6.3.2. Removing an LVM2 Logical Volume for Swap

The swap logical volume cannot be in use (no system locks or processes on the volume). The easiest way to achieve this is to boot your system in rescue mode. Refer to the Red Hat Enterprise Linux Installation Guide for instructions on booting into rescue mode. When prompted to mount the file system, select Skip.
To remove a swap volume group (assuming /dev/VolGroup00/LogVol02 is the swap volume you want to remove):
  1. Disable swapping for the associated logical volume:
    swapoff -v /dev/VolGroup00/LogVol02
  2. Remove the LVM2 logical volume of size 512 MB:
    lvm lvremove /dev/VolGroup00/LogVol02
  3. Remove the following entry from the /etc/fstab file:
    /dev/VolGroup00/LogVol02   swap     swap    defaults     0 0
  4. Test that the logical volume has been removed:
    cat /proc/swaps
    free

6.3.3. Removing a Swap File

To remove a swap file:
  1. At a shell prompt as root, execute the following command to disable the swap file (where /swapfile is the swap file):
    swapoff -v /swapfile
  2. Remove its entry from the /etc/fstab file.
  3. Remove the actual file:
    rm /swapfile

6.4. Moving Swap Space

To move swap space from one location to another, follow the steps for removing swap space, and then follow the steps for adding swap space.

Chapter 7. Managing Disk Storage

7.1. Standard Partitions using parted

The utility parted allows users to:
  • View the existing partition table
  • Change the size of existing partitions
  • Add partitions from free space or additional hard drives
If you want to view the system's disk space usage or monitor the disk space usage, refer to Section 40.3, “File Systems”.
By default, the parted package is included when installing Red Hat Enterprise Linux. To start parted, log in as root and type the command parted /dev/sda at a shell prompt (where /dev/sda is the device name for the drive you want to configure).
If you want to remove or resize a partition, the device on which that partition resides must not be in use. Creating a new partition on a device which is in use—while possible—is not recommended.
For a device to not be in use, none of the partitions on the device can be mounted, and any swap space on the device must not be enabled.
As well, the partition table should not be modified while it is in use because the kernel may not properly recognize the changes. If the partition table does not match the actual state of the mounted partitions, information could be written to the wrong partition, resulting in lost and overwritten data.
The easiest way to achieve this is to boot your system in rescue mode. When prompted to mount the file system, select Skip.
Alternately, if the drive does not contain any partitions in use (system processes that use or lock the file system from being unmounted), you can unmount them with the umount command and turn off all the swap space on the hard drive with the swapoff command.
Table 7.1, “parted commands” contains a list of commonly used parted commands. The sections that follow explain some of these commands and arguments in more detail.
Table 7.1. parted commands
Command Description
check minor-num Perform a simple check of the file system
cp from to Copy file system from one partition to another; from and to are the minor numbers of the partitions
help Display list of available commands
mklabel label Create a disk label for the partition table
mkfs minor-num file-system-type Create a file system of type file-system-type
mkpart part-type fs-type start-mb end-mb Make a partition without creating a new file system
mkpartfs part-type fs-type start-mb end-mb Make a partition and create the specified file system
move minor-num start-mb end-mb Move the partition
name minor-num name Name the partition for Mac and PC98 disklabels only
print Display the partition table
quit Quit parted
rescue start-mb end-mb Rescue a lost partition from start-mb to end-mb
resize minor-num start-mb end-mb Resize the partition from start-mb to end-mb
rm minor-num Remove the partition
select device Select a different device to configure
set minor-num flag state Set the flag on a partition; state is either on or off
toggle [NUMBER [FLAG] Toggle the state of FLAG on partition NUMBER
unit UNIT Set the default unit to UNIT

7.1.1. Viewing the Partition Table

After starting parted, use the command print to view the partition table. A table similar to the following appears:
Model: ATA ST3160812AS (scsi)
Disk /dev/sda: 160GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos

Number  Start   End    Size    Type      File system  Flags
 1      32.3kB  107MB  107MB   primary   ext3         boot
 2      107MB   105GB  105GB   primary   ext3
 3      105GB   107GB  2147MB  primary   linux-swap
 4      107GB   160GB  52.9GB  extended		      root
 5      107GB   133GB  26.2GB  logical   ext3
 6      133GB   133GB  107MB   logical   ext3
 7      133GB   160GB  26.6GB  logical                lvm
The first line contains the disk type, manufacturer, model number and interface, and the second line displays the disk label type. The remaining output below the fourth line shows the partition table.
In the partition table, the Minor number is the partition number. For example, the partition with minor number 1 corresponds to /dev/sda1. The Start and End values are in megabytes. Valid Type are metadata, free, primary, extended, or logical. The Filesystem is the file system type, which can be any of the following:
  • ext2
  • ext3
  • fat16
  • fat32
  • hfs
  • jfs
  • linux-swap
  • ntfs
  • reiserfs
  • hp-ufs
  • sun-ufs
  • xfs
If a Filesystem of a device shows no value, this means that its file system type is unknown.
The Flags column lists the flags set for the partition. Available flags are boot, root, swap, hidden, raid, lvm, or lba.

Tip

To select a different device without having to restart parted, use the select command followed by the device name (for example, /dev/sda). Doing so allows you to view or configure the partition table of a device.

7.1.2. Creating a Partition

Warning

Do not attempt to create a partition on a device that is in use.
Before creating a partition, boot into rescue mode (or unmount any partitions on the device and turn off any swap space on the device).
Start parted, where /dev/sda is the device on which to create the partition:
parted /dev/sda
View the current partition table to determine if there is enough free space:
print
If there is not enough free space, you can resize an existing partition. Refer to Section 7.1.4, “Resizing a Partition” for details.

7.1.2.1. Making the Partition

From the partition table, determine the start and end points of the new partition and what partition type it should be. You can only have four primary partitions (with no extended partition) on a device. If you need more than four partitions, you can have three primary partitions, one extended partition, and multiple logical partitions within the extended. For an overview of disk partitions, refer to the appendix An Introduction to Disk Partitions in the Red Hat Enterprise Linux Installation Guide.
For example, to create a primary partition with an ext3 file system from 1024 megabytes until 2048 megabytes on a hard drive type the following command:
mkpart primary ext3 1024 2048

Tip

If you use the mkpartfs command instead, the file system is created after the partition is created. However, parted does not support creating an ext3 file system. Thus, if you wish to create an ext3 file system, use mkpart and create the file system with the mkfs command as described later.
The changes start taking place as soon as you press Enter, so review the command before executing to it.
After creating the partition, use the print command to confirm that it is in the partition table with the correct partition type, file system type, and size. Also remember the minor number of the new partition so that you can label it. You should also view the output of
cat /proc/partitions
to make sure the kernel recognizes the new partition.

7.1.2.2. Formatting the Partition

The partition still does not have a file system. Create the file system:
mkfs -t ext3 /dev/sda6

Warning

Formatting the partition permanently destroys any data that currently exists on the partition.

7.1.2.3. Labeling the Partition

Next, give the partition a label. For example, if the new partition is /dev/sda6 and you want to label it /work:
e2label /dev/sda6 /work
By default, the installation program uses the mount point of the partition as the label to make sure the label is unique. You can use any label you want.

7.1.2.4. Creating the Mount Point

As root, create the mount point:
mkdir /work

7.1.2.5. Add to /etc/fstab

As root, edit the /etc/fstab file to include the new partition. The new line should look similar to the following:
LABEL=/work           /work                 ext3    defaults        1 2
The first column should contain LABEL= followed by the label you gave the partition. The second column should contain the mount point for the new partition, and the next column should be the file system type (for example, ext3 or swap). If you need more information about the format, read the man page with the command man fstab.
If the fourth column is the word defaults, the partition is mounted at boot time. To mount the partition without rebooting, as root, type the command:
mount /work

7.1.3. Removing a Partition

Warning

Do not attempt to remove a partition on a device that is in use.
Before removing a partition, boot into rescue mode (or unmount any partitions on the device and turn off any swap space on the device).
Start parted, where /dev/sda is the device on which to remove the partition:
parted /dev/sda
View the current partition table to determine the minor number of the partition to remove:
print
Remove the partition with the command rm. For example, to remove the partition with minor number 3:
rm 3
The changes start taking place as soon as you press Enter, so review the command before committing to it.
After removing the partition, use the print command to confirm that it is removed from the partition table. You should also view the output of
cat /proc/partitions
to make sure the kernel knows the partition is removed.
The last step is to remove it from the /etc/fstab file. Find the line that declares the removed partition, and remove it from the file.

7.1.4. Resizing a Partition

Warning

Do not attempt to resize a partition on a device that is in use.
Before resizing a partition, boot into rescue mode (or unmount any partitions on the device and turn off any swap space on the device).
Start parted, where /dev/sda is the device on which to resize the partition:
parted /dev/sda
View the current partition table to determine the minor number of the partition to resize as well as the start and end points for the partition:
print
To resize the partition, use the resize command followed by the minor number for the partition, the starting place in megabytes, and the end place in megabytes. For example:
resize 3 1024 2048

Warning

A partition cannot be made larger than the space available on the device
After resizing the partition, use the print command to confirm that the partition has been resized correctly, is the correct partition type, and is the correct file system type.
After rebooting the system into normal mode, use the command df to make sure the partition was mounted and is recognized with the new size.

7.2. LVM Partition Management

The following commands can be found by issuing lvm help at a command prompt.
Table 7.2. LVM commands
Command Description
dumpconfig Dump the active configuration
formats List the available metadata formats
help Display the help commands
lvchange Change the attributes of logical volume(s)
lvcreate Create a logical volume
lvdisplay Display information about a logical volume
lvextend Add space to a logical volume
lvmchange Due to use of the device mapper, this command has been deprecated
lvmdiskscan List devices that may be used as physical volumes
lvmsadc Collect activity data
lvmsar Create activity report
lvreduce Reduce the size of a logical volume
lvremove Remove logical volume(s) from the system
lvrename Rename a logical volume
lvresize Resize a logical volume
lvs Display information about logical volumes
lvscan List all logical volumes in all volume groups
pvchange Change attributes of physical volume(s)
pvcreate Initialize physical volume(s) for use by LVM
pvdata Display the on-disk metadata for physical volume(s)
pvdisplay Display various attributes of physical volume(s)
pvmove Move extents from one physical volume to another
pvremove Remove LVM label(s) from physical volume(s)
pvresize Resize a physical volume in use by a volume group
pvs Display information about physical volumes
pvscan List all physical volumes
segtypes List available segment types
vgcfgbackup Backup volume group configuration
vgcfgrestore Restore volume group configuration
vgchange Change volume group attributes
vgck Check the consistency of a volume group
vgconvert Change volume group metadata format
vgcreate Create a volume group
vgdisplay Display volume group information
vgexport Unregister a volume group from the system
vgextend Add physical volumes to a volume group
vgimport Register exported volume group with system
vgmerge Merge volume groups
vgmknodes Create the special files for volume group devices in /dev/
vgreduce Remove a physical volume from a volume group
vgremove Remove a volume group
vgrename Rename a volume group
vgs Display information about volume groups
vgscan Search for all volume groups
vgsplit Move physical volumes into a new volume group
version Display software and driver version information

Chapter 8. Implementing Disk Quotas

Disk space can be restricted by implementing disk quotas which alert a system administrator before a user consumes too much disk space or a partition becomes full.
Disk quotas can be configured for individual users as well as user groups. This makes it possible to manage the space allocated for user-specific files (such as email) separately from the space allocated to the projects a user works on (assuming the projects are given their own groups).
In addition, quotas can be set not just to control the number of disk blocks consumed but to control the number of inodes (data structures that contain information about files in UNIX file systems). Because inodes are used to contain file-related information, this allows control over the number of files that can be created.
The quota RPM must be installed to implement disk quotas.

Note

For more information on installing RPM packages, refer to Part II, “Package Management”.

8.1. Configuring Disk Quotas

To implement disk quotas, use the following steps:
  1. Enable quotas per file system by modifying the /etc/fstab file.
  2. Remount the file system(s).
  3. Create the quota database files and generate the disk usage table.
  4. Assign quota policies.
Each of these steps is discussed in detail in the following sections.

8.1.1. Enabling Quotas

As root, using a text editor, edit the /etc/fstab file. Add the usrquota and/or grpquota options to the file systems that require quotas:
/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00 /         ext3    defaults        1 1
LABEL=/boot              /boot     ext3    defaults        1 2
none                     /dev/pts  devpts  gid=5,mode=620  0 0
none                     /dev/shm  tmpfs   defaults        0 0
none                     /proc     proc    defaults        0 0
none                     /sys      sysfs   defaults        0 0
/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol02 /home     ext3    defaults,usrquota,grpquota  1 2
/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol01 swap      swap    defaults        0 0 . . .
In this example, the /home file system has both user and group quotas enabled.

Note

The following examples assume that a separate /home partition was created during the installation of Red Hat Enterprise Linux. The root (/) partition can be used for setting quota policies in the /etc/fstab file.

8.1.2. Remounting the File Systems

After adding the usrquota and/or grpquota options, remount each file system whose fstab entry has been modified. If the file system is not in use by any process, use one of the following methods:
  • Issue the umount command followed by the mount command to remount the file system.(See the man page for both umount and mount for the specific syntax for mounting and unmounting various filesystem types.)
  • Issue the mount -o remount <file-system> command (where <file-system> is the name of the file system) to remount the file system. For example, to remount the /home file system, the command to issue is mount -o remount /home.
If the file system is currently in use, the easiest method for remounting the file system is to reboot the system.

8.1.3. Creating the Quota Database Files

After each quota-enabled file system is remounted, the system is capable of working with disk quotas. However, the file system itself is not yet ready to support quotas. The next step is to run the quotacheck command.
The quotacheck command examines quota-enabled file systems and builds a table of the current disk usage per file system. The table is then used to update the operating system's copy of disk usage. In addition, the file system's disk quota files are updated.
To create the quota files (aquota.user and aquota.group) on the file system, use the -c option of the quotacheck command. For example, if user and group quotas are enabled for the /home file system, create the files in the /home directory:
quotacheck -cug /home
The -c option specifies that the quota files should be created for each file system with quotas enabled, the -u option specifies to check for user quotas, and the -g option specifies to check for group quotas.
If neither the -u or -g options are specified, only the user quota file is created. If only -g is specified, only the group quota file is created.
After the files are created, run the following command to generate the table of current disk usage per file system with quotas enabled:
quotacheck -avug
The options used are as follows:
  • a — Check all quota-enabled, locally-mounted file systems
  • v — Display verbose status information as the quota check proceeds
  • u — Check user disk quota information
  • g — Check group disk quota information
After quotacheck has finished running, the quota files corresponding to the enabled quotas (user and/or group) are populated with data for each quota-enabled locally-mounted file system such as /home.

8.1.4. Assigning Quotas per User

The last step is assigning the disk quotas with the edquota command.
To configure the quota for a user, as root in a shell prompt, execute the command:
edquota username
Perform this step for each user who needs a quota. For example, if a quota is enabled in /etc/fstab for the /home partition (/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol02 in the example below) and the command edquota testuser is executed, the following is shown in the editor configured as the default for the system:
Disk quotas for user testuser (uid 501):
Filesystem                blocks     soft     hard    inodes   soft   hard
/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol02  440436        0        0     37418      0      0

Note

The text editor defined by the EDITOR environment variable is used by edquota. To change the editor, set the EDITOR environment variable in your ~/.bash_profile file to the full path of the editor of your choice.
The first column is the name of the file system that has a quota enabled for it. The second column shows how many blocks the user is currently using. The next two columns are used to set soft and hard block limits for the user on the file system. The inodes column shows how many inodes the user is currently using. The last two columns are used to set the soft and hard inode limits for the user on the file system.
The hard block limit is the absolute maximum amount of disk space that a user or group can use. Once this limit is reached, no further disk space can be used.
The soft block limit defines the maximum amount of disk space that can be used. However, unlike the hard limit, the soft limit can be exceeded for a certain amount of time. That time is known as the grace period. The grace period can be expressed in seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, or months.
If any of the values are set to 0, that limit is not set. In the text editor, change the desired limits. For example:
Disk quotas for user testuser (uid 501):
Filesystem                blocks     soft     hard   inodes   soft   hard
/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol02  440436   500000   550000    37418      0      0
To verify that the quota for the user has been set, use the command:
quota testuser

8.1.5. Assigning Quotas per Group

Quotas can also be assigned on a per-group basis. For example, to set a group quota for the devel group (the group must exist prior to setting the group quota), use the command:
edquota -g devel
This command displays the existing quota for the group in the text editor:
Disk quotas for group devel (gid 505):
Filesystem                blocks    soft     hard    inodes    soft    hard
/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol02  440400       0        0     37418       0       0
Modify the limits, then save the file.
To verify that the group quota has been set, use the command:
quota -g devel

8.1.6. Setting the Grace Period for Soft Limits

If soft limits are set for a given quota (whether inode or block and for either users or groups) the grace period, or amount of time a soft limit can be exceeded, should be set with the command:
edquota -t
While other edquota commands operate on a particular user's or group's quota, the -t option operates on every filesystem with quotas enabled.

8.2. Managing Disk Quotas

If quotas are implemented, they need some maintenance — mostly in the form of watching to see if the quotas are exceeded and making sure the quotas are accurate.
Of course, if users repeatedly exceed their quotas or consistently reach their soft limits, a system administrator has a few choices to make depending on what type of users they are and how much disk space impacts their work. The administrator can either help the user determine how to use less disk space or increase the user's disk quota.

8.2.1. Enabling and Disabling

It is possible to disable quotas without setting them to 0. To turn all user and group quotas off, use the following command:
quotaoff -vaug
If neither the -u or -g options are specified, only the user quotas are disabled. If only -g is specified, only group quotas are disabled. The -v switch causes verbose status information to display as the command executes.
To enable quotas again, use the quotaon command with the same options.
For example, to enable user and group quotas for all file systems, use the following command:
quotaon -vaug
To enable quotas for a specific file system, such as /home, use the following command:
quotaon -vug /home
If neither the -u or -g options are specified, only the user quotas are enabled. If only -g is specified, only group quotas are enabled.

8.2.2. Reporting on Disk Quotas

Creating a disk usage report entails running the repquota utility. For example, the command repquota /home produces this output:
*** Report for user quotas on device /dev/mapper/VolGroup00-LogVol02
Block grace time: 7days; Inode grace time: 7days
                        Block limits                File limits
User            used    soft    hard  grace    used  soft  hard  grace
----------------------------------------------------------------------
root      --      36       0       0              4     0     0
kristin   --     540       0       0            125     0     0
testuser  --  440400  500000  550000          37418     0     0
To view the disk usage report for all (option -a) quota-enabled file systems, use the command:
repquota -a
While the report is easy to read, a few points should be explained. The -- displayed after each user is a quick way to determine whether the block or inode limits have been exceeded. If either soft limit is exceeded, a + appears in place of the corresponding -; the first - represents the block limit, and the second represents the inode limit.
The grace columns are normally blank. If a soft limit has been exceeded, the column contains a time specification equal to the amount of time remaining on the grace period. If the grace period has expired, none appears in its place.

8.2.3. Keeping Quotas Accurate

Whenever a file system is not unmounted cleanly (due to a system crash, for example), it is necessary to run quotacheck. However, quotacheck can be run on a regular basis, even if the system has not crashed. Safe methods for periodically running quotacheck include:
Ensuring quotacheck runs on next reboot

Best method for most systems

This method works best for (busy) multiuser systems which are periodically rebooted.
As root, place a shell script into the /etc/cron.daily/ or /etc/cron.weekly/ directory—or schedule one using the crontab -e command—that contains the touch /forcequotacheck command. This creates an empty forcequotacheck file in the root directory, which the system init script looks for at boot time. If it is found, the init script runs quotacheck. Afterward, the init script removes the /forcequotacheck file; thus, scheduling this file to be created periodically with cron ensures that quotacheck is run during the next reboot.
Refer to Chapter 37, Automated Tasks for more information about configuring cron.
Running quotacheck in single user mode
An alternative way to safely run quotacheck is to (re-)boot the system into single-user mode to prevent the possibility of data corruption in quota files and run:
~]# quotaoff -vaug /<file_system>
~]# quotacheck -vaug /<file_system>
~]# quotaon -vaug /<file_system>
Running quotacheck on a running system
If necessary, it is possible to run quotacheck on a machine during a time when no users are logged in, and thus have no open files on the file system being checked. Run the command quotacheck -vaug <file_system> ; this command will fail if quotacheck cannot remount the given <file_system> as read-only. Note that, following the check, the file system will be remounted read-write.

Do not run quotacheck on a live file system

Running quotacheck on a live file system mounted read-write is not recommended due to the possibility of quota file corruption.
Refer to Chapter 37, Automated Tasks for more information about configuring cron.

8.3. Additional Resources

For more information on disk quotas, refer to the following resources.

8.3.1. Installed Documentation

  • The quotacheck, edquota, repquota, quota, quotaon, and quotaoff man pages

Chapter 9. Access Control Lists

Files and directories have permission sets for the owner of the file, the group associated with the file, and all other users for the system. However, these permission sets have limitations. For example, different permissions cannot be configured for different users. Thus, Access Control Lists (ACLs) were implemented.
The Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 kernel provides ACL support for the ext3 file system and NFS-exported file systems. ACLs are also recognized on ext3 file systems accessed via Samba.
Along with support in the kernel, the acl package is required to implement ACLs. It contains the utilities used to add, modify, remove, and retrieve ACL information.
The cp and mv commands copy or move any ACLs associated with files and directories.

9.1. Mounting File Systems

Before using ACLs for a file or directory, the partition for the file or directory must be mounted with ACL support. If it is a local ext3 file system, it can mounted with the following command:
mount -t ext3 -o acl <device-name> <partition>
For example:
mount -t ext3 -o acl /dev/VolGroup00/LogVol02 /work
Alternatively, if the partition is listed in the /etc/fstab file, the entry for the partition can include the acl option:
LABEL=/work      /work       ext3    acl        1 2
If an ext3 file system is accessed via Samba and ACLs have been enabled for it, the ACLs are recognized because Samba has been compiled with the --with-acl-support option. No special flags are required when accessing or mounting a Samba share.

9.1.1. NFS

By default, if the file system being exported by an NFS server supports ACLs and the NFS client can read ACLs, ACLs are utilized by the client system.
To disable ACLs on NFS shares when configuring the server, include the no_acl option in the /etc/exports file. To disable ACLs on an NFS share when mounting it on a client, mount it with the no_acl option via the command line or the /etc/fstab file.

9.2. Setting Access ACLs

There are two types of ACLs: access ACLs and default ACLs. An access ACL is the access control list for a specific file or directory. A default ACL can only be associated with a directory; if a file within the directory does not have an access ACL, it uses the rules of the default ACL for the directory. Default ACLs are optional.
ACLs can be configured:
  1. Per user
  2. Per group
  3. Via the effective rights mask
  4. For users not in the user group for the file
The setfacl utility sets ACLs for files and directories. Use the -m option to add or modify the ACL of a file or directory:
setfacl -m <rules> <files>
Rules (<rules>) must be specified in the following formats. Multiple rules can be specified in the same command if they are separated by commas.
u:<uid>:<perms>
Sets the access ACL for a user. The user name or UID may be specified. The user may be any valid user on the system.
g:<gid>:<perms>
Sets the access ACL for a group. The group name or GID may be specified. The group may be any valid group on the system.
m:<perms>
Sets the effective rights mask. The mask is the union of all permissions of the owning group and all of the user and group entries.
o:<perms>
Sets the access ACL for users other than the ones in the group for the file.
White space is ignored. Permissions (<perms>) must be a combination of the characters r, w, and x for read, write, and execute.
If a file or directory already has an ACL, and the setfacl command is used, the additional rules are added to the existing ACL or the existing rule is modified.
For example, to give read and write permissions to user andrius:
setfacl -m u:andrius:rw /project/somefile
To remove all the permissions for a user, group, or others, use the -x option and do not specify any permissions:
setfacl -x <rules> <files>
For example, to remove all permissions from the user with UID 500:
setfacl -x u:500 /project/somefile

9.3. Setting Default ACLs

To set a default ACL, add d: before the rule and specify a directory instead of a file name.
For example, to set the default ACL for the /share/ directory to read and execute for users not in the user group (an access ACL for an individual file can override it):
setfacl -m d:o:rx /share

9.4. Retrieving ACLs

To determine the existing ACLs for a file or directory, use the getfacl command. In the example below, the getfacl is used to determine the existing ACLs for a file.
getfacl home/john/picture.png
The above command returns the following output:
# file: home/john/picture.png
# owner: john
# group: john
user::rw-
group::r--
other::r--
If a directory with a default ACL is specified, the default ACL is also displayed as illustrated below.
[john@main /]$ getfacl home/sales/
# file: home/sales/
# owner: john
# group: john
user::rw-
user:barryg:r--
group::r--
mask::r--
other::r--
default:user::rwx
default:user:john:rwx
default:group::r-x
default:mask::rwx
default:other::r-x

9.5. Archiving File Systems With ACLs

Warning

The tar and dump commands do not backup ACLs.
The star utility is similar to the tar utility in that it can be used to generate archives of files; however, some of its options are different. Refer to Table 9.1, “Command Line Options for star for a listing of more commonly used options. For all available options, refer to the star man page. The star package is required to use this utility.
Table 9.1. Command Line Options for star
Option Description
-c Creates an archive file.
-n Do not extract the files; use in conjunction with -x to show what extracting the files does.
-r Replaces files in the archive. The files are written to the end of the archive file, replacing any files with the same path and file name.
-t Displays the contents of the archive file.
-u Updates the archive file. The files are written to the end of the archive if they do not exist in the archive or if the files are newer than the files of the same name in the archive. This option only work if the archive is a file or an unblocked tape that may backspace.
-x Extracts the files from the archive. If used with -U and a file in the archive is older than the corresponding file on the file system, the file is not extracted.
-help Displays the most important options.
-xhelp Displays the least important options.
-/ Do not strip leading slashes from file names when extracting the files from an archive. By default, they are striped when files are extracted.
-acl When creating or extracting, archive or restore any ACLs associated with the files and directories.

9.6. Compatibility with Older Systems

If an ACL has been set on any file on a given file system, that file system has the ext_attr attribute. This attribute can be seen using the following command:
tune2fs -l <filesystem-device>
A file system that has acquired the ext_attr attribute can be mounted with older kernels, but those kernels do not enforce any ACLs which have been set.
Versions of the e2fsck utility included in version 1.22 and higher of the e2fsprogs package (including the versions in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 2.1 and 4) can check a file system with the ext_attr attribute. Older versions refuse to check it.

9.7. Additional Resources

Refer to the follow resources for more information.

9.7.1. Installed Documentation

  • acl man page — Description of ACLs
  • getfacl man page — Discusses how to get file access control lists
  • setfacl man page — Explains how to set file access control lists
  • star man page — Explains more about the star utility and its many options

9.7.2. Useful Websites

Chapter 10. LVM (Logical Volume Manager)

10.1. What is LVM?

LVM is a tool for logical volume management which includes allocating disks, striping, mirroring and resizing logical volumes.
With LVM, a hard drive or set of hard drives is allocated to one or more physical volumes. LVM physical volumes can be placed on other block devices which might span two or more disks.
The physical volumes are combined into logical volumes, with the exception of the /boot partition. The /boot partition cannot be on a logical volume group because the boot loader cannot read it. If the root (/) partition is on a logical volume, create a separate /boot partition which is not a part of a volume group.
Since a physical volume cannot span over multiple drives, to span over more than one drive, create one or more physical volumes per drive.
Logical Volumes
LVM Group
Figure 10.1. Logical Volumes

The volume groups can be divided into logical volumes, which are assigned mount points, such as /home and / and file system types, such as ext2 or ext3. When "partitions" reach their full capacity, free space from the volume group can be added to the logical volume to increase the size of the partition. When a new hard drive is added to the system, it can be added to the volume group, and partitions that are logical volumes can be increased in size.
Logical Volumes
Logical Volumes
Figure 10.2. Logical Volumes

On the other hand, if a system is partitioned with the ext3 file system, the hard drive is divided into partitions of defined sizes. If a partition becomes full, it is not easy to expand the size of the partition. Even if the partition is moved to another hard drive, the original hard drive space has to be reallocated as a different partition or not used.
To learn how to configure LVM during the installation process, refer to Section 10.2, “LVM Configuration”.

10.1.1. What is LVM2?

LVM version 2, or LVM2, is the default for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5, which uses the device mapper driver contained in the 2.6 kernel. LVM2 can be upgraded from versions of Red Hat Enterprise Linux running the 2.4 kernel.

10.2. LVM Configuration

LVM can be configured during the graphical installation process, the text-based installation process, or during a kickstart installation. You can use the system-config-lvm utility to create your own LVM configuration post-installation. The next two sections focus on using Disk Druid during installation to complete this task. The third section introduces the LVM utility (system-config-lvm) which allows you to manage your LVM volumes in X windows or graphically.
Read Section 10.1, “What is LVM?” first to learn about LVM. An overview of the steps required to configure LVM include:
  • Creating physical volumes from the hard drives.
  • Creating volume groups from the physical volumes.
  • Creating logical volumes from the volume groups and assign the logical volumes mount points.
Two 9.1 GB SCSI drives (/dev/sda and /dev/sdb) are used in the following examples. They detail how to create a simple configuration using a single LVM volume group with associated logical volumes during installation.

10.3. Automatic Partitioning

On the Disk Partitioning Setup screen, select Remove linux partitions on selected drives and create default layout from the pulldown list.
For Red Hat Enterprise Linux, LVM is the default method for disk partitioning. If you do not wish to have LVM implemented, or if you require RAID partitioning, manual disk partitioning through Disk Druid is required.
The following properties make up the automatically created configuration:
  • The /boot partition resides on its own non-LVM partition. In the following example, it is the first partition on the first drive (/dev/sda1). Bootable partitions cannot reside on LVM logical volumes.
  • A single LVM volume group (VolGroup00) is created, which spans all selected drives and all remaining space available. In the following example, the remainder of the first drive (/dev/sda2), and the entire second drive (/dev/sdb1) are allocated to the volume group.
  • Two LVM logical volumes (LogVol00 and LogVol01) are created from the newly created spanned volume group. In the following example, the recommended swap space is automatically calculated and assigned to LogVol01, and the remainder is allocated to the root file system, LogVol00.
Automatic LVM Configuration With Two SCSI Drives
Automatic LVM Configuration With Two SCSI Drives
Figure 10.3. Automatic LVM Configuration With Two SCSI Drives

Note

If enabling quotas are of interest to you, it may be best to modify the automatic configuration to include other mount points, such as /home or /var, so that each file system has its own independent quota configuration limits.
In most cases, the default automatic LVM partitioning is sufficient, but advanced implementations could warrant modification or manual configuration of the partition tables.

Note

If you anticipate future memory upgrades, leaving some free space in the volume group would allow for easy future expansion of the swap space logical volume on the system; in which case, the automatic LVM configuration should be modified to leave available space for future growth.

10.4. Manual LVM Partitioning

The following section explains how to manually configure LVM for Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Because there are numerous ways to manually configure a system with LVM, the following example is similar to the default configuration done in Section 10.3, “Automatic Partitioning”.
On the Disk Partitioning Setup screen, select Create custom layout from the pulldown list and click the Next button in the bottom right corner of the screen.

10.4.1. Creating the /boot Partition

In a typical situation, the disk drives are new, or formatted clean. The following figure, Figure 10.4, “Two Blank Drives, Ready for Configuration”, shows both drives as raw devices with no partitioning configured.
Two Blank Drives, Ready for Configuration
Two Blank Drives, Ready for Configuration
Figure 10.4. Two Blank Drives, Ready for Configuration

Warning

The /boot partition cannot reside on an LVM volume because the GRUB boot loader cannot read it.
  1. Select New.
  2. Select /boot from the Mount Point pulldown menu.
  3. Select ext3 from the File System Type pulldown menu.
  4. Select only the sda checkbox from the Allowable Drives area.
  5. Leave 100 (the default) in the Size (MB) menu.
  6. Leave the Fixed size (the default) radio button selected in the Additional Size Options area.
  7. Select Force to be a primary partition to make the partition be a primary partition. A primary partition is one of the first four partitions on the hard drive. If unselected, the partition is created as a logical partition. If other operating systems are already on the system, unselecting this option should be considered. For more information on primary versus logical/extended partitions, refer to the appendix section of the Red Hat Enterprise Linux Installation Guide.
Refer to Figure 10.5, “Creation of the Boot Partition” to verify your inputted values:
Creation of the Boot Partition
Creation of the Boot Partition
Figure 10.5. Creation of the Boot Partition

Click OK to return to the main screen. The following figure displays the boot partition correctly set:
The /boot Partition Displayed
The /boot Partition Displayed
Figure 10.6. The /boot Partition Displayed

10.4.2. Creating the LVM Physical Volumes

Once the boot partition is created, the remainder of all disk space can be allocated to LVM partitions. The first step in creating a successful LVM implementation is the creation of the physical volume(s).
  1. Select New.
  2. Select physical volume (LVM) from the File System Type pulldown menu as shown in Figure 10.7, “Creating a Physical Volume”.
    Creating a Physical Volume
    Creating a Physical Volume
    Figure 10.7. Creating a Physical Volume

  3. You cannot enter a mount point yet (you can once you have created all your physical volumes and then all volume groups).
  4. A physical volume must be constrained to one drive. For Allowable Drives, select the drive on which the physical volume are created. If you have multiple drives, all drives are selected, and you must deselect all but one drive.
  5. Enter the size that you want the physical volume to be.
  6. Select Fixed size to make the physical volume the specified size, select Fill all space up to (MB) and enter a size in MBs to give range for the physical volume size, or select Fill to maximum allowable size to make it grow to fill all available space on the hard disk. If you make more than one growable, they share the available free space on the disk.
  7. Select Force to be a primary partition if you want the partition to be a primary partition.
  8. Click OK to return to the main screen.
Repeat these steps to create as many physical volumes as needed for your LVM setup. For example, if you want the volume group to span over more than one drive, create a physical volume on each of the drives. The following figure shows both drives completed after the repeated process:
Two Physical Volumes Created
Two Physical Volumes Created, Ready for Volume Groups
Figure 10.8. Two Physical Volumes Created

10.4.3. Creating the LVM Volume Groups

Once all the physical volumes are created, the volume groups can be created:
  1. Click the LVM button to collect the physical volumes into volume groups. A volume group is basically a collection of physical volumes. You can have multiple logical volumes, but a physical volume can only be in one volume group.

    Note

    There is overhead disk space reserved in the volume group. The volume group size is slightly less than the total of physical volume sizes.
    Creating an LVM Volume Group
    Creating an LVM Volume Group
    Figure 10.9. Creating an LVM Volume Group

  2. Change the Volume Group Name if desired.
  3. All logical volumes inside the volume group must be allocated in physical extent (PE) units. A physical extent is an allocation unit for data.
  4. Select which physical volumes to use for the volume group.

10.4.4. Creating the LVM Logical Volumes

Create logical volumes with mount points such as /, /home, and swap space. Remember that /boot cannot be a logical volume. To add a logical volume, click the Add button in the Logical Volumes section. A dialog window as shown in Figure 10.10, “Creating a Logical Volume” appears.
Creating a Logical Volume
Creating a Logical Volume
Figure 10.10. Creating a Logical Volume

Repeat these steps for each volume group you want to create.

Tip

You may want to leave some free space in the volume group so you can expand the logical volumes later. The default automatic configuration does not do this, but this manual configuration example does — approximately 1 GB is left as free space for future expansion.
Pending Logical Volumes
Pending Logical Volumes
Figure 10.11. Pending Logical Volumes

Click OK to apply the volume group and all associated logical volumes.
The following figure shows the final manual configuration:
Final Manual Configuration
Final Manual Configuration
Figure 10.12. Final Manual Configuration

10.5. Using the LVM utility system-config-lvm

The LVM utility allows you to manage logical volumes within X windows or graphically. You can access the application by selecting from your menu panel System > Administration > Logical Volume Management. Alternatively you can start the Logical Volume Management utility by typing system-config-lvm from a terminal.
In the example used in this section, the following are the details for the volume group that was created during the installation:
/boot - (Ext3) file system. Displayed under 'Uninitialized Entities'. (DO NOT initialize this partition).
LogVol00 - (LVM) contains the (/) directory (312 extents).
LogVol02 - (LVM) contains the (/home) directory (128 extents).
LogVol03 - (LVM) swap (28 extents).
The logical volumes above were created in disk entity /dev/hda2 while /boot was created in /dev/hda1. The system also consists of 'Uninitialized Entities' which are illustrated in Figure 10.17, “Uninitialized Entities”. The figure below illustrates the main window in the LVM utility. The logical and the physical views of the above configuration are illustrated below. The three logical volumes exist on the same physical volume (hda2).
Main LVM Window
Main LVM Window
Figure 10.13. Main LVM Window

The figure below illustrates the physical view for the volume. In this window, you can select and remove a volume from the volume group or migrate extents from the volume to another volume group. Steps to migrate extents are discussed in Figure 10.22, “Migrate Extents”.
Physical View Window
Physical View Window
Figure 10.14. Physical View Window

The figure below illustrates the logical view for the selected volume group. The logical volume size is also indicated with the individual logical volume sizes illustrated.
Logical View Window
Logical View Window
Figure 10.15. Logical View Window

On the left side column, you can select the individual logical volumes in the volume group to view more details about each. In this example the objective is to rename the logical volume name for 'LogVol03' to 'Swap'. To perform this operation select the respective logical volume and click on the Edit Properties button. This will display the Edit Logical Volume window from which you can modify the Logical volume name, size (in extents) and also use the remaining space available in a logical volume group. The figure below illustrates this.
Please note that this logical volume cannot be changed in size as there is currently no free space in the volume group. If there was remaining space, this option would be enabled (see Figure 10.31, “Edit logical volume”). Click on the OK button to save your changes (this will remount the volume). To cancel your changes click on the Cancel button. To revert to the last snapshot settings click on the Revert button. A snapshot can be created by clicking on the Create Snapshot button on the LVM utility window. If the selected logical volume is in use by the system (for example) the / (root) directory, this task will not be successful as the volume cannot be unmounted.
Edit Logical Volume
Edit Logical Volume
Figure 10.16. Edit Logical Volume

10.5.1. Utilizing uninitialized entities

'Uninitialized Entities' consist of unpartitioned space and non LVM file systems. In this example partitions 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 were created during installation and some unpartitioned space was left on the hard disk. Please view each partition and ensure that you read the 'Properties for Disk Entity' on the right column of the window to ensure that you do not delete critical data. In this example partition 1 cannot be initialized as it is /boot. Uninitialized entities are illustrated below.
Uninitialized Entities
Uninitialized Entities
Figure 10.17. Uninitialized Entities

In this example, partition 3 will be initialized and added to an existing volume group. To initialize a partition or unpartioned space, select the partition and click on the Initialize Entity button. Once initialized, a volume will be listed in the 'Unallocated Volumes' list.

10.5.2. Adding Unallocated Volumes to a volume group

Once initialized, a volume will be listed in the 'Unallocated Volumes' list. The figure below illustrates an unallocated partition (Partition 3). The respective buttons at the bottom of the window allow you to:
  • create a new volume group,
  • add the unallocated volume to an existing volume group,
  • remove the volume from LVM.
To add the volume to an existing volume group, click on the Add to Existing Volume Group button.
Unallocated Volumes
Unallocated Volumes
Figure 10.18. Unallocated Volumes

Clicking on the Add to Existing Volume Group button will display a pop up window listing the existing volume groups to which you can add the physical volume you are about to initialize. A volume group may span across one or more hard disks. In this example only one volume group exists as illustrated below.
Add physical volume to volume group
Add physical volume to volume group
Figure 10.19. Add physical volume to volume group

Once added to an existing volume group the new logical volume is automatically added to the unused space of the selected volume group. You can use the unused space to:
  • create a new logical volume (click on the Create New Logical Volume(s) button,
  • select one of the existing logical volumes and increase the extents (see Section 10.5.6, “Extending a volume group”),
  • select an existing logical volume and remove it from the volume group by clicking on the Remove Selected Logical Volume(s) button. Please note that you cannot select unused space to perform this operation.
The figure below illustrates the logical view of 'VolGroup00' after adding the new volume group.
Logical view of volume group
Logical view of volume group
Figure 10.20. Logical view of volume group

In the figure below, the uninitialized entities (partitions 3, 5, 6 and 7) were added to 'VolGroup00'.
Logical view of volume group
Logical view of volume group
Figure 10.21. Logical view of volume group

10.5.3. Migrating extents

To migrate extents from a physical volume, select the volume and click on the Migrate Selected Extent(s) From Volume button. Please note that you need to have a sufficient number of free extents to migrate extents within a volume group. An error message will be displayed if you do not have a sufficient number of free extents. To resolve this problem, please extend your volume group (see Section 10.5.6, “Extending a volume group”). If a sufficient number of free extents is detected in the volume group, a pop up window will be displayed from which you can select the destination for the extents or automatically let LVM choose the physical volumes (PVs) to migrate them to. This is illustrated below.
Migrate Extents
Migrate Extents
Figure 10.22. Migrate Extents

The figure below illustrates a migration of extents in progress. In this example, the extents were migrated to 'Partition 3'.
Migrating extents in progress
Migrating extents in progress
Figure 10.23. Migrating extents in progress

Once the extents have been migrated, unused space is left on the physical volume. The figure below illustrates the physical and logical view for the volume group. Please note that the extents of LogVol00 which were initially in hda2 are now in hda3. Migrating extents allows you to move logical volumes in case of hard disk upgrades or to manage your disk space better.
Logical and physical view of volume group
Logical and physical view of volume group
Figure 10.24. Logical and physical view of volume group

10.5.4. Adding a new hard disk using LVM

In this example, a new IDE hard disk was added. The figure below illustrates the details for the new hard disk. From the figure below, the disk is uninitialized and not mounted. To initialize a partition, click on the Initialize Entity button. For more details, see Section 10.5.1, “Utilizing uninitialized entities”. Once initialized, LVM will add the new volume to the list of unallocated volumes as illustrated in Figure 10.26, “Create new volume group”.
Uninitialized hard disk
Uninitialized hard disk
Figure 10.25. Uninitialized hard disk

10.5.5. Adding a new volume group

Once initialized, LVM will add the new volume to the list of unallocated volumes where you can add it to an existing volume group or create a new volume group. You can also remove the volume from LVM. The volume if removed from LVM will be listed in the list of 'Uninitialized Entities' as illustrated in Figure 10.25, “Uninitialized hard disk”. In this example, a new volume group was created as illustrated below.
Create new volume group
Create new volume group
Figure 10.26. Create new volume group

Once created a new volume group will be displayed in the list of existing volume groups as illustrated below. The logical view will display the new volume group with unused space as no logical volumes have been created. To create a logical volume, select the volume group and click on the Create New Logical Volume button as illustrated below. Please select the extents you wish to use on the volume group. In this example, all the extents in the volume group were used to create the new logical volume.
Create new logical volume
Create new logical volume
Figure 10.27. Create new logical volume

The figure below illustrates the physical view of the new volume group. The new logical volume named 'Backups' in this volume group is also listed.
Physical view of new volume group
Physical view of new volume group
Figure 10.28. Physical view of new volume group

10.5.6. Extending a volume group

In this example, the objective was to extend the new volume group to include an uninitialized entity (partition). This was to increase the size or number of extents for the volume group. To extend the volume group, click on the Extend Volume Group button. This will display the 'Extend Volume Group' window as illustrated below. On the 'Extend Volume Group' window, you can select disk entities (partitions) to add to the volume group. Please ensure that you check the contents of any 'Uninitialized Disk Entities' (partitions) to avoid deleting any critical data (see Figure 10.25, “Uninitialized hard disk”). In the example, the disk entity (partition) /dev/hda6 was selected as illustrated below.
Select disk entities
Select disk entities
Figure 10.29. Select disk entities

Once added, the new volume will be added as 'Unused Space' in the volume group. The figure below illustrates the logical and physical view of the volume group after it was extended.
Logical and physical view of an extended volume group
Logical and physical view of an extended volume group
Figure 10.30. Logical and physical view of an extended volume group

10.5.7. Editing a Logical Volume

The LVM utility allows you to select a logical volume in the volume group and modify its name, size and specify filesystem options. In this example, the logical volume named 'Backups" was extended onto the remaining space for the volume group.
Clicking on the Edit Properties button will display the 'Edit Logical Volume' popup window from which you can edit the properties of the logical volume. On this window, you can also mount the volume after making the changes and mount it when the system is rebooted. Please note that you should indicate the mount point. If the mount point you specify does not exist, a popup window will be displayed prompting you to create it. The 'Edit Logical Volume' window is illustrated below.
Edit logical volume
Edit logical volume
Figure 10.31. Edit logical volume

If you wish to mount the volume, select the 'Mount' checkbox indicating the preferred mount point. To mount the volume when the system is rebooted, select the 'Mount when rebooted' checkbox. In this example, the new volume will be mounted in /mnt/backups. This is illustrated in the figure below.
Edit logical volume - specifying mount options
Edit logical volume - specifying mount options
Figure 10.32. Edit logical volume - specifying mount options

The figure below illustrates the logical and physical view of the volume group after the logical volume was extended to the unused space. Please note in this example that the logical volume named 'Backups' spans across two hard disks. A volume can be striped across two or more physical devices using LVM.
Edit logical volume
Edit logical volume
Figure 10.33. Edit logical volume

10.6. Additional Resources

Use these sources to learn more about LVM.

10.6.1. Installed Documentation

  • rpm -qd lvm2 — This command shows all the documentation available from the lvm package, including man pages.
  • lvm help — This command shows all LVM commands available.

10.6.2. Useful Websites

Part II. Package Management

All software on a Red Hat Enterprise Linux system is divided into RPM packages which can be installed, upgraded, or removed. This part describes how to manage the RPM packages on a Red Hat Enterprise Linux system using graphical and command line tools.

Table of Contents

11. Package Management with RPM
11.1. RPM Design Goals
11.2. Using RPM
11.2.1. Finding RPM Packages
11.2.2. Installing
11.2.3. Uninstalling
11.2.4. Upgrading
11.2.5. Freshening
11.2.6. Querying
11.2.7. Verifying
11.3. Checking a Package's Signature
11.3.1. Importing Keys
11.3.2. Verifying Signature of Packages
11.4. Practical and Common Examples of RPM Usage
11.5. Additional Resources
11.5.1. Installed Documentation
11.5.2. Useful Websites
11.5.3. Related Books
12. Package Management Tool
12.1. Listing and Analyzing Packages
12.2. Installing and Removing Packages
13. YUM (Yellowdog Updater Modified)
13.1. Setting Up a Yum Repository
13.2. yum Commands
13.3. yum Options
13.4. Configuring yum
13.4.1. [main] Options
13.4.2. [repository] Options
13.5. Useful yum Variables
14. Product Subscriptions and Entitlements
14.1. An Overview of Managing Subscriptions and Content
14.1.1. The Purpose of Subscription Management
14.1.2. Defining Subscriptions, Entitlements, and Products
14.1.3. Subscription Management Tools
14.1.4. Subscription and Content Architecture
14.1.5. Advanced Content Management: Extended Update Support
14.1.6. Certificate-based Red Hat Network versus RHN Classic
14.2. Using Red Hat Subscription Manager Tools
14.2.1. Launching Red Hat Subscription Manager
14.2.2. About subscription-manager
14.2.3. Looking at RHN Subscription Management
14.2.4. Looking at Subscription Asset Manager
14.3. Managing Special Deployment Scenarios
14.3.1. Local Subscription Services, Local Content Providers, and Multi-Tenant Organizations
14.3.2. Virtual Guests and Hosts
14.3.3. Domains
14.4. Registering, Unregistering, and Reregistering a System
14.4.1. Registering Consumers in the Hosted Environment
14.4.2. Registering Consumers to a Local Distributor (Organization)
14.4.3. Registering an Offline Consumer
14.4.4. Registering from the Command Line
14.4.5. Unregistering
14.4.6. Restoring a Registration
14.5. Migrating Systems from RHN Classic to Certificate-based Red Hat Network
14.5.1. Installing the Migration Tools
14.5.2. Migrating from RHN Classic to Certificate-based Red Hat Network
14.5.3. Unregistering from RHN Classic Only
14.5.4. Migrating a Disconnected System
14.5.5. Looking at Channel and Certificate Mappings
14.6. Handling Subscriptions
14.6.1. Subscribing and Unsubscribing through the GUI
14.6.2. Handling Subscriptions through the Command Line
14.6.3. Stacking Subscriptions
14.6.4. Manually Adding a New Subscription
14.7. Redeeming Subscriptions on a Machine
14.7.1. Redeeming Subscriptions through the GUI
14.7.2. Redeeming Subscriptions on a Machine through the Command Line
14.8. Viewing Available and Used Subscriptions
14.8.1. Viewing Subscriptions in the GUI
14.8.2. Listing Subscriptions with the Command Line
14.8.3. Viewing Subscriptions Used in Both RHN Classic and Certificate-based Red Hat Network
14.9. Working with Subscription yum Repos
14.10. Responding to Subscription Notifications
14.11. Changing the Healing Check Frequency
14.12. Working with Subscription Asset Manager
14.12.1. Configuring Subscription Manager to Work with Subscription Asset Manager
14.12.2. Viewing Organization Information
14.13. Updating Entitlements Certificates
14.13.1. Updating Entitlement Certificates
14.13.2. Updating Subscription Information
14.14. Configuring the Subscription Service
14.14.1. Red Hat Subscription Manager Configuration Files
14.14.2. Using the config Command
14.14.3. Using an HTTP Proxy
14.14.4. Changing the Subscription Server
14.14.5. Configuring Red Hat Subscription Manager to Use a Local Content Provider
14.14.6. Managing Secure Connections to the Subscription Server
14.14.7. Starting and Stopping the Subscription Service
14.14.8. Checking Logs
14.14.9. Checking and Adding System Facts
14.14.10. Regenerating Identity Certificates
14.14.11. Getting the System UUID
14.14.12. Viewing Package Profiles
14.14.13. Retrieving the Consumer ID, Registration Tokens, and Other Information
14.15. About Certificates and Managing Entitlements
14.15.1. The Structure of Identity Certificates
14.15.2. The Structure of Entitlement Certificates
14.15.3. The Structure of Product Certificates
14.15.4. Anatomy of Satellite Certificates

Chapter 11. Package Management with RPM

The RPM Package Manager (RPM) is an open packaging system, which runs on Red Hat Enterprise Linux as well as other Linux and UNIX systems. Red Hat, Inc. encourages other vendors to use RPM for their own products. RPM is distributed under the terms of the GPL.
The utility works only with packages built for processing by the rpm package. For the end user, RPM makes system updates easy. Installing, uninstalling, and upgrading RPM packages can be accomplished with short commands. RPM maintains a database of installed packages and their files, so you can invoke powerful queries and verifications on your system. If you prefer a graphical interface, you can use the Package Management Tool to perform many RPM commands. Refer to Chapter 12, Package Management Tool for details.

Important

When installing a package, please ensure it is compatible with your operating system and architecture. This can usually be determined by checking the package name.
During upgrades, RPM handles configuration files carefully, so that you never lose your customizations — something that you cannot accomplish with regular .tar.gz files.
For the developer, RPM allows you to take software source code and package it into source and binary packages for end users. This process is quite simple and is driven from a single file and optional patches that you create. This clear delineation between pristine sources and your patches along with build instructions eases the maintenance of the package as new versions of the software are released.

Note

Because RPM makes changes to your system, you must be logged in as root to install, remove, or upgrade an RPM package.

11.1. RPM Design Goals

To understand how to use RPM, it can be helpful to understand the design goals of RPM:
Upgradability
With RPM, you can upgrade individual components of your system without completely reinstalling. When you get a new release of an operating system based on RPM (such as Red Hat Enterprise Linux), you do not need to reinstall on your machine (as you do with operating systems based on other packaging systems). RPM allows intelligent, fully-automated, in-place upgrades of your system. Configuration files in packages are preserved across upgrades, so you do not lose your customizations. There are no special upgrade files needed to upgrade a package because the same RPM file is used to install and upgrade the package on your system.
Powerful Querying
RPM is designed to provide powerful querying options. You can do searches through your entire database for packages or just for certain files. You can also easily find out what package a file belongs to and from where the package came. The files an RPM package contains are in a compressed archive, with a custom binary header containing useful information about the package and its contents, allowing you to query individual packages quickly and easily.
System Verification
Another powerful RPM feature is the ability to verify packages. If you are worried that you deleted an important file for some package, you can verify the package. You are then notified of any anomalies, if any — at which point, you can reinstall the package if necessary. Any configuration files that you modified are preserved during reinstallation.
Pristine Sources
A crucial design goal was to allow the use of pristine software sources, as distributed by the original authors of the software. With RPM, you have the pristine sources along with any patches that were used, plus complete build instructions. This is an important advantage for several reasons. For instance, if a new version of a program is released, you do not necessarily have to start from scratch to get it to compile. You can look at the patch to see what you might need to do. All the compiled-in defaults, and all of the changes that were made to get the software to build properly, are easily visible using this technique.
The goal of keeping sources pristine may seem important only for developers, but it results in higher quality software for end users, too.

11.2. Using RPM

RPM has five basic modes of operation (not counting package building): installing, uninstalling, upgrading, querying, and verifying. This section contains an overview of each mode. For complete details and options, try rpm --help or man rpm. You can also refer to Section 11.5, “Additional Resources” for more information on RPM.

11.2.1. Finding RPM Packages

Before using any RPM packages, you must know where to find them. An Internet search returns many RPM repositories, but if you are looking for RPM packages built by Red Hat, they can be found at the following locations:

11.2.2. Installing

RPM packages typically have file names like foo-1.0-1.i386.rpm. The file name includes the package name (foo), version (1.0), release (1), and architecture (i386). To install a package, log in as root and type the following command at a shell prompt:
rpm -ivh foo-1.0-1.i386.rpm
Alternatively, the following command can also be used:
rpm -Uvh foo-1.0-1.i386.rpm
If the installation is successful, the following output is displayed:
Preparing...                ########################################### [100%]
   1:foo                    ########################################### [100%]
As you can see, RPM prints out the name of the package and then prints a succession of hash marks as a progress meter while the package is installed.
The signature of a package is checked automatically when installing or upgrading a package. The signature confirms that the package was signed by an authorized party. For example, if the verification of the signature fails, an error message such as the following is displayed:
error: V3 DSA signature: BAD, key ID 0352860f
If it is a new, header-only, signature, an error message such as the following is displayed:
error: Header V3 DSA signature: BAD, key ID 0352860f
If you do not have the appropriate key installed to verify the signature, the message contains the word NOKEY such as:
warning: V3 DSA signature: NOKEY, key ID 0352860f
Refer to Section 11.3, “Checking a Package's Signature” for more information on checking a package's signature.

Warning

If you are installing a kernel package, you should use rpm -ivh instead. Refer to Chapter 42, Manually Upgrading the Kernel for details.

11.2.2.1. Package Already Installed

If a package of the same name and version is already installed, the following output is displayed:
Preparing...                ########################################### [100%]
package foo-1.0-1 is already installed
However, if you want to install the package anyway, you can use the --replacepkgs option, which tells RPM to ignore the error:
rpm -ivh --replacepkgs foo-1.0-1.i386.rpm
This option is helpful if files installed from the RPM were deleted or if you want the original configuration files from the RPM to be installed.

11.2.2.2. Conflicting Files

If you attempt to install a package that contains a file which has already been installed by another package, the following is displayed:
Preparing...                ########################################### [100%]
file /usr/bin/foo from install of foo-1.0-1 conflicts with file from package bar-2.0.20
To make RPM ignore this error, use the --replacefiles option:
rpm -ivh --replacefiles foo-1.0-1.i386.rpm

11.2.2.3. Unresolved Dependency

RPM packages may sometimes depend on other packages, which means that they require other packages to be installed to run properly. If you try to install a package which has an unresolved dependency, output similar to the following is displayed:
error: Failed dependencies:
        bar.so.2 is needed by foo-1.0-1
Suggested resolutions:
	bar-2.0.20-3.i386.rpm
If you are installing a package from the Red Hat Enterprise Linux CD-ROM set, it usually suggest the package(s) needed to resolve the dependency. Find the suggested package(s) on the Red Hat Enterprise Linux CD-ROMs or from Red Hat Network , and add it to the command:
rpm -ivh foo-1.0-1.i386.rpm bar-2.0.20-3.i386.rpm
If installation of both packages is successful, output similar to the following is displayed:
Preparing...                ########################################### [100%]
   1:foo                    ########################################### [ 50%]
   2:bar                    ########################################### [100%]
If it does not suggest a package to resolve the dependency, you can try the -q --whatprovides option combination to determine which package contains the required file.
rpm -q --whatprovides bar.so.2
To force the installation anyway (which is not recommended since the package may not run correctly), use the --nodeps option.

11.2.3. Uninstalling

Uninstalling a package is just as simple as installing one. Type the following command at a shell prompt:
rpm -e foo

Note

Notice that we used the package name foo, not the name of the original package file foo-1.0-1.i386.rpm. To uninstall a package, replace foo with the actual package name of the original package.
You can encounter a dependency error when uninstalling a package if another installed package depends on the one you are trying to remove. For example:
error: Failed dependencies:
	foo is needed by (installed) bar-2.0.20-3.i386.rpm
To make RPM ignore this error and uninstall the package anyway (which may break the package dependent on it) use the --nodeps option.

11.2.4. Upgrading

Upgrading a package is similar to installing one. Type the following command at a shell prompt:
rpm -Uvh foo-2.0-1.i386.rpm
As part of upgrading a package, RPM automatically uninstalls any old versions of the foo package. Note that -U will also install a package even when there are no previous versions of the package installed.

Tip

It is not advisable to use the -U option for installing kernel packages, because RPM replaces the previous kernel package. This does not affect a running system, but if the new kernel is unable to boot during your next restart, there would be no other kernel to boot instead.
Using the -i option adds the kernel to your GRUB boot menu (/etc/grub.conf). Similarly, removing an old, unneeded kernel removes the kernel from GRUB.
Because RPM performs intelligent upgrading of packages with configuration files, you may see a message like the following:
saving /etc/foo.conf as /etc/foo.conf.rpmsave
This message means that changes you made to the configuration file may not be forward compatible with the new configuration file in the package, so RPM saved your original file and installed a new one. You should investigate the differences between the two configuration files and resolve them as soon as possible, to ensure that your system continues to function properly.
If you attempt to upgrade to a package with an older version number (that is, if a more updated version of the package is already installed), the output is similar to the following:
package foo-2.0-1 (which is newer than foo-1.0-1) is already installed
To force RPM to upgrade anyway, use the --oldpackage option:
rpm -Uvh --oldpackage foo-1.0-1.i386.rpm

11.2.5. Freshening

Freshening is similar to upgrading, except that only existent packages are upgraded. Type the following command at a shell prompt:
rpm -Fvh foo-1.2-1.i386.rpm
RPM's freshen option checks the versions of the packages specified on the command line against the versions of packages that have already been installed on your system. When a newer version of an already-installed package is processed by RPM's freshen option, it is upgraded to the newer version. However, RPM's freshen option does not install a package if no previously-installed package of the same name exists. This differs from RPM's upgrade option, as an upgrade does install packages whether or not an older version of the package was already installed.
Freshening works for single packages or package groups. If you have just downloaded a large number of different packages, and you only want to upgrade those packages that are already installed on your system, freshening does the job. Thus, you do not have to delete any unwanted packages from the group that you downloaded before using RPM.
In this case, issue the following command:
rpm -Fvh *.rpm
RPM automatically upgrades only those packages that are already installed.

11.2.6. Querying

The RPM database stores information about all RPM packages installed in your system. It is stored in the directory /var/lib/rpm/, and is used to query what packages are installed, what versions each package is, and any changes to any files in the package since installation, among others.
To query this database, use the -q option. The rpm -q package name command displays the package name, version, and release number of the installed package package name . For example, using rpm -q foo to query installed package foo might generate the following output:
foo-2.0-1
You can also use the following Package Selection Options with -q to further refine or qualify your query:
  • -a — queries all currently installed packages.
  • -f <filename> — queries the RPM database for which package owns f<filename> . When specifying a file, specify the absolute path of the file (for example, rpm -qf /bin/ls ).
  • -p <packagefile> — queries the uninstalled package <packagefile> .
There are a number of ways to specify what information to display about queried packages. The following options are used to select the type of information for which you are searching. These are called Package Query Options.
  • -i displays package information including name, description, release, size, build date, install date, vendor, and other miscellaneous information.
  • -l displays the list of files that the package contains.
  • -s displays the state of all the files in the package.
  • -d displays a list of files marked as documentation (man pages, info pages, READMEs, etc.).
  • -c displays a list of files marked as configuration files. These are the files you edit after installation to adapt and customize the package to your system (for example, sendmail.cf, passwd, inittab, etc.).
For options that display lists of files, add -v to the command to display the lists in a familiar ls -l format.

11.2.7. Verifying

Verifying a package compares information about files installed from a package with the same information from the original package. Among other things, verifying compares the size, MD5 sum, permissions, type, owner, and group of each file.
The command rpm -V verifies a package. You can use any of the Verify Options listed for querying to specify the packages you wish to verify. A simple use of verifying is rpm -V foo, which verifies that all the files in the foo package are as they were when they were originally installed. For example:
  • To verify a package containing a particular file:
    rpm -Vf /usr/bin/foo
    In this example, /usr/bin/foo is the absolute path to the file used to query a package.
  • To verify ALL installed packages throughout the system:
    rpm -Va
  • To verify an installed package against an RPM package file:
    rpm -Vp foo-1.0-1.i386.rpm
    This command can be useful if you suspect that your RPM databases are corrupt.
If everything verified properly, there is no output. If there are any discrepancies, they are displayed. The format of the output is a string of eight characters (a c denotes a configuration file) and then the file name. Each of the eight characters denotes the result of a comparison of one attribute of the file to the value of that attribute recorded in the RPM database. A single period (.) means the test passed. The following characters denote specific discrepancies:
  • 5 — MD5 checksum
  • S — file size
  • L — symbolic link
  • T — file modification time
  • D — device
  • U — user
  • G — group
  • M — mode (includes permissions and file type)
  • ? — unreadable file
If you see any output, use your best judgment to determine if you should remove the package, reinstall it, or fix the problem in another way.

11.3. Checking a Package's Signature

If you wish to verify that a package has not been corrupted or tampered with, examine only the md5sum by typing the following command at a shell prompt (where <rpm-file> is the file name of the RPM package):
rpm -K --nosignature <rpm-file>
The message <rpm-file>: md5 OK is displayed. This brief message means that the file was not corrupted by the download. To see a more verbose message, replace -K with -Kvv in the command.
On the other hand, how trustworthy is the developer who created the package? If the package is signed with the developer's GnuPG key, you know that the developer really is who they say they are.
An RPM package can be signed using Gnu Privacy Guard (or GnuPG), to help you make certain your downloaded package is trustworthy.
GnuPG is a tool for secure communication; it is a complete and free replacement for the encryption technology of PGP, an electronic privacy program. With GnuPG, you can authenticate the validity of documents and encrypt/decrypt data to and from other recipients. GnuPG is capable of decrypting and verifying PGP 5.x files as well.
During installation, GnuPG is installed by default. That way you can immediately start using GnuPG to verify any packages that you receive from Red Hat. Before doing so, you must first import Red Hat's public key.

11.3.1. Importing Keys

To verify Red Hat packages, you must import the Red Hat GPG key. To do so, execute the following command at a shell prompt:
rpm --import /etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-redhat-release
To display a list of all keys installed for RPM verification, execute the command:
rpm -qa gpg-pubkey*
For the Red Hat key, the output includes:
gpg-pubkey-37017186-45761324
To display details about a specific key, use rpm -qi followed by the output from the previous command:
rpm -qi gpg-pubkey-37017186-45761324

11.3.2. Verifying Signature of Packages

To check the GnuPG signature of an RPM file after importing the builder's GnuPG key, use the following command (replace <rpm-file> with the filename of the RPM package):
rpm -K <rpm-file>
If all goes well, the following message is displayed: md5 gpg OK. This means that the signature of the package has been verified, and that it is not corrupt.

11.4. Practical and Common Examples of RPM Usage

RPM is a useful tool for both managing your system and diagnosing and fixing problems. The best way to make sense of all of its options is to look at some examples.
  • Perhaps you have deleted some files by accident, but you are not sure what you deleted. To verify your entire system and see what might be missing, you could try the following command:
    rpm -Va
    If some files are missing or appear to have been corrupted, you should probably either re-install the package or uninstall and then re-install the package.
  • At some point, you might see a file that you do not recognize. To find out which package owns it, enter:
    rpm -qf /usr/bin/ggv
    The output would look like the following:
    ggv-2.6.0-2
  • We can combine the above two examples in the following scenario. Say you are having problems with /usr/bin/paste. You would like to verify the package that owns that program, but you do not know which package owns paste. Enter the following command,
    rpm -Vf /usr/bin/paste
    and the appropriate package is verified.
  • Do you want to find out more information about a particular program? You can try the following command to locate the documentation which came with the package that owns that program:
    rpm -qdf /usr/bin/free
    The output would be similar to the following:
    /usr/share/doc/procps-3.2.3/BUGS
    /usr/share/doc/procps-3.2.3/FAQ
    /usr/share/doc/procps-3.2.3/NEWS
    /usr/share/doc/procps-3.2.3/TODO
    /usr/share/man/man1/free.1.gz
    /usr/share/man/man1/pgrep.1.gz
    /usr/share/man/man1/pkill.1.gz
    /usr/share/man/man1/pmap.1.gz
    /usr/share/man/man1/ps.1.gz
    /usr/share/man/man1/skill.1.gz
    /usr/share/man/man1/slabtop.1.gz
    /usr/share/man/man1/snice.1.gz
    /usr/share/man/man1/tload.1.gz
    /usr/share/man/man1/top.1.gz
    /usr/share/man/man1/uptime.1.gz
    /usr/share/man/man1/w.1.gz
    /usr/share/man/man1/watch.1.gz
    /usr/share/man/man5/sysctl.conf.5.gz
    /usr/share/man/man8/sysctl.8.gz
    /usr/share/man/man8/vmstat.8.gz
  • You may find a new RPM, but you do not know what it does. To find information about it, use the following command:
    rpm -qip crontabs-1.10-7.noarch.rpm
    The output would be similar to the following:
    Name        : crontabs                     Relocations: (not relocatable)
    Version     : 1.10                              Vendor: Red Hat, Inc.
    Release     : 7                             Build Date: Mon 20 Sep 2004 05:58:10 PM EDT
    Install Date: (not installed)               Build Host: tweety.build.redhat.com
    Group       : System Environment/Base       Source RPM: crontabs-1.10-7.src.rpm
    Size        : 1004                             License: Public Domain
    Signature   : DSA/SHA1, Wed 05 Jan 2005 06:05:25 PM EST, Key ID 219180cddb42a60e
    Packager    : Red Hat, Inc. <http://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla>
    Summary     : Root crontab files used to schedule the execution of programs.
    Description : The crontabs package contains root crontab files. Crontab is the
    program used to install, uninstall, or list the tables used to drive the
    cron daemon. The cron daemon checks the crontab files to see when
    particular commands are scheduled to be executed. If commands are
    scheduled, then it executes them.
  • Perhaps you now want to see what files the crontabs RPM installs. You would enter the following:
    rpm -qlp crontabs-1.10-5.noarch.rpm
    The output is similar to the following:
    /etc/cron.daily
    /etc/cron.hourly
    /etc/cron.monthly
    /etc/cron.weekly
    /etc/crontab
    /usr/bin/run-parts
These are just a few examples. As you use RPM, you may find more uses for it.

11.5. Additional Resources

RPM is an extremely complex utility with many options and methods for querying, installing, upgrading, and removing packages. Refer to the following resources to learn more about RPM.

11.5.1. Installed Documentation

  • rpm --help — This command displays a quick reference of RPM parameters.
  • man rpm — The RPM man page gives more detail about RPM parameters than the rpm --help command.

11.5.2. Useful Websites

Chapter 12. Package Management Tool

If you prefer to use a graphical interface to view and manage packages in your system, you can use the Package Management Tool, better known as pirut. This tool allows you to perform basic package management of your system through an easy-to-use interface to remove installed packages or download (and install) packages compatible to your system. It also allows you to view what packages are installed in your system and which ones are available for download from Red Hat Network. In addition, the Package Management Tool also automatically resolves any critical dependencies when you install or remove packages in the same way that the rpm command does.

Note

While the Package Management Tool can automatically resolve dependencies during package installation and removal, it cannot perform a forced install / remove the same way that rpm -e --nodeps or rpm -U --nodeps can.
The X Window System is required to run the Package Management Tool. To start the application, go to Applications (the main menu on the panel) > Add/Remove Software. Alternatively, you can type the commands system-config-packages or pirut at shell prompt.
Package Management Tool
Package Management Tool
Figure 12.1. Package Management Tool

12.1. Listing and Analyzing Packages

You can use the Package Management Tool to search and list all packages installed in your system, as well as any packages available for you to download. The Browse, Search, and List tabs present different options in viewing, analyzing, installing or removing packages.
The Browse tab allows you to view packages by group. In Figure 12.1, “Package Management Tool”, the left window shows the different package group types you can choose from (for example, Desktop Environments, Applications, Development and more). When a package group type is selected, the right window displays the different package groups of that type.
To view what packages are included in a package group, click Optional packages. Installed packages are checked.
Optional Packages
Optional Packages
Figure 12.2. Optional Packages

The List tab displays a list of packages installed or available for download. Packages already installed in your system are marked with a green check ( ).
By default, the All packages option above the main window is selected; this specifies that all packages be displayed. Use the Installed packages option to display only packages that are already installed in your system, and the Available packages option to view what packages you can download and install.
The Search tab allows you to use keywords to search for particular packages. This tab also allows you to view a short description of a package. To do so, simply select a package and click the Package Details button below the main window.

12.2. Installing and Removing Packages

To install a package available for download, click the checkbox beside the package name. When you do so, an installation icon ( ) appears beside its checkbox. This indicates that the package is queued for download and installation. You can select multiple packages to download and install; once you have made your selection, click the Apply button.
Package installation
Package installation
Figure 12.3. Package installation

If there are any package dependencies for your selected downloads, the Package Management Tool will notify you accordingly. Click Details to view what additional packages are needed. To proceed with downloading and installing the package (along with all other dependent packages) click Continue.
Package dependencies: installation
Package dependencies: installation
Figure 12.4. Package dependencies: installation

Removing a package can be done in a similar manner. To remove a package installed in your system, click the checkbox beside the package name. The green check appearing beside the package name will be replaced by a package removal icon ( ). This indicates that the package is queued for removal; you can also select multiple packages to be removed at the same time. Once you have selected the packages you want to remove, click the Apply button.
Package removal
Package removal
Figure 12.5. Package removal

Note that if any other installed packages are dependent on the package you are removing, they will be removed as well. The Package Management Tool will notify you if there are any such dependencies. Click Details to view what packages are dependent on the one you are removing. To proceed with removing your selected package/s (along with all other dependent packages) click Continue.
Package dependencies: removal
Package dependencies: removal
Figure 12.6. Package dependencies: removal

You can install and remove multiple packages by selecting packages to be installed / removed and then clicking Apply. The Package selections window displays the number of packages to be installed and removed.
Installing and removing packages simultaneously
Installing and removing packages simultaneously
Figure 12.7. Installing and removing packages simultaneously

Chapter 13. YUM (Yellowdog Updater Modified)

Yellowdog Update, Modified (YUM) is a package manager that was developed by Duke University to improve the installation of RPMs. yum searches numerous repositories for packages and their dependencies so they may be installed together in an effort to alleviate dependency issues. Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.8 uses yum to fetch packages and install RPMs.
up2date is now deprecated in favor of yum (Yellowdog Updater Modified). The entire stack of tools which installs and updates software in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.8 is now based on yum. This includes everything, from the initial installation via Anaconda to host software management tools like pirut.
yum also allows system administrators to configure a local (i.e. available over a local network) repository to supplement packages provided by Red Hat. This is useful for user groups that use applications and packages that are not officially supported by Red Hat.
Aside from being able to supplement available packages for local users, using a local yum repository also saves bandwidth for the entire network. Further, clients that use local yum repositories do not need to be registered individually to install or update the latest packages from Red Hat Network.

13.1. Setting Up a Yum Repository

To set up a repository for Red Hat Enterprise Linux packages, follow these steps:
  1. Install the createrepo package:
    ~]# yum install createrepo
  2. Copy all the packages you want to provide in the repository into one directory (/mnt/local_repo for example).
  3. Run createrepo on that directory (for example, createrepo /mnt/local_repo). This will create the necessary metadata for your Yum repository.

13.2.  yum Commands

yum commands are typically run as yum <command> <package name/s> . By default, yum will automatically attempt to check all configured repositories to resolve all package dependencies during an installation/upgrade.
The following is a list of the most commonly-used yum commands. For a complete list of available yum commands, refer to man yum.
yum install <package name/s>
Used to install the latest version of a package or group of packages. If no package matches the specified package name(s), they are assumed to be a shell glob, and any matches are then installed.
yum update <package name/s>
Used to update the specified packages to the latest available version. If no package name/s are specified, then yum will attempt to update all installed packages.
If the --obsoletes option is used (i.e. yum --obsoletes <package name/s> , yum will process obsolete packages. As such, packages that are obsoleted across updates will be removed and replaced accordingly.
yum check-update
This command allows you to determine whether any updates are available for your installed packages. yum returns a list of all package updates from all repositories if any are available.
yum remove <package name/s>
Used to remove specified packages, along with any other packages dependent on the packages being removed.
yum provides <file name>
Used to determine which packages provide a specific file or feature.
yum search <keyword>
This command is used to find any packages containing the specified keyword in the description, summary, packager and package name fields of RPMs in all repositories.
yum localinstall <absolute path to package name/s>
Used when using yum to install a package located locally in the machine.

13.3.  yum Options

yum options are typically stated before specific yum commands; i.e. yum <options> <command> <package name/s> . Most of these options can be set as default using the configuration file.
The following is a list of the most commonly-used yum options. For a complete list of available yum options, refer to man yum.
-y
Answer "yes" to every question in the transaction.
-t
Sets yum to be "tolerant" of errors with regard to packages specified in the transaction. For example, if you run yum update package1 package2 and package2 is already installed, yum will continue to install package1.
--exclude=<package name>
Excludes a specific package by name or glob in a specific transaction.

13.4. Configuring yum

By default, yum is configured through /etc/yum.conf. The following is an example of a typical /etc/yum.conf file:
[main]
cachedir=/var/cache/yum
keepcache=0
debuglevel=2
logfile=/var/log/yum.log
distroverpkg=redhat-release
tolerant=1
exactarch=1
obsoletes=1
gpgcheck=1
plugins=1
metadata_expire=1800
[myrepo]
name=RHEL 5 $releasever - $basearch
baseurl=http://local/path/to/yum/repository/
enabled=1
A typical /etc/yum.conf file is made up of two types of sections: a [main] section, and a repository section. There can only be one [main] section, but you can specify multiple repositories in a single /etc/yum.conf.

13.4.1.  [main] Options

The [main] section is mandatory, and there must only be one. For a complete list of options you can use in the [main] section, refer to man yum.conf.
The following is a list of the most commonly-used options in the [main] section.
cachedir
This option specifies the directory where yum should store its cache and database files. By default, the cache directory of yum is /var/cache/yum.
keepcache=<1 or 0>
Setting keepcache=1 instructs yum to keep the cache of headers and packages after a successful installation. keepcache=1 is the default.
reposdir=<absolute path to directory of .repo files>
This option allows you to specify a directory where .repo files are located. .repo files contain repository information (similar to the [repository] section of /etc/yum.conf).
yum collects all repository information from .repo files and the [repository] section of the /etc/yum.conf file to create a master list of repositories to use for each transaction. Refer to Section 13.4.2, “ [repository] Options” for more information about options you can use for both the [repository] section and .repo files.
If reposdir is not set, yum uses the default directory /etc/yum.repos.d.
gpgcheck=<1 or 0>
This disables/enables GPG signature checking on packages on all repositories, including local package installation. The default is gpgcheck=0, which disables GPG checking.
If this option is set in the [main] section of the /etc/yum.conf file, it sets the GPG checking rule for all repositories. However, you can also set this on individual repositories instead; i.e., you can enable GPG checking on one repository while disabling it on another.
assumeyes=<1 or 0>
This determines whether or not yum should prompt for confirmation of critical actions. The default if assumeyes=0, which means yum will prompt you for confirmation.
If assumeyes=1 is set, yum behaves in the same way that the command line option -y does.
tolerant=<1 or 0>
When enabled (tolerant=1), yum will be tolerant of errors on the command line with regard to packages. This is similar to the yum command line option -t.
The default value for this is tolerant=0 (not tolerant).
exclude=<package name/s>
This option allows you to exclude packages by keyword during installation/updates. If you are specifying multiple packages, this is a space-delimited list. Shell globs using wildcards (for example, * and ?) are allowed.
retries=<number of retries>
This sets the number of times yum should attempt to retrieve a file before returning an error. Setting this to 0 makes yum retry forever. The default value is 6.

13.4.2.  [repository] Options

The [repository] section of the /etc/yum.conf file contains information about a repository yum can use to find packages during package installation, updating and dependency resolution. A repository entry takes the following form:
[repository ID]
name=repository name
baseurl=url, file or ftp://path to repository
You can also specify repository information in a separate .repo files (for example, rhel5.repo). The format of repository information placed in .repo files is identical with the [repository] of /etc/yum.conf.
.repo files are typically placed in /etc/yum.repos.d, unless you specify a different repository path in the [main] section of /etc/yum.conf with reposdir=. .repo files and the /etc/yum.conf file can contain multiple repository entries.
Each repository entry consists of the following mandatory parts:
[repository ID]
The repository ID is a unique, one-word string that serves as a repository identifier.
name=repository name
This is a human-readable string describing the repository.
baseurl=http, file or ftp://path
This is a URL to the directory where the repodatadirectory of a repository is located. If the repository is local to the machine, use baseurl=file://path to local repository . If the repository is located online using HTTP, use baseurl=http://link . If the repository is online and uses FTP, use baseurl=ftp://link .
If a specific online repository requires basic HTTP authentication, you can specify your username and password in the baseurl line by prepending it as username:password@link. For example, if a repository on http://www.example.com/repo/ requires a username of "user" and a password os "password", then the baseurl link can be specified as baseurl=http://user:password@www.example.com/repo/.
The following is a list of options most commonly used in repository entries. For a complete list of repository entries, refer to man yum.conf.
gpgcheck=<1 or 0>
This disables/enables GPG signature checking a specific repository. The default is gpgcheck=0, which disables GPG checking.
gpgkey=URL
This option allows you to point to a URL of the ASCII-armoured GPG key file for a repository. This option is normally used if yum needs a public key to verify a package and the required key was not imported into the RPM database.
If this option is set, yum will automatically import the key from the specified URL. You will be prompted before the key is installed unless you set assumeyes=1 (in the [main] section of /etc/yum.conf) or -y (in a yum transaction).
exclude=<package name/s>
This option is similar to the exclude option in the [main] section of /etc/yum.conf. However, it only applies to the repository in which it is specified.
includepkgs=<package name/s>
This option is the opposite of exclude. When this option is set on a repository, yum will only be able to see the specified packages in that repository. By default, all packages in a repository are visible to yum.

13.5. Useful yum Variables

The following is a list of variables you can use for both yum commands and yum configuration files (i.e. /etc/yum.conf and .repo files).
$releasever
This is replaced with the package's version, as listed in distroverpkg. This defaults to the version of the redhat-release package.
$arch
This is replaced with your system's architecture, as listed by os.uname() in Python.
$basearch
This is replaced with your base architecture. For example, if $arch=i686 then $basearch=i386.
$YUM0-9
This is replaced with the value of the shell environment variable of the same name. If the shell environment variable does not exist, then the configuration file variable will not be replaced.

Chapter 14. Product Subscriptions and Entitlements

14.1. An Overview of Managing Subscriptions and Content
14.1.1. The Purpose of Subscription Management
14.1.2. Defining Subscriptions, Entitlements, and Products
14.1.3. Subscription Management Tools
14.1.4. Subscription and Content Architecture
14.1.5. Advanced Content Management: Extended Update Support
14.1.6. Certificate-based Red Hat Network versus RHN Classic
14.2. Using Red Hat Subscription Manager Tools
14.2.1. Launching Red Hat Subscription Manager
14.2.2. About subscription-manager
14.2.3. Looking at RHN Subscription Management
14.2.4. Looking at Subscription Asset Manager
14.3. Managing Special Deployment Scenarios
14.3.1. Local Subscription Services, Local Content Providers, and Multi-Tenant Organizations
14.3.2. Virtual Guests and Hosts
14.3.3. Domains
14.4. Registering, Unregistering, and Reregistering a System
14.4.1. Registering Consumers in the Hosted Environment
14.4.2. Registering Consumers to a Local Distributor (Organization)
14.4.3. Registering an Offline Consumer
14.4.4. Registering from the Command Line
14.4.5. Unregistering
14.4.6. Restoring a Registration
14.5. Migrating Systems from RHN Classic to Certificate-based Red Hat Network
14.5.1. Installing the Migration Tools
14.5.2. Migrating from RHN Classic to Certificate-based Red Hat Network
14.5.3. Unregistering from RHN Classic Only
14.5.4. Migrating a Disconnected System
14.5.5. Looking at Channel and Certificate Mappings
14.6. Handling Subscriptions
14.6.1. Subscribing and Unsubscribing through the GUI
14.6.2. Handling Subscriptions through the Command Line
14.6.3. Stacking Subscriptions
14.6.4. Manually Adding a New Subscription
14.7. Redeeming Subscriptions on a Machine
14.7.1. Redeeming Subscriptions through the GUI
14.7.2. Redeeming Subscriptions on a Machine through the Command Line
14.8. Viewing Available and Used Subscriptions
14.8.1. Viewing Subscriptions in the GUI
14.8.2. Listing Subscriptions with the Command Line
14.8.3. Viewing Subscriptions Used in Both RHN Classic and Certificate-based Red Hat Network
14.9. Working with Subscription yum Repos
14.10. Responding to Subscription Notifications
14.11. Changing the Healing Check Frequency
14.12. Working with Subscription Asset Manager
14.12.1. Configuring Subscription Manager to Work with Subscription Asset Manager
14.12.2. Viewing Organization Information
14.13. Updating Entitlements Certificates
14.13.1. Updating Entitlement Certificates
14.13.2. Updating Subscription Information
14.14. Configuring the Subscription Service
14.14.1. Red Hat Subscription Manager Configuration Files
14.14.2. Using the config Command
14.14.3. Using an HTTP Proxy
14.14.4. Changing the Subscription Server
14.14.5. Configuring Red Hat Subscription Manager to Use a Local Content Provider
14.14.6. Managing Secure Connections to the Subscription Server
14.14.7. Starting and Stopping the Subscription Service
14.14.8. Checking Logs
14.14.9. Checking and Adding System Facts
14.14.10. Regenerating Identity Certificates
14.14.11. Getting the System UUID
14.14.12. Viewing Package Profiles
14.14.13. Retrieving the Consumer ID, Registration Tokens, and Other Information
14.15. About Certificates and Managing Entitlements
14.15.1. The Structure of Identity Certificates
14.15.2. The Structure of Entitlement Certificates
14.15.3. The Structure of Product Certificates
14.15.4. Anatomy of Satellite Certificates
Effective asset management requires a mechanism to handle the software inventory — both the type of products and the number of systems that the software is installed on. The subscription service provides that mechanism and gives transparency into both global allocations of subscriptions for an entire organization and the specific subscriptions assigned to a single system.
Red Hat Subscription Manager works with yum to unite content delivery with subscription management. The Subscription Manager handles only the subscription-system associations. yum or other package management tools handle the actual content delivery. Chapter 13, YUM (Yellowdog Updater Modified) describes how to use yum.
This chapter provides an overview of subscription management in Red Hat Enterprise Linux and the Red Hat Subscription Manager tools which are available.

14.1. An Overview of Managing Subscriptions and Content

Red Hat Enterprise Linux and other Red Hat products are sold through subscriptions, which make packages available and provide support for a set number of systems. Subscription management clarifies the relationships between local systems and available software resources because it gives a view into where software subscriptions are assigned, apart from installing the packages.

14.1.1. The Purpose of Subscription Management

New government and industry regulations are setting new mandates for businesses to track how their infrastructure assets are used. These changes include legislation like Sarbanes-Oxley in the United States, standards like Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI-DSS), or accreditation like SAS-70. Software inventory maintenance is increasingly important to meet accounting and governmental standards.
That means that there is increasing pressure on IT administrators to have an accurate, current accounting of the software used on their systems. Generally, this is called software license management; with Red Hat's subscription model, this is subscription management.
An IT infrastructure tries to maintain parity between the products that are installed and the licensese or subscriptions that those products require. For example, if an IT environment has four servers running Red Hat Enterprise Linux, then that environment must have four active subscriptions for Red Hat Enterprise Linux. If a new server is added to the infrastructure or one of the subscriptions expired, then the infrastructure would have more installed products than it has subscriptions.
Effective subscription management helps organizations achieve four primary goals:
  • Maintain regulatory compliance. One of the key responsibilities of administrators is software compliance in conformance with legal or industry requirements. Subscription management helps track both subscription assignments and contract expiration, which helps administrators manage both systems and software inventories in accordance to their regulatory requirements.
  • Simplify IT audits. Having a central and clear inventory of both current subscriptions and current systems, IT administrators can monitor and report on their infrastructure better.
  • Get better performance by doing better at assigning subscriptions. The subscription service maintains dual inventories of available product subscriptions and registered server systems, with clear associations between subscriptions and systems. This makes it easier for IT administrators to assign relevant subscriptions to systems, because they have a view of what is in the inventory and what the system is currently subscribed to.
  • Lower costs and streamline procurement. While under-subscribing systems can run afoul of regulations, over- subscribing systems can cause a significant impact on IT budgets. Subscription management helps subscriptions be assigned most efficiently, so costs could actually be lowered.
With Red Hat's commitment to free and open software, subscription management is focused on delivering tools that help IT administrators monitor their software/systems inventory for their own benefit. Subscription management does not enforce or restrict access to products.

Important

Most Red Hat products are licensed under a GNU General Public License (GPL), which allows free use of the software or code; this is a different license than the Red Hat license agreement. A Red Hat license provides access to Red Hat services, like the Customer Portal and content delivery network.
The Red Hat subscription requires that, as long as there is any active subscription for a product, then every system which uses the Red Hat product must have an active subscription assigned to it. Otherwise, the subscription is violated. See http://www.redhat.com/subscriptions/ and http://www.redhat.com/rhel/renew/faqs/#6 for more information on Red Hat's subscription model and terms.

14.1.2. Defining Subscriptions, Entitlements, and Products

The basis of everything is a subscription. A subscription contains both the products that are available, the support levels, and the quantities, or number of servers, that the product can be installed on.
Subscriptions are managed though the Certificate-based Red Hat Network service, which ties into the subscription service and content delivery network (CDN).
The subscription service maintains a complete list of subscriptions for an organization, identified by a unique ID (called a pool ID). A system is registered, or added, to the subscription service to allow it to manage the subscriptions for that system. Like the subscription, the system is also added to the subscription service inventory and is assigned a unique ID within the service. The subscriptions and system entries, together, comprise the inventory.
A system allocates one of the quantities of a product in a subscription to itself. When a subscription is consumed, it is an entitlement. (An entitlement is roughly analogous to a user license, in that it grants all of the rights to that product to that system. Unlike a user license, an entitlement does not grant the right to use the software; with the subscription model, an entitlement grants the ability to download the packages and receive updates.) Because the available quantity in a subscription lowers once a system subscribes to it, the system consumes the subscription.
Subscription Lifecycle, Illustrated
Figure 14.1. Subscription Lifecycle, Illustrated

The repository where the product software is located is organized according to the product. Each product group within the repository may contain the primary software packages and then any required dependencies or associated packages. Altogether, the product and its associated packages are called a content set. (A content set for a product even includes other versions of the product.) When a subscription grants access to a product, it includes access to all of the associated packages in that content set.
A single subscription can have multiple products, and each system can have multiple different subscriptions, depending on how many entitlement certificates are loaded on the machine.
Any number of products, for any number of different architectures, can be contained in a single subscription. The subscription options that are visible to a consumer are filtered, by default, according to whether the architecture for the product matches the architecture of the system. This is compatibility. Depending on compatible subscriptions makes sure that subscriptions are allocated efficiently, only to systems which can actually use the products.
Some subscriptions define some element count on the consumer, like the number of sockets on the machine, the number of virtual guests on a host, or the number of clients in a domain. Multiple subscriptions can be combined together to cover the counts on the consumer. For example, if there is a four socket server, two subscriptions for "RHEL Server for Two Sockets" can be consumed by the system to cover the socket count. Combining multiple subscriptions to cover the system count is called stacking.
The subscription tools can display even incompatible entitlements. Alternatively, the architecture definition for the system can be overridden by defining custom system facts for the subscription tools to use.
It is important to distinguish between subscribing to a product and installing a product. A subscription is essentially a statement of whatever products an organization has purchased. The act of subscribing to a subscription means that a system is allowed to install the product with a valid certificate, but subscribing does not actually perform any installation or updates. In the reverse, a product can also be installed apart from any entitlements for the system; the system does not require a valid certificate to install a product. Certificate-based Red Hat Network and the content delivery network harmonize with content delivery and installation by using yum plug-ins that come with the Subscription Manager tools.

14.1.3. Subscription Management Tools

Subscriptions are managed on the local system through GUI and CLI tools called Red Hat Subscription Manager. The Subscription Manager tracks and displays what entitlements are available to the local system and what entitlements have been consumed by the local system. The Subscription Manager works as a conduit back to the subscription service to synchronize changes like available product quantities or subscription expiration and renewals.

Note

The Red Hat Subscription Manager tools are always run as root because of the nature of the changes to the system. However, Red Hat Subscription Manager connects to the subscription service as a user account for the Customer Service Portal.
The Subscription Manager handles both registration and subscriptions for a system. The Subscription Manager is part of the firstboot process for configuring content and updates, but the system can be registered at any time through the Red Hat Subscription Manager GUI or CLI. New subscriptions, new products, and updates can be viewed and applied to a system through the Red Hat Subscription Manager tools.
The different Subscription Manager clients are covered in Section 14.2, “Using Red Hat Subscription Manager Tools”.

14.1.4. Subscription and Content Architecture

Content includes new downloads, ISOs, updates, and errata, anything that can be installed on a system.
Subscription management helps to clarify and to define the relationships between local server infrastructure and the content delivery systems. Subscription management and content delivery are tightly associated. Entitlements (assigned subscriptions) identify what a system is allowed to install and update. In other words, entitlements define access to content. The content delivery system actually provides the software packages.
There are three parties that are involved in subscriptions and content:
  • The subscription service
  • The content delivery network
  • The system which uses the content
Relationship Among Systems, the Subscription Service, and Content Delivery Network
Figure 14.2. Relationship Among Systems, the Subscription Service, and Content Delivery Network

The subscription service handles the system registration (verifying that the system is allowed to access the content). It also supplies the system with information on what products are available and handles a central list of entitlements and remaining quantities for the entire organization.
The content delivery network is responsible for delivering the content to the system when requested. The content server is configured in the Red Hat Subscription Manager configuration and then tied into the system's yum service through the Red Hat Subscription Manager yum plug-in.
Both the subscription service and the content server used by a system's Red Hat Subscription Manager tools can be customized. The default settings use the public subscription service and content delivery network, but either one can be changed to use organization-specific services.

Note

Systems have the option of using the older Red Hat Network and Satellite 5.x systems to deliver content. These content delivery mechanisms bypass the subscription service in Certificate-based Red Hat Network, so there is no entitlement management. This is allowed for legacy infrastructures, but Red Hat strongly recommends registering new systems with Certificate-based Red Hat Network.

14.1.5. Advanced Content Management: Extended Update Support

Sometimes software product installations are straightforward — you want to install a Red Hat Enterprise Linux server, so you install Red Hat Enterprise Linux. However, products can have dependencies with each other (product B is only worthwhile if product A is also installed) or products can interact with each other to provide extended functionality. There are two categories of these kinds of product interactions:
  • Dependencies, where one product requires or relies on another product directly
  • Modifiers, where a product provides enhanced functionality or services for existing products
Dependencies are common and can be handled directly when processing content through tools like yum.
Modifiers can be more subtle. A modifier subscription extends another entitlement and provides different repository access and support than the product entitlement alone.
If the system is subscribed to that product entitlement or combination of products, then the modifier subscription brings an enhanced content set for that product. The content set can include additional new products, new functionality, or extended service and support, depending on the product being modified.
One simple example of a modifier is extended update support (EUS), which extends support for a minor release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux from six months to 24 months. An EUS subscription provides an enhanced support path, rather than a new product. EUS works only in conjunction with another product, to extend its support profile; it does not stand alone.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux Add-ons and EUS Subscriptions

Red Hat Enterprise Linux add-ons have access to EUS streams as long as the underlying Red Hat Enterprise Linux product has an EUS subscription. For example, if an administrator has a Red Hat Enterprise Linux 2 Socket subscription, a File System subscription, and a Red Hat Enterprise Linux 2 Socket EUS subscription, then the system can access both non-EUS and EUS content for both the Red Hat Enterprise Linux server and the File System product.

14.1.6. Certificate-based Red Hat Network versus RHN Classic

During the firstboot process, there are two options given for the content server: (Certificate-based) Red Hat Network and RHN Classic. These systems are mutually exclusive, but they both handle software content and updates as well as subscriptions and system inventory.

Important

This entire chapter deals with entitlement and subscription management through Certificate-based Red Hat Network with the subscription service tools. This is the recommended content/subscription system for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.7 and later systems.
In 5.7 and later versions, entitlements and subscriptions are defined by available and installed products. However, in older versions of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, subscriptions were defined by channel access. These are two different approaches to content and entitlement access. Red Hat Network uses the product-based subscription model, while RHN Classic uses the channel-based model.
Certificate-based Red Hat Network is focused on two things:
  • Subscription management
  • Content delivery
Certificate-based Red Hat Network integrates the Customer Portal, content delivery network, and subscription service (subscription management). It uses simple local tools (the Red Hat Subscription Manager client) to view and assign subscriptions for the installed products and to manage subscriptions as they expire.
Since the client tools for subscription management (the focus of Certificate-based Red Hat Network) are only available in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.7 systems and later, Certificate-based Red Hat Network can only be utilized by 5.7 and later systems.
RHN Classic uses the traditional channel entitlement model, which provides a global view of content access but does not provide insight into system-level subscription uses. Along with content and global subscription management, RHN Classic also provides some systems management functions:
  • Kickstarting systems
  • Managing configuration files
  • Running scripts
  • Taking system snapshots
Satellite 5.x systems use a channel-based model similar to RHN Classic.
While RHN Classic has an expanded systems management feature set, RHN Classic does not provide the system-level view into installed and subscribed products that the enhanced Red Hat Network and subscription service do. RHN Classic is provided for older Red Hat Enterprise Linux systems (Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4.x, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.x, and Satellite 5.x) to migrate systems over to Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.7 and later versions.
When a system is registered with RHN Classic, then the Red Hat Subscription Manager shows an error that the system is already registered and cannot be managed by the Subscription Manager tools. Likewise, similar errors are returned in the RHN Classic tools if a system is registered with Red Hat Network and the subscription service.
The two subscription services are mutually exclusive, with separate inventories and using separate client tools. Both the RHN Classic and Red Hat Subscription Manager tools correctly identify which service a system is registered with. When a system is registered with RHN Classic, then the Red Hat Subscription Manager shows an error that the system is already registered and cannot be managed by the Subscription Manager tools. Likewise, similar errors are returned in the RHN Classic tools if a system is registered with Red Hat Network and the subscription service.
For information on migrating from RHN Classic to Certificate-based Red Hat Network, see Section 14.5, “Migrating Systems from RHN Classic to Certificate-based Red Hat Network”.

14.2. Using Red Hat Subscription Manager Tools

The Red Hat Subscription Manager tool set encompasses three different tools:
  • A GUI-based local client to manage the local machine
  • A CLI client for advanced users and administrators to manage a local machine (and which can be tied into other applications and actions, like kickstarting machines)
  • A web-based client for organizational, multi-system views of the subscriptions and inventoried resources
All of these tools, both local clients and the web-based tools, allow administrators to perform three major tasks directly related to managing subscriptions: registering machines, assigning subscriptions to systems, and updating the certificates required for authentication. Some minor operations, like updating system facts, are available to help display and track what subscriptions are available.

Note

Both the Red Hat Subscription Manager GUI and CLI must be run as root.

14.2.1. Launching Red Hat Subscription Manager

Red Hat Subscription Manager is listed as one of the administrative tools in the Applications > System Tools menu in the top management bar.
Red Hat Subscription Manager Menu Option
Figure 14.3. Red Hat Subscription Manager Menu Option

Alternatively, the Red Hat Subscription Manager GUI can be opened from the command line with a single command:
[root@server1 ~]# subscription-manager-gui
The Red Hat Subscription Manager UI has a single window with tabbed sections that offer quick views into the current state of the system, showing installed products, subscriptions for the system, and available subscriptions the system has access to. These tabs also allow administrators to manage subscriptions by subscribing and unsubscribing the system.
The Red Hat Subscription Manager has three tabs which manage products and subscriptions:
  • The My Subscriptions tab shows all of the current entitlements that the system is subscribed to.
  • The All Available Subscriptions tab shows all of the subscriptions that are available to the system. The default displays only entitlements that are compatible with the hardware, but these can be filtered to show entitlements corresponding to other installed programs, only subscriptions that have not been installed, and subscriptions based on date.
  • The My Installed Software tab shows the currently installed products on the system, along with their subscription status. This does not allow administrators to install software, only to view installed software.
Red Hat Subscription Manager Main Screen
Figure 14.4. Red Hat Subscription Manager Main Screen

The series of icons in the top right corner of the box are used to perform system-related maintenance tasks like changing the proxy connection information and viewing system facts.

14.2.2. About subscription-manager

Any of the operations that can be performed through the Red Hat Subscription Manager UI can also be performed by running the subscription-manager tool. This tool has the following format:
[root@server1 ~]# subscription-manager command [options]
Each command has its own set of options that are used with it. The subscription-manager help and manpage have more information.
Table 14.1. subscription-manager Commands
Command Description
register Registers or identifies a new system to the subscription service.
unregister Unregisters a machine, which strips its subscriptions and removes the machine from the subscription service.
subscribe Allocates a specific subscription to the machine.
redeem Autosubscribes a machine to a pre-specified subscription that was purchased from a vendor, based on its hardware and BIOS information.
refresh Pulls the latest entitlement data from the server. Normally, the system polls the entitlement server at a set interval (4 hours by default) to check for any changes in the available subscriptions. The refresh command checks with the entitlement server immediately, outside the normal interval.
unsubscribe Removes a specific subscription or all subscriptions from the machine.
list Lists all of the subscriptions that are compatible with a machine, either subscriptions that are actually consumed by the machine or unused subscriptions that are available to the machine.
identity Handles the identity certificate and registration ID for a system. This command can be used to return the current UUID or generate a new identity certificate.
facts Lists the system information, like the release version, number of CPUs, and other architecture information.
clean Removes all of the subscription and identity data from the local system, without affecting the consumer information in the subscription service. Any of the subscriptions consumed by the system are still consumed and are not available for other systems to use. The clean command is useful in cases where the local entitlement information is corrupted or lost somehow, and the system will be reregistered using the register --consumerid=EXISTING_ID command.
orgs, repos, environments Lists all of the configured organizations, environments, and content repositories that are available to the given user account or system. These commands are used to view information in a multi-org infrastructure. They are not used to configure the local machine or multi-org infrastructure.

14.2.3. Looking at RHN Subscription Management

The ultimate goal of entitlement management is to allow administrators to identify the relationship between their systems and the subscriptions used by those systems. This can be done from two different perspectives: from the perspective of the local system looking externally to potential subscriptions and from the perspective of the organization, looking down at the total infrastructure of systems and all subscriptions.
The Red Hat Subscription Manager GUI and CLI are both local clients which manage only the local machine. These tools are somewhat limited in their view; they only disclose information (such as available entitlements) from the perspective of that one system, so expired and depleted subscriptions or subscriptions for other architectures are not displayed.
RHN Subscription Management in the Customer Portal is a global tool which is intended to give complete, organization-wide views into subscriptions and systems. It shows all subscriptions and all consumers for the entire organization. RHN Subscription Management can perform many of the tasks of the local tools, like registering consumers, assigning subscriptions, and viewing system facts and UUID. It can also manage the subscriptions themselves, such as viewing contract information and renewing subscriptions — a task not possible in the local clients.
RHN Subscription Management in the Customer Portal
Figure 14.5. RHN Subscription Management in the Customer Portal

Note

RHN Subscription Management gives a global view of all consumers, of all types, for an organization, which is crucial for planning and effectively assigning subscriptions. However, it does not provide any insight into what products are installed on a system and whether subscriptions are assigned for those products. To track the validity of installed products, you must use the local Subscription Manager tools.
RHN Subscription Management also provides a view of systems and subscriptions managed under RHN Classic and provides access to the RHN Classic web tools.
All of the subscriptions for an entire organization — the subscriptions that have been purchased and the systems to which they have been allocated — are viewable through the account pages at https://access.redhat.com/. Additional information about RHN Subscription Management is available with the portal documentation at https://access.redhat.com/knowledge/docs/Red_Hat_Customer_Portal/.

14.2.4. Looking at Subscription Asset Manager

The simplest model for assigning subscriptions and delivering content is for local systems to connect directly to Red Hat's hosted subscription and content network. However, for large environments, highly-secure environments, and many other situations, that hosted arrangement is not feasible.
In that case, a block of subscriptions can be allocated to a distributor application. That distributor connects to Red Hat's infrastructure, and then it manages all of the systems and consumers at its local site. This has performance benefits by lowering bandwidth, and it offers significant management benefits to administrators by allowing local and flexible control over subscription management.
The Subscription Asset Manager application is a distributor. It is available as an additional layered application as part of a Red Hat Enterprise Linux subscription.
Subscription Asset Manager provides a local site not only to view subscriptions and systems for an infrastructure (as with the Customer Portal) but also to manage all of those systems. Subscription Asset Manager has three major functional areas:
  • Works with the client machine's Subscription Manager to manage subscriptions and content. In that way, it is a centralized, global, web-based Subscription Manager.
  • Helps manage the subscriptions themselves. It receives a subscription manifest from Red Hat Network. The manifest allocates that Subscription Asset Manager service a subset of all of an organization's subscriptions. From there, the Subscription Asset Manager locally assigns subscriptions to individual systems and can create activation keys.
  • Works as a real-time proxy between the local system assets and the Red Hat content delivery network.
Subscription Asset Manager handles both client-side, local system management and backend subscription management. This allows Subscription Asset Manager to provide more in-depth information on the status of products and certificates through tools like its dashboard and activity reports.
Subscription Asset Manager Dashboard
Figure 14.6. Subscription Asset Manager Dashboard

Because of the insight Subscription Asset Manager has into the local server assets, it can be used to define multi-tenant organizations. Multi-tentant organizations allow completely separate silos of assets (organizations). Organizations can then be subdivided into environments; since a system can belong to multiple environments, it is possible to organize systems into overlapping circles according to the real-world infrastructure. This is covered more in Section 14.3.1, “Local Subscription Services, Local Content Providers, and Multi-Tenant Organizations”.
Subscription Asset Manager is available with Red Hat Enterprise Linux, but it must be installed and configured before it can be used to manage assets.
For more information on configuring and using Subscription Asset Manager, see the documentation at http://docs.redhat.com/docs/en-US/Red_Hat_Subscription_Asset_Manager/1.0/html/Installation_Guide/index.html.

14.3. Managing Special Deployment Scenarios

There are different types of consumers and different ways of organizing consumers. Subscription Manager, and the underlying concepts of a subscription server and content provider, are flexible enough to accommodate special types of consumers and different infrastructure setups.
In particular, there are three deployment scenarios that are common in IT environments:
  • Multi-tenant organizations.
    The most basic subscription/content service scenario has a consumer connecting directly to Red Hat's hosted services and receiving content and subscription updates directly from Red Hat.
    That flat model is simple, but it does not accurately describe many enterprise environments, which are divided across disparate organizational units and even subunits. It also does not account for network performance or security issues which may require a company to have subscription and content information maintained locally.
    For this scenario, Red Hat supports local subscription/content infrastructures through distributors like Subscription Asset Manager. These distributor applications can subdivide both subscription and content into organizations and subordinate environments.
  • Virtual and physical machines.
    There are separate entitlements for virtual and physical machines. Subscription Manager can detect and manage subscriptions appropriately depending on the type of machine.
  • Server domains.
    In some cases, a group of machines may act in concert to perform a certain function, like a mail domain or cluster. In those situations, subscriptions may apply to the domain as a group, as opposed to applying to any one machine.
All of these special deployment scenarios are described in more detail in the following sections.

14.3.1. Local Subscription Services, Local Content Providers, and Multi-Tenant Organizations

As Section 14.1.4, “Subscription and Content Architecture” outlines, the subscription service, content repository, and client tools and inventory all work together to define the entitlements structure for a customer. The way that these elements are organized depends on a lot of factors, like who is maintaining the individual services, how systems in the inventory are group, and how user access to the different services is controlled.
The most simplistic structure is the hosted structure. The content and subscription services are hosted by Red Hat, and all systems within the inventory are contained in one monolithic group. User access is defined only by Red Hat Customer Portal account access.
Hosted Structure
Figure 14.7. Hosted Structure

The next configuration allows a customer to have its own, local subscription and content services. This allocates a block of subscriptions to that service, the distributor, and then the distributor interacts directly with local systems.
One distributor scenario is to have the distributor function as a subscription service, while still using Red Hat's hosted content delivery network. This is common when using Subscription Asset Manager, which can define subscription allocation to local systems based on organization and environment.
Additionally, user accessss can be defined locally, within the Subscription Asset Manager configuration. Subscription Asset Manager can define independent groups, called organizations. Systems belong to those organizations, and users are granted access to those organizations. Systems and users in one organization are essentially invisible to systems and users in other organizations.
Hosted Content/Local Subscriptions Structure
Figure 14.8. Hosted Content/Local Subscriptions Structure

The last style of infrastructure is almost entirely local, with a distributor that provides locally-hosted content providers and an integrated local subscription service.
Local Subscriptions and Local Content Provider Structure
Figure 14.9. Local Subscriptions and Local Content Provider Structure

This allows the most control over how systems are grouped within the subscriptions/content service. A customer's main account can be divided into separate and independent organizations. These organizations can use different content providers, can have different subscriptions allocated to them, and can have different users assigned to them with levels of access set per organization. Access control in this scenario is controlled entirely locally. The local distributor, not the remote Red Hat Customer Portal, processes user authentication requests and applies local access control policies.
A system is assigned to one organization. It is identified with that organization.
Within an organization, there can be different environments which define access to product versions and content sets. There can be overlap between environments, with a system belonging to multiple environments.
Multi-Org
Figure 14.10. Multi-Org

When there is only one organization — such as a hosted environment (where the single organization is implicit) — then the systems all default to use that one organization. When there are multiple organizations, then the organization for a system to use must be defined for that system. This affects register operations, where the system is registered to the subscription service and then joined to the organization. It also affects other operations tangentially. It may affect subscribe operations because it affects repository availability and subscription allocations, and it affects redeem operations (activation of existing subscriptions) because subscriptions must be redeemed from the organization which issued the subscription.
For more information on configuring and managing organizations, environments, and content repositories, see the Subscription Asset Manager documentation.

14.3.2. Virtual Guests and Hosts

When the Red Hat Subscription Manager process checks the system facts, it attempts to identify whether the system is a physical machine or a virtual guest. The Subscription Manager can detect guests for several different virtualization services, including:
  • KVM
  • Xen
  • HyperV
  • VMWare ESX
Subscription Manager records a unique identifier called a guest ID as one of the system facts for a virtual guest. A special process, virt-who, checks virtual processes and then relays that information to Subscription Manager and any configured subscription service (Certificate-based Red Hat Network or a local Subscription Asset Manager). Each guest machine on a host is assigned a guest ID, and that guest ID is both associated with the host and used to generate the identity certificate for the guest when it is registered.
Some Red Hat Enterprise Linux variants are specifically planned for virtual hosts and guests. The corresponding subscriptions are divided into a certain quantity of physical hosts and then a quantity of allowed guests. Red Hat Enterprise Linux add-ons may even be inherited, so that when a host machine is subscribed to that entitlement, all of its guests are automatically included in that subscription. (Red Hat layered products usually do not draw any distinction between virtual and physical systems; the same type of subscription is used for both.) If the system is a guest, then virtual entitlements are listed with the available subscriptions. If no more virtual entitlements are available, then the subscription service will apply physical entitlements.
Virtual and physical subscriptions are identified in the Type column.
Virtual and Physical Subscription
Figure 14.11. Virtual and Physical Subscription

Note

The distinction of being a physical machine versus virtual machine matters only in the priority of how entitlements are consumed.
Virtual guests are registered to the subscription service inventory as regular systems and subscribe to entitlements just like any other consumer.
Virtual entitlements can only be used by virtual machines. Physical entitlements can be used by both physical and virtual machines. When ascertaining what subscriptions are available for autosubscription, preference is given first to virtual entitlements (which are more restrictive in the type of consumer which can use them), and then to physical entitlements.

14.3.3. Domains

Consumers in the subscription service inventory are identified by type. Most consumers will have a type of system, meaning that each individual server subscribes to its own entitlements for its own use. There is another type of consumer, though, which is available for server groups, the domain type. domain-based entitlements are not allocated to a single system; they are distributed across the group of servers to govern the behavior of that group of servers. (That server group is called a domain.)
There are two things to keep in mind about domain entitlements:
  • Each member of the domain is still registered to the subscription service as a system consumer and added to the inventory individually.
  • The domain entitlements apply to the behavior of the entire server group, not to any one system.
The domain entitlement simply governs the behavior of the domain. A domain entitlement is not limited to a specific type of behavior. Domain entitlements can describe a variety of types of behavior, such as storage quotas or the maximum number of messages to process per day. The entire domain is bound to the subscriptions when one of the domain servers subscribes to the domain entitlements using the Red Hat Subscription Manager tools, and the entitlement certificate is replicated between the domain servers.

14.4. Registering, Unregistering, and Reregistering a System

Entitlements are managed by organizing and maintaining the systems which use entitlement subscriptions. The entitlements and subscriptions are managed by Red Hat through the subscription service. A system is recognized to the subscription service by being registered with the service. The subscription service assigns the system (called a consumer) a unique ID (essentially as an inventory number) and issues that system an identifying certificate (with the UUID in the certificate subject name) to identify that system.
Whenever a subscription is purchased by an organization, the consumer can subscribe to that subscription. This means that a portion of the subscription is allocated to that consumer ID; when the consumer contacts the content delivery network and downloads the software, the licenses have been already assigned to the system. The system has valid certificates for its subscriptions.
Systems can be registered with a subscription service during the firstboot process or as part of the kickstart setup (both described in the Installation Guide). Systems can also be registered after they have been configured or removed from the subscription service inventory (unregistered) if they will no longer be managed within that entitlement system.

14.4.1. Registering Consumers in the Hosted Environment

For infrastructures which use Red Hat's hosted subscription and content delivery network, all that is required to register the system is the username and password of the Red Hat Network account.
  1. Launch Subscription Manager. For example:
    [root@server ~]# subscription-manager-gui
  2. If the system is not already registered, then there will be a Register button at the top of the window in the Tools area.
  3. Enter the username and password of the user account on the subscription service; this is the account used to access the Customer Portal.
  4. Optionally, select the Automatically subscribe... checkbox, so that the system is subscribed to the best matched subscription when it is registered. Otherwise, the system must be subscribed manually, as in Section 14.6, “Handling Subscriptions”.

14.4.2. Registering Consumers to a Local Distributor (Organization)

Infrastructures which manage their own local content repository and subscription service are distributors.
A distributor application has a defined organization. This organization is essentially a group definition, and systems must be assigned to that group as part of the registration process. This allows there to be multiple, discrete organizations or tenants within the infrastructure.
When a system is registered using the Subscription Manager GUI, Subscription Manager automatically scans the local subscription and content service to see what organizations are configured.

Note

A system can only be registered to one organization, and that registration cannot be altered.
A system can be registered to multiple environments, if environments are configured. As with the organization assignment, environments are selected during registration and cannot be altered after registering.
  1. Update the local Subscription Manager configuration to point to the distributor server rather than Red Hat's hosted services.
    This is described in more detail in Section 14.12.1, “Configuring Subscription Manager to Work with Subscription Asset Manager”. In general, there are three settings that must be changed:
    • The subscription server's hostname
    • The content provider's hostname and port (8088)
    • The CA certificate for the subscription service
  2. Launch Subscription Manager. For example:
    [root@server ~]# subscription-manager-gui
  3. Click the Register button at the top of the window in the Tools area.
  4. Enter the username and password of the user account on the subscription service; this is the account used to access the Customer Portal.
  5. Subscription Manager scans the network for available organizations.
    When the configured organizations are detected, Subscription Manager prompts for the organization for the system to join. It is only possible to register with one organization.
  6. If the selected organization has multiple environments available, then the Subscription Manager will detect them and provide a list. It is possible to join multiple environments. Use the Ctrl key to select multiple environments from the list.
    If no environment is selected, then Subscription Manager uses the default environment for the organization.

    Note

    It is only possible to join an environment during registration. The environments cannot be changed after registration.
  7. Optionally, select the Automatically subscribe... checkbox, so that the system is subscribed to the best matched subscription when it is registered. Otherwise, the system must be subscribed manually, as in Section 14.6, “Handling Subscriptions”.

14.4.3. Registering an Offline Consumer

Some systems may not have Internet connectivity, but administrators still want to assign and track the subscriptions for that system. This can be done by manually registering the system, rather than depending on Subscription Manager to perform the registration. This has two major steps, first to create an entry on the subscriptions service and then to configure the system.
  1. Open the Subscriptions tab in the Customer Portal, and select the Overview item under the Certificate-based Management area.
  2. In the Utilization area, click the Register a consumer link to create the new inventory entry.
  3. Fill in the required information for the new consumer type. A system requires information about the architecture and hardware in order to ascertain what subscriptions are available to that system.
  4. Once the system is created, assign the appropriate subscriptions to that system.
    1. Open the Available Subscriptions tab.
    2. Click the checkboxes by all of the subscriptions to assign, and then click the Add button.
  5. Once the subscriptions are added, open the Applied Subscriptions tab.
  6. Click the Download All Certificates button. This exports all of the entitlements certificates, for each product, to a single .zip file. Save the file to some kind of portable media, like a flash drive.
  7. Optionally, click the Download Identity Certificate button. This saves the identity certificate for the registered consumer and could be used by the consumer to connect to the subscription service. If the consumer will permanently be offline, then this is not necessary, but if the consumer could ever be brought onto the network, then this is useful.
  8. Copy the entitlements certificates from the media device over to the consumer.
  9. If all entitlement certificates were downloaded in an archive file, then there are multiple archives in the downloaded certificates.zip file. Unzip the directories until the PEM files for the entitlement certificates are available.
  10. Import the entitlement certificates. This can be done using the Import Certificates button in the Subscription Manager GUI or using the import command. For example:
    # subscription-manager import --certificate=/tmp/export/entitlement_certificates/596576341785244687.pem --certificate=/tmp/export/entitlement_certificates/3195996649750311162.pem
    Successfully imported certificate 596576341785244687.pem
    Successfully imported certificate 3195996649750311162.pem
  11. If you downloaded an identity certificate, copy the cert.pem file directly into the /etc/pki/consumer directory. For example:
    cp /tmp/downloads/cert.pem /etc/pki/consumer

14.4.4. Registering from the Command Line

The simplest way to register a machine is to pass the register command with the user account information required to authenticate to the Certificate-based Red Hat Network (the credentials used to access subscription service or the Customer Portal). When the system is successfully authenticated, it echoes back the newly-assigned consumer ID and the user account name which registered it.
The register options are listed in Table 14.2, “register Options”.
Example 14.1. Registering a New Consumer
[root@server1 ~]# subscription-manager register --username admin-example --password secret

The system has been registered with id: 7d133d55-876f-4f47-83eb-0ee931cb0a97

In a multi-org environment, it is required that you specify which organization (essentially an independent group or unit within the main account) to join the system to. This is done by using the --org option in addition to the username and password. The given user must also have the access permissions to add systems to that organization. (See Section 14.12, “Working with Subscription Asset Manager” for information about organizations and Subscription Asset Manager.)
Example 14.2. Registering a New Consumer with an Organization
If there is more than one organization, then the system must be assigned to one specific organization:
[root@server1 ~]# subscription-manager register --username admin-example --password secret --org="IT Department"

The system has been registered with id: 7d133d55-876f-4f47-83eb-0ee931cb0a97
Organizations can be subdivided into environments, which define access to content based on repositories, product versions, and content sets. While a consumer can only belong to a single organization, it can be assigned to multiple environments within that organization. If no environment is given, the subscription service uses the default environment. See Section 14.12, “Working with Subscription Asset Manager” for information about organizations and Subscription Asset Manager.
A system can only be added to an environment during registration.
[root@server1 ~]# subscription-manager register --username admin-example --password secret --org="IT Department" --environment=Dev1,ITall

Note

If the system is in a multi-org environment and no organization is given, the register command returns a Remote Server error.
The register command has an option, --autosubscribe, which allows the system to be registered to the subscription service and immediately subscribed to the subscription which best matches its architecture in a single step.
Example 14.3. Automatically Subscribing While Registering
[root@server1 ~]# subscription-manager register --username admin-example --password secret --autosubscribe

Example 14.4. Applying Subscriptions During Registration
When using the command-line tools to register the system, the --activationkey option can pass the activation key to apply existing, already-assigned certificates along with the other registration information. The activation keys for multiple subscriptions are set in a comma-separated list.
With an activation key, it is not necessary to give a username and password because the authentication is implicit in the activation key.
In hosted or single organization environments, it is not necessary to specify an organization with the --org option, but in multi-org environments, the --org option is required. The organization is not defined as part of the activation key. See Section 14.12, “Working with Subscription Asset Manager” for information about activation keys and Subscription Asset Manager.
For example:
# subscription-manager register --activationkey=1234abcd --org="IT Dept"

Table 14.2. register Options
Options Description Required
--username=name Gives the content server user account name. Required
--password=password Gives the password for the user account. Required
--org=name Gives the organization to which to join the system. Required, except for hosted environments
--environment=name Registers the consumer to an environment within an organization. Optional
--name=machine_name Sets the name of the consumer (machine) to register. This defaults to be the same as the hostname. Optional
--autosubscribe Automatically subscribes this system to the best-matched compatible subscription. This is good for automated setup operations, since the system can be configured in a single step. Optional
--activationkey=key Applies existing subscriptions as part of the registration process. The subscriptions are pre-assigned by a vendor or by a systems administrator using Subscription Asset Manager. Optional
--force Registers the system even if it is already registered. Normally, any register operations will fail if the machine is already registered. Optional

14.4.5. Unregistering

The only thing required to unregister a machine is to run the unregister command. This removes the system's entry from the subscription service, unsubscribes it from any subscriptions, and, locally, deletes its identity and entitlement certificates.
In the Red Hat Subscription Manager GUI, there is an Unregister button at the top of the window in the Tools area.
From the command line, this requires only the unregister command.
Example 14.5. Unregistering a Consumer
[root@server1 ~]# subscription-manager unregister

14.4.6. Restoring a Registration

There are times when the local registration and subscription information could be lost or corrupted. There could be a hardware failure or system crash. Or other IT considerations may require that a system be moved to a different machine. Whatever the reason, the local subscription configuration is lost.
A system can be registered against an existing system entry in the Red Hat subscription service, which essentially restores or reregisters that consumer. The reregister operation uses the original consumer ID with the registration request, so that all of the previous subscriptions associated with the consumer entry are restored along with the registration.
Reregistering a system uses the register command. This command passes the original UUID for a system to issue a request to the subscription service to receive a new certificate using the same UUID. This essentially renews its previous registration.
Example 14.6. Registering a System Against an Existing Identity Certificate
The register command uses the original ID to identify itself to the subscription service and restore its previous subscriptions.
[root@server1 ~]# subscription-manager register --username admin-example --password secret --consumerid=7d133d55-876f-4f47-83eb-0ee931cb0a97

Table 14.3. register Options to Reregister the System
Options Description Required
--consumerid Gives the consumer UUID used by an existing consumer. The system's consumer entry must exist in the Red Hat subscription service for the reregister operation to succeed. Required
--username=name Gives the content server user account name. Optional
--password=password Gives the password for the user account. Optional

14.5. Migrating Systems from RHN Classic to Certificate-based Red Hat Network

As described in Section 14.1.6, “Certificate-based Red Hat Network versus RHN Classic” and https://access.redhat.com/kb/docs/DOC-45987, there are differences in how RHN Classic and Certificate-based Red Hat Network define and manage subscriptions.
As part of migration, the RHN Classic channels are mapped to Certificate-based Red Hat Network X.509 product certificates for every installed product. Subscription Manager can use those certificates to subscribe or autosubscribe the system to the appropriate subscriptions once it is registered.
Migration tools are available to transition system registration from RHN Classic to Certificate-based Red Hat Network and then re-apply its previous subscriptions. Product certificates in general are described in Section 14.15.3, “The Structure of Product Certificates”.
There are two migration paths supported:
  • From being registered with RHN Classic Hosted to being registered with Certificate-based Red Hat Network, using rhn-migrate-classic-to-rhsm
  • From a disconnected (offline) system using RHN Classic-style channels to using Certificate-based Red Hat Network X.509 certificates for installed products, using install-num-migrate-to-rhsm

Important

There is no migration path from a Satellite system to Certificate-based Red Hat Network.

14.5.1. Installing the Migration Tools

The migration tools are contained in the subscription-manager-migration package. An additional package, subscription-manager-migration-data, is required to map the RHN Classic channels to Certificate-based Red Hat Network product certificates.
  1. The migration tools and data are in supplementary channels. If necessary, enable the supplementary repositories, as described in Section 14.9, “Working with Subscription yum Repos”.
  2. Install the migration tool packages.
    [root@server ~]# yum install subscription-manager-migration subscription-manager-migration-data

14.5.2. Migrating from RHN Classic to Certificate-based Red Hat Network

A system which was registered against the hosted subscription service, RHN Classic, can be migrated to Certificate-based Red Hat Network using the rhn-migrate-classic-to-rhsm script.
The general action is that it unregisters the system from RHN Classic, registers it with Certificate-based Red Hat Network, and opens Subscription Manager (either GUI or CLI) to assign subscriptions.
The rhn-migrate-classic-to-rhsm script has this syntax:
rhn-migrate-classic-to-rhsm [--force|--cli-only|--help|--no-auto]
After running migration, the system facts list what script was used for migration and what the previous system ID was.
[root@server ~]# subscription-manager facts --list | grep migr
migration.classic_system_id: 09876
migration.migrated_from: rhn_hosted_classic
This makes it easy to track the migration process for systems within the infrastructure.
Example 14.7. Basic RHN Classic to Certificate-based Red Hat Network Migration
Simply running the rhn-migrate-classic-to-rhsm tool migrates the system profile and then opens the Subscription Manager GUI so that administrators can assign subscriptions to the system.
While administrators only have to run the command, the script itself runs through a series of steps to migrate the account.
[root@server ~]# rhn-migrate-classic-to-rhsm
RHN Username: jsmith@example.com
Password:
The script prompts for the username and password to use to connect to Red Hat Network. It uses these credentials to authenticate to both Red Hat Network Classic and Certificatebased Red Hat Network, to verify the account settings.
Once the account is verified, the script creates a channel list for the system.
Retrieving existing RHN classic subscription information ...
+----------------------------------+
System is currently subscribed to:
+----------------------------------+
rhel-i386-client-5
Each discovered channel is then mapped to a corresponding product certificate (Section 14.5.5, “Looking at Channel and Certificate Mappings”). Not every product has a product certificate, so not every channel may have a map. Only the products with a channel have a corresponding certificate map.
The matching certificates are copied into the /etc/pki/product directory.
List of channels for which certs are being copied
rhel-i386-client-5

Product Certificates copied successfully to /etc/pki/product !!
Then, the script unregisters the system from RHN Classic.
Preparing to unregister system from RHN classic ...
System successfully unregistered from RHN Classic.
Then, it registers the system with Certificate-based Red Hat Network.
Attempting to register system to Certificate-based RHN ...
The system has been registered with id: abcd1234
System server.example.com successfully registered to Certificate-based RHN.

Launching the GUI tool to manually subscribe the system ...
The last step opens the Subscription Manager GUI to the All Available Subscriptions tab so that the administrator can manually assign the subscriptions to the system.

Alternatively, the rhn-migrate-classic-to-rhsm can automatically subscribe the system to matching subscriptions.
Example 14.8. All CLI-Based Migration
The --cli-only option tells the rhn-migrate-classic-to-rhsm to register the system with the autosubscribe option, so all of the migration process occurs in the command line.
The overall process is identical to the one in Example 14.7, “Basic RHN Classic to Certificate-based Red Hat Network Migration” until the final step.
[root@server ~]# rhn-migrate-classic-to-rhsm --cli-only
RHN Username: jsmith@example.com
Password:

....

Attempting to auto-subscribe to appropriate subscriptions ...
Installed Product Current Status:
ProductName:            Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop
Status:                 Subscribed

Please visit https://access.redhat.com/management/consumers/abcd1234 to view the details, and to make changes if necessary.

14.5.3. Unregistering from RHN Classic Only

There may be an instance where a system should be unregistered from RHN Classic but is not yet ready to be registered to Certificate-based Red Hat Network. The rhn-migrate-classic-to-rhsm tool can be used simply to unregister a system from RHN Classic. This still copies over the product certificates for the classic channels to configure the system in the style of certificate-based subscriptions, but it does not register the machine with the subscription service.
To unregister the system only, use the --no-auto option.
[root@server ~]# rhn-migrate-classic-to-rhsm --no-auto
RHN Username: jsmith@example.com
Password:

Retrieving existing RHN classic subscription information ...
+----------------------------------+
System is currently subscribed to:
+----------------------------------+
rhel-i386-client-5

List of channels for which certs are being copied
rhel-i386-client-5

Product Certificates copied successfully to /etc/pki/product !!

Preparing to unregister system from RHN classic ...
System successfully unregistered from RHN Classic.
Because there are product certificates, Subscription Manager will show a red, invalid status for the system and issue notifications until the system is registered and subscriptions applied.

14.5.4. Migrating a Disconnected System

Some systems may never be connected to an external network or may be prevented from accessing Red Hat Network or a Satellite system. These systems still require valid subscriptions and product certificates, though.
The rhn-migrate-classic-to-rhsm script uses the information in /etc/sysconfig/rhn/systemid to get the previous registration information and map channels to certificates. If a system is disconnected, it may not have a systemid file.
Most systems, even ones never registered with RHN Classic, do have an installation number. When Red Hat software is purchased through a vendor, the purchased software is identified in an installation number or subscription number (described in https://access.redhat.com/kb/docs/DOC-15408) in the /etc/sysconfig/rhn/install-num file.
The installation number is in essence a code which contains all of the information about the products and versions purchased for the system. For example, this installation number shows that it is valid for RHEL Client and RHEL Workstation channels.
[root@server ~]# python /usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/instnum.py da3122afdb7edd23
Product: RHEL Client
Type: Installer Only
Options: Eval FullProd Workstation
Allowed CPU Sockets: Unlimited
Allowed Virtual Instances: Unlimited
Package Repositories: Client Workstation

key: 14299426 "da3122"
checksum: 175 "af"
options: 4416 "Eval FullProd Workstation"
socklimit: -1 "Unlimited"
virtlimit: -1 "Unlimited"
type: 2 "Installer Only"
product: 1 "client"

{"Workstation": "Workstation", "Base": "Client"}
For a system which is not connected to either RHN Classic or a Satellite system, the installation number can be used to transition the product information from the older channel-based subscription model to the X.509 certificate model, managed by Subscription Manager.
The install-num-migrate-to-rhsm script identifies the channels that a disconnected system is subscribed to and then copies in the appropriate product certificates. Simply run the command:
[root@server ~]# install-num-migrate-to-rhsm
The script copies in the product certificates for the channels into the /etc/pki/product directory.
Once the system is migrated, it can be registered remotely and have entitlement certificates installed as described in Section 14.4.3, “Registering an Offline Consumer”.
Even though the system is not registered, the system facts display what script was used for migration.
[root@server ~]# subscription-manager facts --list | grep migr
migration.migrated_from: install_number
Because the system was not previously registered with RHN Classic, the migration facts do not include a system ID number.

14.5.5. Looking at Channel and Certificate Mappings

The subscription-manager-migration-data package contains a mapping file that maps RHN Classic channels to Certificate-based Red Hat Network product certificates. This file (/usr/share/rhsm/product/RHEL-5/channel-cert-mapping.txt) uses simple keys to map the values:
channel_name: product_name-hash-product_cert.pem
For example, this maps the Red Hat Enterprise Linux Client channel to the corresponding product certificate:
rhel-i386-client-workstation-5: Client-Workstation-i386-b0d4c042-6e31-45a9-bd94-ff0b82e43b1a-71.pem
During migration, that mapping is translated into product_cert.pem and the product certificate is copied into the /etc/pki/product directory. For the rhel-i386-client-workstation-5, this migrates to the 71.pem product certificate (the last two digits of the mapping).
However, many channels are available for legacy systems only or have not yet released an X.509 product certificate. In that case, the channel has no mapping.
jbappplatform-4.3.0-fp-i386-server-5-rpm: none
This can create a situation where not all channels are migrated over to Certificate-based Red Hat Network or where products are not fully subscribed.

14.6. Handling Subscriptions

Assigning a subscription to a system gives the system the ability to install and update any Red Hat product in that subscription. A subscription is a list of all of the products, in all variations, that were purchased at one time, and it defines both the products and the number of times that subscription can be used (the quantity of that product). The quantity is roughly the number of user licenses available. When one of those licenses is allocated to a system, that system is subscribed to the subscription.
A subscription is available to a system based on the system's architecture and other installed products. Subscriptions that are available for a platform (based on its hardware and operating system) are compatible. When the subscription is actually assigned to the machine, the subscription is consumed.
A system can be subscribed to multiple subscriptions, a single subscription, or a single product. Subscribing a system requires the ID number of the subscription or the subscription key for the product.
Unsubscribing a machine removes the entitlement to any of the products in the subscription, but the machine remains registered with the subscription service. Unsubscribing one system frees the subscription so that it can be allocated to another system.

14.6.1. Subscribing and Unsubscribing through the GUI

14.6.1.1. Subscribing to a Product

  1. Launch Subscription Manager. For example:
    [root@server ~]# subscription-manager-gui
  2. Open the All Available Subscriptions tab.
  3. Set the filters to use to search for available entitlements and click Update. Subscriptions can be filtered by their active date and by their name. The checkboxes provide more fine-grained filtering:
    • match my system shows only subscriptions which match the system architecture.
    • match my installed products shows subscriptions which work with currently installed products on the system.
    • have no overlap with existing subscriptions excludes subscriptions with duplicate products. If a system is already subscribed to an entitlement for a specific product or if multiple entitlements supply the same product, then the subscription service filters those subscriptions and shows only the best fit.
  4. Select one of the available entitlements.
  5. Click the Subscribe button.

14.6.1.2. Unsubscribing through the GUI

  1. Launch Subscription Manager. For example:
    [root@server ~]# subscription-manager-gui
  2. Open the My Subscriptions tab.
    All of the active subscriptions to which the system is currently subscribed are listed. (The products available through the subscription may or may not be installed.)
  3. Select the entitlement to unsubscribe.
  4. Click the Unsubscribe button in the bottom right of the window.

14.6.2. Handling Subscriptions through the Command Line

14.6.2.1. Subscribing from the Command Line

Subscribing a machine through the command line requires specifying the individual product or subscription to subscribe to, using the --pool option.
[root@server1 ~]# subscription-manager subscribe --pool=XYZ01234567
The options for the subscribe command are listed in Table 14.4, “subscribe Options”.
The ID of the subscription pool for the purchased product must be specified, and this pool ID is listed with the product subscription information, from running the list command:
[root@server1 ~]# subscription-manager list --available

+-------------------------------------------+
    Available Subscriptions
+-------------------------------------------+


ProductName:            RHEL for Physical Servers
ProductId:              MKT-rhel-server
PoolId:                 ff8080812bc382e3012bc3845ca000cb
Quantity:               10
Expires:                2011-09-20
Alternatively, the system can be subscribed to the best-fitting subscriptions, as identified by the subscription service, by using the --auto option (which is analogous to the --autosubscribe option with the register command).
[root@server1 ~]# subscription-manager subscribe --auto
Table 14.4. subscribe Options
Options Description Required
--pool=pool-id Gives the ID for the subscription to subscribe the machine to. Required, unless --auto is used
--auto Automatically subscribes the system to the best-match subscription or subscriptions. Optional
--quantity=number Subscribes multiple counts of an entitlement to the system. This is used to cover subscriptions that define a count limit, like using two 2-socket server subscriptions to cover a 4-socket machine. Optional

14.6.2.2. Unsubscribing from the Command Line

A system can be subscribed to multiple subscriptions and products. Similarly, the system can be unsubscribed from a single subscription or product or from every subscribed product.
Running the unsubscribe command with the --all option unsubscribes the system from every product and subscription pool it is currently subscribed to.
[root@server1 ~]# subscription-manager unsubscribe --all
It is also possible to unsubscribe from a single product. Each product has an identifying X.509 certificate installed with it. The product to unsubscribe is identified in the unsubscribe command by referencing the ID number of that X.509 certificate.
  1. Get the serial number for the product certificate, if you are unsubscribing from a single product. The serial number can be obtained from the entitlement#.pem file (for example, 392729555585697907.pem) or by using the list command. For example:
    [root@server1 ~]# subscription-manager list --consumed
    
    +-------------------------------------------+
        Consumed Product Subscriptions
    +-------------------------------------------+
    
    
    ProductName:         High availability (cluster suite)
    ContractNumber:      0
    SerialNumber:        11287514358600162
    Active:              True
    Begins:              2010-09-18
    Expires:             2011-11-18
  2. Run the subscription-manager tool with the --serial option to specify the certificate.
    [root@server1 ~]# subscription-manager unsubscribe --serial=11287514358600162

14.6.3. Stacking Subscriptions

Some subscriptions define a count which works as a restriction on the subscription. For example, counts can be set on the number of sockets or CPUs on a machine, the number of virtual guests on a host, or the number of clients in a domain.
The entire count must be covered for the system to be fully entitled. If there are four sockets on a machine, then the server subscriptions must cover four sockets, or if there are eight guests, then there must be enough to cover all eight guests.
Many subscriptions can be combined together to cover the count on the system. Two subscriptions for RHEL Server for 2-Sockets can be combined together to cover a four-socket machine. These subscriptions can be stacked.
There are some rules on what subscriptions can be stacked:
  • Subscriptions can be stacked by using multiple quantities from the same subscription set.
  • Subscriptions from different contracts can be stacked together.
  • Only the same product subscription can be stacked. RHEL Server for 2-Sockets can be stacked with another RHEL Server for 2-Sockets subscription, but not with RHEL Server for Virtualization, even if they both cover the socket count.
Stackable entitlements are indicated in the Subscription Manager UI with an asterisk (*). In the UI, available subscriptions are grouped first by what subscriptions are compatible for stacking, and then by other available subscriptions.
To stack subscriptions in the Subscription Manager UI, simply set the Quantity field to the required quantity to cover the count.
Stacking Quantities
Figure 14.12. Stacking Quantities

To stack subscriptions from the command line, use the --quantity option. The quantity taken applies to the product in the --pool option:
[root@server1 ~]# subscription-manager subscribe --pool=XYZ01234567 --quantity=2

14.6.4. Manually Adding a New Subscription

In certain situations, new product subscriptions can be added by uploading the X.509 entitlements certificate directly rather than polling the subscription service. For example, consumers which are offline must have subscriptions manually added because they cannot connect to the subscription service directly.
  1. Retrieve the certificate information for the consumer from the Customer Portal.
    1. Open the Subscriptions tab in the Customer Portal, and select the Overview item under the Certificate-based Management area.
    2. In the summary of consumers, click the name of the offline consumer.
    3. If necessary, assign the subscriptions to the consumer.
    4. Open the Applied Subscriptions tab.
    5. Click the Download All Certificates button. This exports all of the entitlements certificates, for each product, to a single .zip file. Save the file to some kind of portable media device, like a flash drive.
      To download individual entitlement certificates, click the Download link on the row for the subscription.
  2. Copy the certificates over to the consumer machine.
  3. If all certificates were downloaded in an archive file, then there are multiple archives in the downloaded certificates.zip file. Unzip the directories until the PEM files for the subscription certificates are available.
  4. Import the certificates.
    This can be done from the command line using the import command:
    # subscription-manager import --certificate=/tmp/export/entitlement_certificates/596576341785244687.pem --certificate=/tmp/export/entitlement_certificates/3195996649750311162.pem
    Successfully imported certificate 596576341785244687.pem
    Successfully imported certificate 3195996649750311162.pem
    This can also be performed through the Subscription Manager GUI:
    1. Launch Subscription Manager. For example:
      [root@server ~]# subscription-manager-gui
    2. In the Tools area, click the Import Certificate button.
    3. Click the file folder icon at the right of the field to navigate to the .pem file of the product certificate.
    4. Click the Import Certificate button.
The consumer is then entitled for all of the subscription that were uploaded.

14.7. Redeeming Subscriptions on a Machine

Systems can be set up with pre-existing subscriptions already available to that system. For some systems which were purchased through third-party vendors, a subscription to Red Hat products is included with the purchase of the machine. Companies using the Subscription Asset Manager can allocate subscriptions to their own systems by creating activation keys which are used to claim those assigned subscriptions.
Red Hat Subscription Manager pulls information about the system hardware and the BIOS into the system facts to recognize the hardware vendor. If the vendor and BIOS information matches a certain configuration, then the subscription can be redeemed, which will allow the system to be automatically subscribed to the entitlements purchased with the machine.
This diverges from the normal subscription process by adding an extra step:
  1. The machine is registered first (Section 14.4, “Registering, Unregistering, and Reregistering a System”). This can be done as normal or the activation keys can be submitted with command-line registrations.
  2. The subscriptions are redeemed using the given activation keys.
  3. The system is then subscribed to its subscriptions (Section 14.6, “Handling Subscriptions”).

Note

Activation keys may be generated by a hardware vendor (external to your organization). Activation keys may also be generated using the Subscription Asset Manager, which is a local subscription service, described in the Subscription Asset Manager documentation and Section 14.12, “Working with Subscription Asset Manager”.

14.7.1. Redeeming Subscriptions through the GUI

Note

If the machine does not have any subscriptions to be redeemed, then the Redeem a Subscription button is not there.
  1. Launch Subscription Manager. For example:
    [root@server ~]# subscription-manager-gui
  2. At the top of the main window, click the Redeem a Subscription button.
  3. In the dialog window, enter the email address to send the notification to when the redemption is complete.
  4. Click the Redeem button.
It can take up to ten minutes for the confirmation email to arrive.

14.7.2. Redeeming Subscriptions on a Machine through the Command Line

The machine subscriptions are redeemed by running the redeem command, with an email address to send the redemption email to when the process is complete.
# subscription-manager redeem --email=jsmith@example.com
In a multi-organization environment, it is also necessary to specify the organization which issued the activation keys. For example:
# subscription-manager redeem --email=jsmith@example.com --org="IT Dept"

Note

The machine must be registered first so that the subscription service can properly identify the system and its subscriptions.

14.8. Viewing Available and Used Subscriptions

To manage subscriptions, administrators need to know both what subscriptions a system is currently consuming and what subscriptions are available to the system.

14.8.1. Viewing Subscriptions in the GUI

The Red Hat Subscription Manager tools give a more detailed view of subscriptions and entitlements than is available through the global tools of the Customer Portal. Three tabs summarize each of the subscriptions and products for the specific machine: installed products (with subscriptions), subscribed entitlements, and available subscriptions.
These summaries are always displayed in the Red Hat Subscription Manager UI.
Subscribed Entitlements
The My Subscriptions tab shows all of the current entitlements that the system is subscribed to.
My Subscriptions Tab
Figure 14.13. My Subscriptions Tab

Available Subscriptions
The All Available Subscriptions tab shows all of the subscriptions that are available to the system. The default displays only entitlements that are compatible with the hardware, but these can be filtered to show entitlements corresponding to other installed programs, only subscriptions that have not been installed, and subscriptions based on date.
All Available Subscriptions Tab
Figure 14.14. All Available Subscriptions Tab

The filters dynamically search for available entitlements. Subscriptions can be filtered by their active date and by their name. The checkboxes provide more fine-grained filtering:
  • match my system shows only subscriptions which match the system architecture.
  • match my installed products shows subscriptions which work with currently installed products on the system.
  • have no overlap with existing subscriptions excludes subscriptions with duplicate products. If a system is already subscribed to an entitlement for a specific product or if multiple entitlements supply the same product, then the subscription service filters those subscriptions and shows only the best fit.
My Installed Software
The My Installed Software tab shows the currently installed products on the system, along with their subscription status. This does not allow administrators to install software, only to view installed software.
My Installed Software Tab
Figure 14.15. My Installed Software Tab

14.8.2. Listing Subscriptions with the Command Line

As with the three tabs in the UI, there are several different ways to use the list command to display different areas of the subscriptions and products on the system.
Table 14.5. subscription-manager list Options
Option Description
--installed (or nothing) Lists all of the installed and subscribed product on the system. If no option is given with list, it is the same as using the --installed argument.
--consumed Lists all of the subscriptions allocated to the system.
--available [--all] Using --available alone lists all of the compatible, active subscriptions for the system. Using --available --all lists all options, even ones not compatible with the system or with no more available quantities.
--ondate=YYYY-MM-DD Shows subscriptions which are active and available on the specified date. This is only used with the --available option. If this is not used, then the command uses the current date.
--installed Lists all of the products that are installed on the system (and whether they have a subscription) and it lists all of the product subscriptions which are assigned to the system (and whether those products are installed).

The list command shows all of the subscriptions that are currently allocated to the system by using the --consumed option.
[root@server1 ~]# subscription-manager list --consumed

+-------------------------------------------+
    Consumed Product Subscriptions
+-------------------------------------------+


ProductName:        	Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server
ContractNumber:     	1458961
SerialNumber:       	171286550006020205
Active:             	True
Begins:             	2009-01-01
Expires:            	2011-12-31
The list command shows all of the subscriptions that are compatible with and available to the system using the --available option. To include every subscription the organization has — both the ones that are compatible with the system and for other platforms — use the --all option with the --available. The --ondate option shows only subscriptions which are active on that date, based on their activation and expiry dates.
[root@server1 ~]# subscription-manager list --available --all

+-------------------------------------------+
    Available Subscriptions
+-------------------------------------------+


ProductName:            RHEL for Physical Servers
ProductId:              MKT-rhel-server
PoolId:                 ff8080812bc382e3012bc3845ca000cb
Quantity:               10
Expires:                2011-09-20


ProductName:            RHEL Workstation
ProductId:              MKT-rhel-workstation-mkt
PoolId:                 5e09a31f95885cc4
Quantity:               10
Expires:                2011-09-20

[snip]
The --installed option correlates the products that are actually installed on the system (and their subscription status) and the products which could be installed on the system based on the assigned subscriptions (and whether those products are installed).
[root@server1 ~]# subscription-manager list --installed

+-------------------------------------------+
    Installed Product Status
+-------------------------------------------+
ProductName:         Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Status:              Not Subscribed
Expires:
Subscription:
ContractNumber:
AccountNumber:


ProductName:         Awesome OS Server
Status:              Not Installed
Expires:             2012-02-20
Subscription:        54129829316535230
ContractNumber:      39
AccountNumber:       12331131231

14.8.3. Viewing Subscriptions Used in Both RHN Classic and Certificate-based Red Hat Network

Administrators need to have a sense of all of the subscriptions allocated for their organization, altogether, regardless of whether the system is managed in RHN Classic or Certificate-based Red Hat Network. The Customer Portal provides a way of looking at the total consumed subscriptions.
In the Subscriptions Overview page, the Subscription Utilization area at the top gives the current count for every active subscription for the entire organization, and a total count of every used subscription, regardless of whether it is used in RHN Classic or Certificate-based Red Hat Network. These numbers are updated whenever the subscription count changes in the subscription server. (The subsequent Certificate-based Red Hat Network and RHN Classic sections gives usage subcounts based on system which are registered to that specific subscription service.)
Total Counts of Subscriptions for All Subscription Services
Figure 14.16. Total Counts of Subscriptions for All Subscription Services

Note

RHN Classic is provided for legacy systems. Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.7 and 6.1 and later systems should use Certificate-based Red Hat Network to manage subscriptions for systems.

14.9. Working with Subscription yum Repos

As Section 14.1.4, “Subscription and Content Architecture” describes, Red Hat Subscription Manager works with yum. Subscription Manager has its own yum plug-ins: product-id for subscription-related information for products and subscription-manager which is used for the content repositories.
As systems are subscribed to products, the associated content repositories (identified in the entitlement certificate) are made available to the system. The content repositories are based on the product and on the content delivery network, defined in the baseurl parameter of the rhsm.conf file.
A subscription may include access to optional content channels along with the default channels. These optional channels must be enabled before the packages in them can be installed (even if the system is fully entitled to the products in those channels).
  1. List all available repos for the system, including disabled repos.
    [root@server ~]# yum repolist all
    repo id                      repo name                           status
    rhel-5-server                Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5Server -  enabled:    1,749
    rhel-5-server-beta           Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5Server Be enabled:      869
    rhel-5-server-optional-rpms  Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5Server Op disabled
    rhel-5-server-supplementary  Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5Server Su disabled
    The optional and supplementary channels are named rhel-5-server-optional-rpms and rhel-5-server-supplementary, respectively.
  2. The repositories can be enabled using the yum-config-manager command:
    [root@server ~]# yum-config-manager --enable rhel-5-server-optional-rpms
Alternatively, simply specify the optional or supplementary repository when installing a package with yum. This uses the --enablerepo repo_name option. For example:
# yum install rubygems --enablerepo=rhel-5-server-optional-rpms
Loaded plugins: product-id, refresh-packagekit, subscription-manager
Updating Red Hat repositories.
....

14.10. Responding to Subscription Notifications

The Red Hat Subscription Manager provides a series of log and UI messages that indicate any changes to the valid certificates of any installed products for a system. In the Subscription Manager GUI, the status of the system entitlements is color-coded, where green means all products are fully subscribed, yellow means that some products may not be subscribed but updates are still in effect, and red means that updates are disabled.
Color-Coded Status Views
Figure 14.17. Color-Coded Status Views

The command-line tools also indicate that status of the machine. The green, yellow, and red codes translate to text status messages of subscribed, partially subscribed, and expired/not subscribed, respectively.
[root@server ~]# subscription-manager list
+-------------------------------------------+
    Installed Product Status
+-------------------------------------------+

ProductName:            Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server
Status: Not Subscribed
Expires:
SerialNumber:
ContractNumber:
AccountNumber:
Whenever there is a warning about subscription changes, a small icon appears in the top menu bar, similar to a fuel gauge.
Subscription Notification Icon
Figure 14.18. Subscription Notification Icon

As any installed product nears the expiration date of the subscription, the Subscription Manager daemon will issue a warning. A similar message is given when the system has products without a valid certificate, meaning either the system is not subscribed to a subscription that entitles that product or the product is installed past the expiration of the subscription. Clicking the Manage My Subscriptions... button in the subscription notification window opens the Red Hat Subscription Manager GUI to view and update subscriptions.
Subscription Warning Message
Figure 14.19. Subscription Warning Message

When the Subscription Manager UI opens, whether it was opened through a notification or just opened normally, there is an icon in the upper left corner that shows whether products lack a valid certificate. The easiest way to allocate subscriptions which match invalidated products is to click the Update Certificates button.
Update Certificates Button
Figure 14.20. Update Certificates Button

The Subscription Assistant dialog shows a targeted list of available subscriptions that apply to the specific products that do not have valid certificates (assuming subscriptions are available).
Subscription Assistant
Figure 14.21. Subscription Assistant

Alternatively, you can respond to entitlements notifications by managing subscriptions generally:

14.11. Changing the Healing Check Frequency

Subscription Manager can monitor all of the active entitlements for a system. Along with passively warning that a subscription is close to expiration (Section 14.10, “Responding to Subscription Notifications”), Subscription Manager can be configured to re-subscribe to subscriptions, automatically and actively, as one nears its expiry. This is system healing.
System healing prevents a system from having unentitled products as long as any valid subscription is available for it.
System healing is configured as part of the Subscription Manager daemon, rhsmcertd. This daemon checks the certificate validity dates daily. If a subscription is within 24 hours of expiring, then Subscription Manager will check for any available compatible subscriptions and automatically re-subscribes the system, much like auto-subscribing during registration.

Note

Healing cannot be disabled by changing the time interval. Setting the healFrequency parameter to zero means that Subscription Manager simply uses the default time setting.
  1. Open the Subscription Manager configuration file:
    # vim /etc/rhsm/rhsm.conf
  2. In the [rhsmcertd] section, set the healFrequency parameter to the time, in minutes, to check for changed subscriptions.
    [rhsmcertd]
    certFrequency = 240
    healFrequency = 1440
  3. Restart the rhsmcertd daemon to reload the configuration.
    # service rhsmcertd start

14.12. Working with Subscription Asset Manager

Subscription Asset Manager works with the local Subscription Manager tools, but the local Subscription Manager must be configured to work with the given Subscription Asset Manager service.
This section covers the procedures for setting up Subscription Manager to work with Subscription Asset Manager.
The Subscription Asset Manager documentation details all the tasks for managing the infrastructure:
  • Creating organizations and environments.
  • Creating activation keys.
  • Managing subscription manifests from Red Hat.
  • Viewing notification and system reports.

14.12.1. Configuring Subscription Manager to Work with Subscription Asset Manager

Subscription Asset Manager performs two backend management functions:
  • Allocate subscriptions as a subscription service
  • Work as a real-time proxy for the content delivery network
That means that the local Subscription Manager client needs to be configured to use Subscription Asset Manager as its subscription service and content provider, rather than using the default Red Hat Network (hosted) configuration.
  1. Obtain a copy of the CA certificate for the Subscription Asset Manager server and install it in the Subscription Manager certificate directory.
    [root@server ~]# cd /etc/rhsm/ca
    [root@server ca]# scp  sam.example.com:/etc/candlepin/certs/candlepin-ca.crt .
    [root@server ca]# mv candlepin-ca.crt sam-local.pem
  2. Update the settings in the rhsm.conf file. Several parameters need to be reset:
    • The configuration needs to point to the Subscription Asset Manager host for the subscription service host.
      hostname = sam.example.com
    • The prefix value, which sets the directory location for the subscription service, needs to be set to /sam/api.
      prefix= /sam/api
    • The content service hostname needs to be set to the Subscription Manager host, with the port set to 8088:
      baseurl= https://sam.example.com:8088
    • The CA certificate used for SSL connections needs to be set to the Subscription Asset Manager CA certificate, not Red Hat Network's global CA certificate.
      repo_ca_cert = %(ca_cert_dir)ssam_certificate.pem
    This can be done by editing the rhsm.conf file directly or by using the config command. For example:
    [root@server1 ~]# subscription-manager config --server.hostname=sam.example.com --server.prefix=/sam/api --rhsm.baseurl=https://sam.example.com:8088 --rhsm.repo_ca_cert=%(ca_cert_dir)ssam_certificate.pem
Changing the Subscription Manager configuration with the config command is covered in Section 14.14.2, “Using the config Command”.

14.12.2. Viewing Organization Information

Infrastructures that have their own local content and subscription services, such as Subscription Asset Manager, can define groups that organize their systems. The primary division is organizations, which create independent units. The systems and users in one organization are invisible to the systems and users in another organization. Organizations can be subdivided into environments, which provide associations with content repositories and allowed products, versions, and content sets. A system can belong to multiple environments.
Organizations, environments, and repositories are created and configured in the distributor application, such as Subscription Asset Manager. However, the organization structure for a system or for a user account can be viewed using the Subscription Manager command-line tools. The orgs, environments, and repos commands list the organization, environment, and repository information for the system, depending on the organization and environments it belongs to.
The orgs lists the friendly name of the organization, such as Dev East, and then the key or ID for the organization which is used when registering consumers.
[root@server1 ~]# subscription-manager orgs --username=jsmith --password=secret
+-------------------------------------------+
           admin Organizations
+-------------------------------------------+

OrgName:         Admin Owner
OrgKey:         admin

OrgName:         Dev East
OrgKey:         deveast

OrgName:         Dev West
OrgKey:         devwest
The environments lists whatever environments are configured for the given organization which are assigned to that system. The organization may have other environments available, but they are only listed if the system belongs to them.
[root@server1 ~]# subscription-manager environments --username=jsmith --password=secret --org=admin
+-------------------------------------------+
           Environments
+-------------------------------------------+

Name:                        Locker
Description:                 None

Name:                        Dev
Description:

Name:                        Prod
Description:
Distributor applications can defined a number of different content repositories, based on environments, physical locations, and other factors. Even when using the Red Hat content delivery network, multiple repositories are available, depending on the product. The repos command lists all of the repositories that are available to the configuration environments and organization for a system, and then shows whether those repositories are enabled for the system.
[root@server1 ~]# subscription-manager repos --list
+----------------------------------------------------------+
     Entitled Repositories in /etc/yum.repos.d/redhat.repo
+----------------------------------------------------------+

RepoName:                    never-enabled-content
RepoId:                      never-enabled-content
RepoUrl:                     https://content.example.com/repos/optional
Enabled:                     0


RepoName:                    always-enabled-content
RepoId:                      always-enabled-content
RepoUrl:                     https://content.example.com/repos/dev
Enabled:                     1


RepoName:                    content
RepoId:                      content-label
RepoUrl:                     https://content.example.com/repos/prod
Enabled:                     1

14.13. Updating Entitlements Certificates

An entitlement certificate represents a subscription that has been consumed by a given system. It includes all of the products which are included in the subscription for service and support, the subscription's start and end dates, and the number of entitlements included for each product. An entitlement certificate does not list products that are currently installed on the system; rather, it lists all products that are available to the system.
The entitlement certificate is an X.509 certificate and is stored in a base 64-encoded blob in a .pem file.
When a subscription expires or is changed, then the entitlement certificate must be updated to account for the changes. The Red Hat Subscription Manager polls the subscription service periodically to check for updated entitlement certificates; this can also be updated immediately or pulled down from the Customer Portal. The entitlement certificates are updated by revoking the previous entitlement certificate and generating a new one to replace it.

14.13.1. Updating Entitlement Certificates

  1. Open the Red Hat Customer Portal.
    https://access.redhat.com/
  2. Click the Subscriptions tab to open the subscriptions menu, and select the Consumers List option under Certificate-based Management.
  3. Click the system name in the list of consumers.
  4. Open the Applied Subscriptions tab for the list of all active, assigned subscriptions for the consumer.
  5. Click the Download All Certificates button above the list of subscriptions. If there is only one subscription, then click the Download button by the certificate.
    To retrieve an individual entitlement certificate, click the Download link in the subscription row.
  6. If all entitlement certificates were downloaded in an archive file, then there are multiple archives in the downloaded certificates.zip file. Unzip the directories until the PEM files for the entitlement certificates are available.
  7. Import the certificate PEM file. This can be done using the Import Certificates button in the Subscription Manager GUI or using the import command:
    # subscription-manager import --certificate=/tmp/export/entitlement_certificates/596576341785244687.pem --certificate=/tmp/export/entitlement_certificates/3195996649750311162.pem
    Successfully imported certificate 596576341785244687.pem
    Successfully imported certificate 3195996649750311162.pem

14.13.2. Updating Subscription Information

The refresh command updates all of the subscription information that is available to the consumer. This removes expired subscriptions and adds new subscriptions to the list. This does not subscribe the machine, but it does pull in the newest data for administrators to use.
[root@server1 ~]# subscription-manager refresh

14.14. Configuring the Subscription Service

By default, Red Hat Subscription Manager (both GUI and CLI) talk to the subscription service and the Customer Portal for their subscription services and content delivery, respectively. Red Hat Subscription Manager can be configured to use different content servers or subscription services. Other aspects of the Red Hat Subscription Manager — like the locations to look for system and product certificates or the system information used by Red Hat Subscription Manager to identify compatible entitlements — can also be customized to fit the network environment.

14.14.1. Red Hat Subscription Manager Configuration Files

The primary configuration file for Red Hat Subscription Manager, both the GUI and CLI tools, is the rhsm.conf configuration file. There are other support files that either influence the Red Hat Subscription Manager service or can help administrators better use the Subscription Manager.

14.14.1.1. All Files Used by Red Hat Subscription Manager

All of the files related to the configuration of Red Hat Subscription Manager are used by both the GUI and CLI; there is no separate configuration.
Table 14.6. Red Hat Subscription Manager Files and Directories
File or Directory Description
/etc/rhsm The primary Red Hat Subscription Manager configuration directory.
/etc/rhsm/rhsm.conf The Red Hat Subscription Manager configuration file. This is used by both the GUI and the CLI.
/etc/rhsm/facts Any user-defined JSON files that override or add system facts to determine entitlement compatibility. Any facts files must end in .facts.
/var/lib/rhsm/cache/installed_products.json A master list of installed products, which is sent by Subscription Manager to a hosted content service, such as Subscription Asset Manager.
/var/lib/rhsm/facts/facts.json The default system facts filed, gathered by the Subscription Manager.
/var/lib/rhsm/packages/ The package profile cache (a list of installed products) which is gathered and periodically updated by the Subscription Manager.
/var/log/rhsm The Red Hat Subscription Manager log directory.
/var/log/rhsm/rhsm.log The log for the Red Hat Subscription Manager tools.
/var/log/rhsm/rhsmcertd.log The log for the Red Hat Subscription Manager daemon, rhsmcertd.
/etc/pki/consumer The directory which contains the identity certificates used by the system to identify itself to the subscription service.
/etc/pki/consumer/cert.pem The base-64 consumer identity certificate file.
/etc/pki/consumer/key.pem The base-64 consumer identity key file.
/etc/pki/entitlement The directory which contains the entitlement certificates for the available subscriptions.
/etc/pki/product/product_serial#.pem The product certificates for installed software products.
/var/run/subsys/rhsm Runtime files for Red Hat Subscription Manager
/etc/init.d/rhsmcertd The subscription certificate daemon.
/etc/cron.daily/rhsm-complianced and /usr/libexec/rhsm-complianced Files to run daily checks and notifications for subscription validity.
/etc/yum/pluginconf.d/rhsmplugin.conf The configuration file to include the Red Hat Subscription Manager plug-in in the yum configuration.
/usr/share/rhsm All of the Python and script files used by both Red Hat Subscription Manager tool to perform subscription tasks.
/usr/share/rhsm/gui All of the Python script and image files used to render the Red Hat Subscription Manager GUI.

14.14.1.2. About the rhsm.conf File

The main configuration file for the Subscription Manager is rhsm.conf. This file configures several important aspects of how Red Hat Subscription Manager interacts with both entitlements and content services:
  • The subscription service connection information, including the server host and port
  • The content service to use, in the form of a web address
  • The location of all of the different certificates used by the subscription service, including CA certificates for SSL authentication, identity certificates for the system, and entitlement and product certificates
The rhsm.conf file is divided into three sections. Two major sections define the subscription service ([server]) and content and product delivery ([rhsm]). The third section relates to the rhsmcertd daemon. Each assertion is a simple attribute= value pair. Any of the default values can be edited; all possible attributes are present and active in the default rhsm.conf file.
Example 14.9. Default rhsm.conf File
# Red Hat Subscription Manager Configuration File:

# Unified Entitlement Platform Configuration
[server]
# Server hostname:
hostname = subscription.rhn.redhat.com

# Server prefix:
prefix = /subscription

# Server port:
port = 443

# Set to 1 to disable certificate validation:
insecure = 0

# Set the depth of certs which should be checked
# when validating a certificate
ssl_verify_depth = 3

# Server CA certificate location:
ca_cert_dir = /etc/rhsm/ca/

# an http proxy server to use
proxy_hostname =

# port for http proxy server
proxy_port =

# user name for authenticating to an http proxy, if needed
proxy_user =

# password for basic http proxy auth, if needed
proxy_password =

[rhsm]
# Content base URL:
baseurl= https://cdn.redhat.com

# Default CA cert to use when generating yum repo configs:
repo_ca_cert = %(ca_cert_dir)sredhat-uep.pem

# Where the certificates should be stored
productCertDir = /etc/pki/product
entitlementCertDir = /etc/pki/entitlement
consumerCertDir = /etc/pki/consumer

[rhsmcertd]
# Frequency of certificate refresh (in minutes):
certFrequency = 240
# Frequency of autoheal check (1440 min = 1 day):
healFrequency = 1440

Table 14.7. rhsm.conf Parameters
Parameter Description Default Value
[server] Parameters
hostname Gives the IP address or fully-qualified domain name of the subscription service. subscription.rhn.redhat.com
prefix Gives the directory, in the URL, to use to connect to the subscription service. /subscription
port Gives the port to use to connect to the subscription service. 443
insecure Sets whether to use a secure (0) or insecure (1) connection for connections between the Subscription Manager clients and the subscription service. 0
ssl_verify_depth Sets how far back in the certificate chain to verify the certificate. 3
proxy_hostname Gives the hostname of the proxy server. This is required.
proxy_port Gives the port of the proxy server. This is required.
proxy_user Gives the user account to use to access the proxy server. This may not be required, depending on the proxy server configuration.
proxy_password Gives the password credentials to access the proxy server. This may not be required, depending on the proxy server configuration.
ca_cert_dir Gives the location for the CA certificate for the CA which issued the subscription service's certificates. This allows the client to identify and trust the subscription service for authentication for establishing an SSL connection. /etc/rhsm/ca
[rhsm] Parameters
baseurl Gives the full URL to access the content delivery system. https://cdn.redhat.com
repo_ca_cert Identifies the default CA certificate to use to set the yum repo configuration. %(ca_cert_dir)sredhat-uep.pem
productCertDir Sets the root directory where the product certificates are stored and can be accessed by Subscription Manager. /etc/pki/product
consumerCertDir Sets the directory where the identity certificate for the system is stored and can be accessed by Subscription Manager. /etc/pki/consumer
entitlementCertDir Sets the directory where the entitlement certificates for the system are stored and can be accessed by Subscription Manager. Each subscription has its own entitlement certificate. /etc/pki/entitlement
[rhsmcertd] Parameters
certFrequency Sets the interval, in minutes, to check and update entitlement certificates used by Subscription Manager. 240
healFrequency Sets the interval, in minutes, to check for change subscriptions and installed products and to allocate subscriptions, as necessary, to maintain subscription status for all products. 1440
healFrequency Sets the interval, in minutes, to check for change subscriptions and installed products and to allocate subscriptions, as necessary, to maintain subscription status for all products. 1440

14.14.2. Using the config Command

subscription-manager has a subcommand that can change the rhsm.conf configuration file. Almost all of the connection information used by Subscription Manager to access the subscription server, content server, and any proxies is set in the configuration file, as well as general configuration parameters like the frequency Subscription Manager checks for entitlements updates. There are major divisions in the rhsm.conf file, such as [server] which is used to configure the subscription server. When changing the Subscription Manager configuration, the settings are identified with the format section.parameter and then the new value. For example:
server.hostname=newsubscription.example.com
When changing the value for a parameter, the parameter is passed as an argument to the config command:
[root@server1 ~]# subscription-manager config --section.parameter=newValue
For example, to change the hostname of the subscription service:
[root@server1 ~]# subscription-manager config --server.hostname=subscription.example.com
All of the rhsm.conf file parameters are listed in Table 14.7, “rhsm.conf Parameters”. This is most commonly used to change connection settings:
  • server.hostname (subscription server)
  • server.proxy
  • server.proxy_port
  • server.proxy_user
  • server.proxy_password
  • rhsm.baseurl (content server)
  • rhsm.certFrequency
The config command also has a --remove option. This deletes the current value for the parameter without supplying a new parameter. A blank value tells Subscription Manager to use any default values that are set for that parameter rather than a user-defined value. For example:
[root@server1 ~]# subscription-manager config --remove=rhsm.certFrequency

The default value for rhsm.certFrequency will now be used.
If a value does not have a default, then the command returns simply that the value has been removed:
[root@server1 ~]# subscription-manager config --remove=server.proxy

You have removed the value in section server for parameter proxy.

14.14.3. Using an HTTP Proxy

Some network environments may only allow external Internet access or access to content servers by going through an HTTP proxy.

14.14.3.1. Configuring an HTTP Proxy for GUI Use

Subscription Manager can be configured to use an HTTP proxy for all of its connections to the subscription service. (This is also an advanced configuration option at firstboot.) To configure the proxy:
  1. Launch Subscription Manager. For example:
    [root@server ~]# subscription-manager-gui
  2. Click the Proxy Configuration button at the top of the window in the Tools area.
  3. Check the ...Connect to Red Hat Network via an HTTP Proxy checkbox and enter the server location, in the format hostname:port.
  4. If the proxy requires a username/password to allow access, then also select the authentication checkbox and fill in the user credentials.
  5. The configuration is automatically applied, so when the proxy is configured, simply close the window.

14.14.3.2. Configuring HTTP Proxy in the rhsm.conf File

The HTTP proxy settings can be configured in the rhsm.conf file; this is the same as configuring it in the Subscription Manager GUI. The proxy configuration is stored and used for every connection between the subscription service and the local system.
  1. Open the Subscription Manager configuration file.
    vim /etc/rhsm/rhsm.conf
  2. Change the settings in the [server] section that relate to the HTTP proxy. All parameters are described in Table 14.7, “rhsm.conf Parameters”. There are four parameters directly related to the proxy:
    • proxy_hostname for the IP address or fully-qualified domain name of the proxy server; this is required.

      Note

      Leaving the proxy_hostname argument blank means that no HTTP proxy is used.
    • proxy_port for the proxy server port.
    • proxy_user for the user account to connect to the proxy; this may not be required, depending on the proxy server's configuration.
    • proxy_password for the password for the user account to connect to the proxy; this may not be required, depending on the proxy server's configuration.
    [server]
    
    # an http proxy server to use
    proxy_hostname = proxy.example.com
    
    # port for http proxy server
    proxy_port = 443
    
    # user name for authenticating to an http proxy, if needed
    proxy_user =
    
    # password for basic http proxy auth, if needed
    proxy_password =

14.14.3.3. Passing HTTP Proxy Information with subscription-manager Commands

Rather than using a permanently-configured HTTP proxy, as the GUI does, HTTP proxy information can be passed with a command invocations. The arguments listed in Table 14.8, “Proxy Arguments” are available to every command used with subscription-manager.
Table 14.8. Proxy Arguments
Argument Description Required for a Proxy Connection?
--proxy Gives the proxy server to connect to, in the format hostname:port. Yes
--proxyuser Gives the username to use to authenticate. This is only required if user authentication is required. No
--proxypassword Gives the password to use with the user account. This is only required if user authentication is required. No

The proxy information can be passed with any subscription-manager operation. For example:
[root@server1 ~]# subscription-manager subscribe --pool=ff8080812bc382e3012bc3845ca000cb --proxy=proxy.example.com:8443 --proxyuser=jsmith --proxypassword=secret

14.14.4. Changing the Subscription Server

The Subscription Manager usually connects to the subscription service, and the public server is configured in the rhsm.conf file. There may be instances when an organization is running a mirror or an internal subscription service; in those situations, the connection settings can be altered to connect to the specific servers. The subscription service connection settings are in the [server] section of the configuration file.
  1. Open the Subscription Manager configuration file.
    vim /etc/rhsm/rhsm.conf
  2. Change the settings in the [server] section that relate to the subscription service connection. All parameters are described in Table 14.7, “rhsm.conf Parameters”. There are three parameters directly related to the connection:
    • hostname for the IP address or fully-qualified domain name of the machine
    • prefix for the subscription service directory
    • port for the subscription service port
    [server]
    hostname=entitlements.server.example.com
    prefix=/candlepin
    port=8443

14.14.5. Configuring Red Hat Subscription Manager to Use a Local Content Provider

By default, the Subscription Manager is configured to use Red Hat's content delivery service, which is available at https://cdn.redhat.com. This can be changed to use a different external content delivery system or to use an organization-managed content system, such as Subscription Asset Manager.
  1. Open the Subscription Manager configuration file.
    vim /etc/rhsm/rhsm.conf
  2. Change the baseurl directive in the [rhsm] section. This is the full URL to the service.
    [rhsm]
    # Content base URL:
    baseurl= http://content.example.com/content

14.14.6. Managing Secure Connections to the Subscription Server

Red Hat Subscription Manager assumes, by default, that the subscription clients connect to the subscription service using a secure (SSL) connection. This requires that the CA certificate of the subscription service be downloaded and available locally for the client and that the appropriate connections be configured.
  1. Open the Subscription Manager configuration file.
    vim /etc/rhsm/rhsm.conf
  2. Change the settings in the [server] section that relate to a secure connection. All parameters are described in Table 14.7, “rhsm.conf Parameters”. There are three parameters directly related to the connection:
    • insecure to set whether to use a secure (0) or insecure (1) connection
    • ca_cert_dir for the directory location for the CA certificate for authentication and verification
    • port for the subscription service port; this should be an SSL port if a secure connection is required
    [server]
    port=8443
    insecure = 1
    ca_cert_dir = /etc/rhsm/ca
    There is also an optional parameter to set how far in a certificate chain to go to validate a certificate. By default, this is three, meaning the server validates three CAs back in the issuing chain.
    ssl_verify_depth = 3

14.14.7. Starting and Stopping the Subscription Service

The Red Hat Subscription Manager daemon, rhsmcertd, runs as a service on the system. The daemon, by default, starts with the system, and it can be started, stopped, or checked with the service command.
service rhsmcertd status
rhsmcertd (pid 13084) is running...
Red Hat Enterprise Linux has a tool called chkconfig which manages the automatic startup and shutdown settings for each process on the server, described in Section 17.5, “chkconfig. When a system reboots, some services can be automatically restarted. chkconfig also defines startup settings for different run levels of the server.
The Red Hat Subscription Manager service, which runs routinely to check for changes in the entitlements for an organization, can be controlled by chkconfig. By default, the Red Hat Subscription Manager daemon, rhsmcertd, is configured to run at levels 3, 4, and 5, so that the service is started automatically when the server reboots.
The run level settings can be reset using chkconfig. For example, to enable run level 2:
chkconfig --level 2345 rhsmcertd on
To remove the rhsmcertd from the start list, change the run level settings off:
chkconfig --level 2345 rhsmcertd off
Red Hat Enterprise Linux also has a GUI console that can manage the service and chkconfig settings.
  1. In the main menu, select the Administration link and open the Server Settings submenu.
  2. Open the Services link.

    Note

    The system-config-services package must be installed for the Services wizard to be available.
  3. Scroll to the rhsmcertd item in the list of services on the left, and then edit the service as desired.

14.14.8. Checking Logs

There are two log files maintained for Red Hat Subscription Manager in the /var/log/rhsm directory:
  • rhsm.log shows every invocation and result of running the Subscription Manager GUI or CLI
  • rhsmcertd.log shows every time a new certificate is generated, which happens on a schedule defined by the certFrequency parameter in the rhsm.conf file.
The rhsm.log file contains the sequence of every Python call for every operation invoked through the Subscription Manager tools. Each entry has this format:
YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS,process_id [MESSAGE_TYPE] call python_script response
The response in the log entry can be very complex, spanning multiple lines, or relatively simply, with just a status code.
Because each log entry in rhsm.log relates to the Python script or function that was called, there can be multiple log entries for a single operation.
Example 14.10. rhsm.log Entry
2010-10-01 17:27:57,874 [INFO] _request() @connection.py:97 - status code: 200
2010-10-01 17:27:57,875 [INFO] perform() @certlib.py:132 - updated:
Total updates: 0
Found (local) serial# []
Expected (UEP) serial# []
Added (new)
  <NONE>
Deleted (rogue):
  <NONE>
Expired (not deleted):
  <NONE>
Expired (deleted):
  <NONE>
2010-10-01 17:27:57,878 [INFO] __init__() @connection.py:193 - Using certificate authentication: key = /etc/pki/consumer/key.pem, cert = /etc/pki/consumer/cert.pem, ca = /etc/pki/CA/candlepin.pem, insecure = True
2010-10-01 17:27:57,878 [INFO] __init__() @connection.py:196 - Connection Established: host: candlepin.example.com, port: 443, handler: /candlepin

The entries in the rhsmcertd.log file are much simpler. The log only records when the rhsmcertd daemon starts or stops and every time a certificate is updated.
Example 14.11. rhsmcertd.log Entry
Fri Oct  1 13:27:44 2010: started: interval = 240 minutes
Fri Oct  1 13:27:50 2010: certificates updated

14.14.9. Checking and Adding System Facts

Entitlements are available to a system based on whether the software is compatible with the system's architecture. For example, there are different products and subscriptions for 32-bit and 64-bit platforms. Red Hat Subscription Manager determines compatibility by collecting a range of facts about the system's hardware and architecture and then comparing it with all available entitlements.
The collected facts can be viewed, updated to acknowledge a hardware or configuration change, or overridden to force compatibility in the specified areas.
The system facts are very similar to the information in /etc/redhat-release or /etc/sysconfig. In both the Red Hat Subscription Manager GUI and CLI, the facts are represented as simple attribute: value pairs.

Tip

Updating the facts resends the information about the system to the Red Hat subscription service so that it can update the list of subscriptions which match the system architecture. Updating the facts is a very good thing to do after hardware upgrades or other important system changes.

14.14.9.1. Checking Facts from the Red Hat Subscription Manager UI

  1. Launch Subscription Manager. For example:
    [root@server ~]# subscription-manager-gui
  2. In the Tools at the top of the window, click the View System Facts button.
  3. All of the current facts for the system are listed in the table, broken down into categories. Each category is in a closed list; to reveal all of the facts in that category, click the arrow by the category name.
    To update the facts, click the Update Facts button in the bottom right of the window.

14.14.9.2. Checking Facts with subscription-manager

To simply list the facts, run the facts command with the --list option.
[root@server1 ~]# subscription-manager facts --list

cpu.architecture: i686
cpu.core(s)_per_socket: 4
cpu.cpu(s): 4
cpu.cpu_family: 6
cpu.cpu_mhz: 2000.010
cpu.cpu_op-mode(s): 32-bit, 64-bit
cpu.cpu_socket(s): 1
cpu.l1d_cache: 32K
cpu.l1i_cache: 32K
cpu.l2_cache: 6144K
cpu.model: 23
cpu.stepping: 6
cpu.thread(s)_per_core: 1
cpu.vendor_id: GenuineIntel
cpu.virtualization: VT-x
distribution.id: Santiago
distribution.name: Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation
distribution.version: 5
dmi.baseboard.manufacturer: IBM
dmi.baseboard.product_name: Server Blade
... [snip] ...
To update the facts after a system change, use the --update option with the facts command.
[root@server1 ~]# subscription-manager facts --update

14.14.9.3. Overriding the Default System Facts

The system facts, as collected, are stored in /var/lib/rhsm/facts/facts.json. These facts are stored as attribute: value pairs, in a comma-separated list.
{"fact1": "value1","fact2": "value2"}
The primary file is generated and maintained by the Subscription Manager service. However, these values can be overridden to force architecture or platform compatibility (and thereby widening the available compatible subscriptions) by creating additional JSON facts files and dropping them in the /etc/rhsm/facts directory. These JSON files can override existing facts or even add new facts to be used by the subscription service.
Example 14.12. Example Facts Override File
vim /etc/rhsm/facts/my-example.facts

{"uname.machine": "x86","kernel_version": "2.6.32","physical_location": "MTV colo rack 5"}

14.14.10. Regenerating Identity Certificates

To regenerate the consumer's identity certificate (meaning it is revoked and replaced), use the identity command.
Although credentials are not normally required with the identity command, using the --force option will require the username and password and will cause the Subscription Manager to prompt for the credentials if they are not passed in the command. This can be helpful if the identity certificate needs to be regenerated using a different Red Hat account than the original registration.
[root@server1 ~]# subscription-manager identity --regenerate --force
Username: jsmith@example.com
Password:
Identity certificate has been regenerated.

14.14.11. Getting the System UUID

The consumer or system UUID is a unique identifier used in the inventory subscription service. This UUID can be used to re-register the system if there is some kind of corruption or for internal tracking. In the GUI (Section 14.14.9.1, “Checking Facts from the Red Hat Subscription Manager UI”), this is listed as one of the system facts, under the system category:
From the command-line, use the identity command to return the current UUID. The UUID is the Current identity is value.
[root@server1 ~]# subscription-manager identity
Current identity is: 63701087-f625-4519-8ab2-633bb50cb261
name: server1.example.com
org name: 6340056
org id: 8a85f981302cbaf201302d89931e059a

14.14.12. Viewing Package Profiles

A package profile is the list of installed packages on a system (regardless of its subscription status). Red Hat Subscription Manager maintains a local list of installed packages to track the subscription status of the system. The package profile contains some general information about each package in the list:
  • Package name
  • Package version
  • Epoch
  • Publisher
This package manifest is always visible locally in the My Installed Software tab of the UI or by using the list --installed command with the command-line tools.
The Subscription Manager daemon, rhsmcertd, checks the system periodically — once when it is first registered and then when it runs a refresh operation every four hours — to get the most current list of installed products. When the system is registered and then whenever there is a change to the package list, Subscription Manager sends an updated package profile to the subscription service.
The package profile is stored in a cache file in /var/lib/rhsm/packages/.
Having an updated package profile for a system helps the subscription service identify compatible subscriptions.

14.14.13. Retrieving the Consumer ID, Registration Tokens, and Other Information

Some pieces of information are used frequently when managing entitlements using the subscription-manager script. Information like the consumer ID or subscription pool ID is pulled up and referenced automatically in the Red Hat Subscription Manager UI, but it has to be entered manually in the command line.
Table 14.9, “Locations and Descriptions of Entitlement Data” lists common information that is used to manage subscriptions, the operations they are used in, and the places to find the data.
Table 14.9. Locations and Descriptions of Entitlement Data
Information Description Operations Used In Find It In ...
Consumer ID A unique identifier for each system that is registered to the subscription service. identity The simplest method is to use the identity command to return the current UUID.
[root@server1 ~]# subscription-manager identity
Current identity is: 63701087-f625-4519-8ab2-633bb50cb261
name: consumer-1.example.com
org name: 6340056
org id: 8a85f981302cbaf201302d89931e059a
The Subject CN element of the identity certificate for the system, /etc/pki/consumer/cert.pem. The UUID can also be returned by using openssl to pretty-print the certificate.
openssl x509 -text -in /etc/pki/consumer/cert.pem

Certificate:
... snip ...
Subject: CN=7d133d55 876f 4f47 83eb 0ee931cb0a97
Pool ID An identifier for a specific set of subscriptions. This set is created when subscriptions are purchased. Whenever a system needs to subscribe to a product, it references a pool ID to identify which purchased set of subscriptions to use. subscribe The PoolID value given for a product when listing available subscriptions. For example:
[root@server1 ~]# subscription-manager list --available
+----------------------+
Available Subscriptions
+----------------------+
ProductName: Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Standard (up to 2 sockets) 3 year
ProductId: MCT0346F3
PoolId: ff8080812bc382e3012bc3845ca000cb
Quantity: 2
Expires: 2011-02-28
Product certificate serial number The identification used for a specific, installed product. A certificate with a unique serial number is generated when a product is installed; this serial number is used to identify that specific product installation when managing subscriptions. unsubscribe The SerialNumber line in the product subscription information. This can be returned by running list --consumed.
[root@server1 ~]# subscription-manager list --consumed

+-----------------------------+
Consumed Product Subscriptions
+-----------------------------+

ProductName: High availability (cluster suite)
ContractNumber: 0
SerialNumber: 11287514358600162
....
Product ID The internal identifier used to identify a type of product. The ProductID value given for a product when listing available subscriptions. For example:
[root@server1 ~]# subscription-manager list --available
+----------------------+
Available Subscriptions
+----------------------+

ProductName: RHEL for Physical Servers
ProductId: MKT-rhel-server
... snip ...

14.15. About Certificates and Managing Entitlements

Part of managing subscriptions requires verifying the identity of everything involved, such as the system, the subscription service, and the available products. The subscription service uses X.509 certificates to handle the identity and authentication aspects of the subscription service. These X.509 certificates also contain the actual data about available subscriptions and installed products.
The first time a system is subscribed to a subscription, it downloads a certificate from the subscription service. The entitlement certificate contains all of the information about products that are available through that subscription. The entitlement certificate is revoked and reissued any time there is a change in the subscriptions for an organization. Once a product is actually installed on a machine, then another certificate is issued to manage the entitlements for the product on the system.
Each certificate issued and used by the Subscription Manager services is a .pem formatted file. This file format stores both keys and certificates in a base-64 blob. For example:
-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----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-----END CERTIFICATE-----
Tools like openssl or pk12util can be used to extract and view information from these certificates, in a pretty-print format. The product- and subscription-related information is extracted and viewable in the Red Hat Subscription Manager GUI or command-line tools.
This section describes the different certificates used by the subscription service and the entitlement information contained in those certificates. A much more detailed description of X.509 certificates and a public key infrastructure (PKI) is given in the Red Hat Certificate System documentation in chapter 1, "Introduction to Public-Key Cryptography," in the Red Hat Certificate System Deployment Guide.
Table 14.10. Types of Certificates Used for Content and Entitlements
Certificate Type Description Default Location
Consumer Identity Certificate Used to identify the system (consumer) to the subscription service. This contains a unique ID which is assigned to the system when it is registered to the system. The identity certificate itself is generated by the subscription service when the system is registered and then sent to the consumer. /etc/pki/consumer
Entitlement Certificate Contains a list of products that are available to a system to install, based on the subscriptions that the system has been subscribed to. The entitlement certificate defines the software products, the content delivery location, and validity dates. The presence of an entitlement certificate means that the system has consumed one of the quantities from the subscription. /etc/pki/entitlement
Product Certificate Contains the information about a product after it has been installed. /etc/pki/product/product_serial#.pem
CA Certificate A certificate for the certificate authority which issued the SSL server certificate used by the subscription service. This must be installed on a system for the system to use SSL to connect to the subscription service. /etc/rhsm/ca/candlepin-ca.pem
Satellite Certificate An XML-formatted certificate which contains a product list. This is used by local Satellite 5.x systems, not the newer subscription service.

14.15.1. The Structure of Identity Certificates

An identity certificate is a standard SSL client certificate. This certificate is issued by the subscription service when the system registers to it. The system consumer subsequently uses this certificate to authenticate to the subscription service whenever it contacts the service after registration.
The certificate contains three important pieces of information:
  • The consumer UUID, in the subject CN of the certificate
  • The subscription service which the system is registered to, in the issuer field of the certificate
  • The user account which registered the system, as the DirName value in the Subject Alt Name
The validity period of this certificate is associated with the time when the system was registered, not to any subscription contract periods or user account settings.
Example 14.13. Identity Certificate
Certificate:
    Data:
        Version: 3 (0x2)
        Serial Number: 1430 (0x596)
        Signature Algorithm: sha1WithRSAEncryption
        Issuer: CN=entitlement.server.example.com, C=US, L=Raleigh  
        Validity
            Not Before: Oct  6 16:32:05 2010 GMT
            Not After : Oct  6 23:59:59 2011 GMT
        Subject: CN=4881bd2f-868b-438c-af96-8b1d283daffc  
        Subject Public Key Info:
            Public Key Algorithm: rsaEncryption
                Public-Key: (2048 bit)
                Modulus:
                    00:a3:72:2f:0e:be:20:cb:63:63:4d:c5:ec:eb:71:
                    8f:61:8b:19:3c:f9:54:ac:75:91:f5:98:ee:ae:0e:
                    0f:8c:3e:5e:50:47:4e:4b:7e:da:d4:15:f5:2f:b8:
                    4c:59:14:67:b5:e8:23:cd:0b:0c:bf:c1:38:da:72:
                    fe:0a:b9:73:97:30:c8:ab:e3:bf:68:23:49:2f:e9:
                    8a:18:18:35:77:39:cd:43:88:7d:28:f5:bd:bd:df:
                    1c:61:ce:93:37:42:71:93:32:5a:ad:73:d0:df:f3:
                    68:b0:a5:a7:fc:cf:fe:97:0c:a2:0e:0d:4c:08:36:
                    9e:23:4f:8c:56:2f:91:0f:a8:22:5d:7a:5a:64:29:
                    79:f3:34:cb:44:98:ec:de:e8:25:dd:93:f1:d6:63:
                    3a:2b:8b:57:67:15:64:b7:f0:8e:bc:06:f5:4a:64:
                    4f:62:74:de:0f:a7:d5:90:3d:ab:de:62:6c:b0:f9:
                    35:53:9d:4f:2f:7e:da:57:d1:85:d0:d5:89:96:95:
                    a0:58:90:5e:f8:3c:ea:a0:47:43:48:9e:10:db:85:
                    6b:a6:c2:bc:68:29:4f:17:01:b9:55:e6:b2:79:76:
                    fb:d7:67:32:2c:28:0e:a3:d9:a7:51:c1:e8:6d:ae:
                    36:6c:8d:7b:f2:2f:91:33:8f:14:9f:d9:55:bb:41:
                    4d:85
                Exponent: 65537 (0x10001)
        X509v3 extensions:
            Netscape Cert Type:
                SSL Client, S/MIME
            X509v3 Key Usage:
                Digital Signature, Key Encipherment, Data Encipherment
            X509v3 Authority Key Identifier:
                keyid:68:98:D4:DD:94:B6:E9:71:70:C1:72:D2:3E:A0:40:62:D3:CA:8E:82
                DirName:/CN=entitlement.server.example.com/C=US/L=Raleigh
                serial:D6:CE:78:B1:56:9C:37:41

            X509v3 Subject Key Identifier:
                66:C1:E5:FA:8E:CE:1D:F6:83:85:AA:AF:08:5C:FF:DE:88:BA:92:20
            X509v3 Extended Key Usage:
                TLS Web Client Authentication
            X509v3 Subject Alternative Name:  
                DirName:/CN=admin-example  
    Signature Algorithm: sha1WithRSAEncryption
        0d:c4:74:6c:7a:fe:1f:61:f9:c7:3b:d9:18:70:7a:38:51:e2:
        bb:a3:03:7e:7e:af:76:82:5e:fa:89:11:d1:9e:1c:e4:3e:58:
        56:2f:eb:95:da:dc:aa:18:6f:73:24:04:8e:5f:ea:84:0c:ea:
        8d:e6:c5:40:07:88:8d:41:30:c6:89:46:ca:cf:be:7b:8a:00:
        f6:86:c4:38:7b:0b:fd:56:ad:d0:b6:76:a3:5a:77:dd:69:46:
        47:f7:5f:46:81:6b:34:f4:4b:60:ea:e7:2c:2b:08:1f:c7:57:
        ea:8d:24:4b:05:b3:a8:95:9b:af:05:36:11:38:e5:fa:5b:6b:
        ca:5f

14.15.2. The Structure of Entitlement Certificates

An entitlement is analogous to an assigned software license. Entitlement certificates contain a list of available products for a system — software that the system has been granted rights to download and update. When a system is subscribed to a subscription pool, the system pulls down the entitlement certificate from the subscription service, which contains all of the information about available products.
An entitlement certificate contains a list of every potential product from every potential content source. The structure of the entitlement certificate, then, allows multiple namespaces for products, content servers, roles, orders, and systems. An entitlement certificate also contains complete information about the subscribed pool, even for products which may not be compatible with the specific system. In an entitlement certificate, the architecture and version definitions contain all of the allowed architectures and versions.

Note

The local Subscription Manager polls the subscription service routinely (every four hours by default) to check for changes in the entitlements. When a subscription is changed in some way, then the original entitlement certificate is revoked and is replaced with a new entitlement certificate.
The entitlement certificate is a *.pem file stored in the entitlement certificates directory, /etc/pki/entitlement. The name of the *.pem file is a numeric identifier that is generated by the subscription service. This ID is an inventory number that is used to associate a subscription quantity with the system in the software inventory.
The heading of the certificate contains the name of the subscription service which issued it, the validity period of the certificate (which is tied to the installation date of the product), and then the serial number of the installation of the product.
Certificate:
    Data:
        Version: 3 (0x2)
        Serial Number:
            3c:da:6c:06:90:7f:ff
        Signature Algorithm: sha1WithRSAEncryption
        Issuer: CN=candlepin.example.com, C=US, L=City
        Validity
            Not Before: Oct  8 17:55:28 2010 GMT
            Not After : Oct  2 23:59:59 2011 GMT
        Subject: CN=8a878c912b875189012b8cfbc3f2264a
... [snip] ...
The key definition of the product is given in custom certificate extensions that are appended to the certificate. Each namespace defines certain information about a product, including its name, content servers which can deliver it, the format of delivery, and a GPG key to identify the release. Every individual entry is identified by a numeric object identifier (OID) with the same basic format:
1.3.6.1.4.1.2312.9.2.product_#.config_#:
   ..config_value
The 2 indicates that it is a product entry. product_# is a unique ID which identifies the specific product or variant. config_# relates to the installation information for that product, like its content server or the quantity available.

Note

Every entitlements-related extension begins with the OID base 1.3.6.1.4.1.2312.9. The subsequent numbers identify different subscription areas:
  • .2. is the product-specific information
  • .1. is the subscription information
  • .4. contains the contract information, like its ID number and start and end dates
  • .5. contains the consumer information, like the consumer ID which installed a product
A product definition contains a series of entries which configure all of the information required to identify and install the product. Each type of information has its own ID, the config_# in the OID, that is used consistently for all products. An example product is listed in Example 14.14, “Annotated Red Hat Enterprise Linux High Availability Product Extensions in an Entitlement Certificate”.
Example 14.14. Annotated Red Hat Enterprise Linux High Availability Product Extensions in an Entitlement Certificate
            content repository type  
            1.3.6.1.4.1.2312.9.2.30393.1:
                ..yum
            product  
            1.3.6.1.4.1.2312.9.2.30393.1.1:
                .HRed Hat Enterprise Linux High Availability (for RHEL Entitlement) (RPMs)
            channel name  
            1.3.6.1.4.1.2312.9.2.30393.1.2:
                .Dred-hat-enterprise-linux-high-availability-for-rhel-entitlement-rpms
            vendor  
            1.3.6.1.4.1.2312.9.2.30393.1.5:
                ..Red Hat
            download URL  
            1.3.6.1.4.1.2312.9.2.30393.1.6:
                .Q/content/dist/rhel/entitlement/releases/$releasever/$basearch/highavailability/os
            key download URL  
            1.3.6.1.4.1.2312.9.2.30393.1.7:
                .2file:///etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-redhat-release
            flex quantity  
            1.3.6.1.4.1.2312.9.2.30393.1.4:
                ..0
            quantity  
            1.3.6.1.4.1.2312.9.2.30393.1.3:
                ..25
            repo enabled setting  
            1.3.6.1.4.1.2312.9.2.30393.1.8:
                ..1

14.15.3. The Structure of Product Certificates

The products that are installed on a system through the subscriptions assigned to a system are identified by X.509 certificates. When an available product is installed, the subscription service generates a product certificate, which contains the information about the product contract and the specific installation.
Structurally, entitlement certificates and product certificates are very similar, because they both provide much of the same information about products. The main difference is that a product certificate contains information about a single product that has been installed, so no other subscription information (like other available products or other product versions) is included in a product certificate the way that it is in an entitlement certificate.
A product certificate contains a single product namespace (meaning, a single product definition) which shows only what is actually installed on the system. The architecture and version definitions in a product certificate reflect the architecture and version of the product that is actually installed.
The product certificate is a *.pem file stored in the entitlement certificates directory, /etc/pki/product/product_serial#.pem. The name of the *.pem file is a numeric identifier that is generated by the subscription service. As with entitlement tracking, the generated ID is an inventory number, used to track installed products and associate them with systems within the subscription service.

14.15.4. Anatomy of Satellite Certificates

Important

Satellite certificates are used by Satellite 5.x deployments. They are not used on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.7 or by the subscription service.
Every system has to have a secure, authoritative way to identify what subscriptions are available. For Satellite 5.x systems, this identification is done through a digitally-signed XML document that lists the products and quantities that a customer has purchased.
As with entitlement certificates, a Satellite certificate contains the information about the subscription that was purchased, including the total number of systems that can be registered against that subscription and its start and end dates.
There are two types of subscriptions:
  • System entitlements are subscriptions for services that can be performed, such as monitoring, provisioning, and virtualization.
  • Channel entitlements, or content entitlements, provide access to the different software product download channels on Red Hat Network. These include Red Hat Enterprise Linux add-ons like Supplementary and FastTrack and layered products like Red Hat Directory Server.
Both types can be included in a single Satellite certificate.
A system entitlement and the metadata for an entitlement are both configured similarly in the certificate:
<rhn-cert-field name="configuration_area">value</rhn-cert-field>
The name argument identifies what entity is being configured. This can be the organization which ordered the subscription (name="owner"), the start and end dates for the entitlement (name="issued" and name="expires"), or the entitlement itself. A system entitlement uses the name argument to set the service being entitled; every content entitlement is set as a name="channel-family" type, with the specific product identified in an additional family argument.
The first section of the Satellite certificate is the metadata. The metadata identifies the organization which purchased it and the start and end dates of the entitlement. The field being set is in the name argument, while the value is between the tags. The last lines of the certificate also set metadata for the subscription, including the version of the Satellite and the signature that signs the XML document (and allows the XML file to be used as a certificate).
  <rhn-cert-field name="product">RHN-SATELLITE-001</rhn-cert-field>
  <rhn-cert-field name="owner">Example Corp</rhn-cert-field>
  <rhn-cert-field name="issued">2009-04-07 10:18:33</rhn-cert-field>
  <rhn-cert-field name="expires">2009-11-25 00:00:00</rhn-cert-field>

... [snip] ...

  <rhn-cert-field name="satellite-version">5.3</rhn-cert-field>
  <rhn-cert-field name="generation">2</rhn-cert-field>
  <rhn-cert-signature>
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: Crypt::OpenPGP 1.03

iQBGBAARAwAGBQJJ22C+AAoJEJ5ynaAAAAkyyZ0An18+4hK5Ozt4HWieFvahsTnF
aPcaAJ0e5neOfdDZRLOgDE+Tp/Im3Hc3Rg==
=gqP7
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
</rhn-cert-signature>
The name="slot" field lists how many total systems are allowed to use this Satellite certificate to receive content. It is a global quantity.
  <rhn-cert-field name="slots">119</rhn-cert-field>
The system entitlements are set by identifying the service type in the name argument and then setting the quantity as the value within the tags.
  <rhn-cert-field name="provisioning-slots">117</rhn-cert-field>
  <rhn-cert-field name="monitoring-slots">20</rhn-cert-field>
  <rhn-cert-field name="virtualization_host">67</rhn-cert-field>
The content entitlements can include any combination of products, including base Red Hat Enterprise Linux subscriptions, variations of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Red Hat Enterprise Linux add-ons, and general software products. General Red Hat Enterprise Linux server subscriptions are listed in the rhel-server family, while a specific Virtualization Server subscription provides an additional rhel-server-vt family.
  <rhn-cert-field name="channel-families" quantity="95" family="rhel-server"/>
  <rhn-cert-field name="channel-families" quantity="67" family="rhel-server-vt"/>
Add-ons and products for Red Hat Enterprise Linux systems (but not necessarily operating system products) are also in a rhel-* family, because that refers to the platform the product is supported on. In this example, Red Hat Directory Server is in the rhel-rhdirserv family.
  <rhn-cert-field name="channel-families" quantity="3" family="rhel-rhdirserv"/>
Most subscriptions will also include a subscription tool set to manage and enable within clients features such as provisioning or configuration management when registered to RHN Classic or Satellite 5.x.
  <rhn-cert-field name="channel-families" quantity="212" family="rhn-tools"/>

Part IV. System Configuration

Part of a system administrator's job is configuring the system for various tasks, types of users, and hardware configurations. This section explains how to configure a Red Hat Enterprise Linux system.

Table of Contents

29. Console Access
29.1. Disabling Shutdown Via Ctrl+Alt+Del
29.2. Disabling Console Program Access
29.3. Defining the Console
29.4. Making Files Accessible From the Console
29.5. Enabling Console Access for Other Applications
29.6. The floppy Group
30. The sysconfig Directory
30.1. Files in the /etc/sysconfig/ Directory
30.1.1. /etc/sysconfig/amd
30.1.2. /etc/sysconfig/apmd
30.1.3. /etc/sysconfig/arpwatch
30.1.4. /etc/sysconfig/authconfig
30.1.5. /etc/sysconfig/autofs
30.1.6. /etc/sysconfig/clock
30.1.7. /etc/sysconfig/desktop
30.1.8. /etc/sysconfig/dhcpd
30.1.9. /etc/sysconfig/exim
30.1.10. /etc/sysconfig/firstboot
30.1.11. /etc/sysconfig/gpm
30.1.12. /etc/sysconfig/hwconf
30.1.13. /etc/sysconfig/i18n
30.1.14. /etc/sysconfig/init
30.1.15. /etc/sysconfig/ip6tables-config
30.1.16. /etc/sysconfig/iptables-config
30.1.17. /etc/sysconfig/irda
30.1.18. /etc/sysconfig/keyboard
30.1.19. /etc/sysconfig/kudzu
30.1.20. /etc/sysconfig/named
30.1.21. /etc/sysconfig/network
30.1.22. /etc/sysconfig/nfs
30.1.23. /etc/sysconfig/ntpd
30.1.24. /etc/sysconfig/radvd
30.1.25. /etc/sysconfig/samba
30.1.26. /etc/sysconfig/selinux
30.1.27. /etc/sysconfig/sendmail
30.1.28. /etc/sysconfig/spamassassin
30.1.29. /etc/sysconfig/squid
30.1.30. /etc/sysconfig/system-config-securitylevel
30.1.31. /etc/sysconfig/system-config-selinux
30.1.32. /etc/sysconfig/system-config-users
30.1.33. /etc/sysconfig/system-logviewer
30.1.34. /etc/sysconfig/tux
30.1.35. /etc/sysconfig/vncservers
30.1.36. /etc/sysconfig/xinetd
30.2. Directories in the /etc/sysconfig/ Directory
30.3. Additional Resources
30.3.1. Installed Documentation
31. Date and Time Configuration
31.1. Time and Date Properties
31.2. Network Time Protocol (NTP) Properties
31.3. Time Zone Configuration
32. Keyboard Configuration
33. The X Window System
33.1. The X11R7.1 Release
33.2. Desktop Environments and Window Managers
33.2.1. Desktop Environments
33.2.2. Window Managers
33.3. X Server Configuration Files
33.3.1. xorg.conf
33.4. Fonts
33.4.1. Fontconfig
33.4.2. Core X Font System
33.5. Runlevels and X
33.5.1. Runlevel 3
33.5.2. Runlevel 5
33.6. Additional Resources
33.6.1. Installed Documentation
33.6.2. Useful Websites
34. X Window System Configuration
34.1. Display Settings
34.2. Display Hardware Settings
34.3. Dual Head Display Settings
35. Users and Groups
35.1. User and Group Configuration
35.1.1. Adding a New User
35.1.2. Modifying User Properties
35.1.3. Adding a New Group
35.1.4. Modifying Group Properties
35.2. User and Group Management Tools
35.2.1. Command Line Configuration
35.2.2. Adding a User
35.2.3. Adding a Group
35.2.4. Password Aging
35.2.5. Explaining the Process
35.3. Standard Users
35.4. Standard Groups
35.5. User Private Groups
35.5.1. Group Directories
35.6. Shadow Passwords
35.7. Additional Resources
35.7.1. Installed Documentation
36. Printer Configuration
36.1. Adding a Local Printer
36.2. Adding an IPP Printer
36.3. Adding a Samba (SMB) Printer
36.4. Adding a JetDirect Printer
36.5. Selecting the Printer Model and Finishing
36.5.1. Confirming Printer Configuration
36.6. Printing a Test Page
36.7. Modifying Existing Printers
36.7.1. The Settings Tab
36.7.2. The Policies Tab
36.7.3. The Access Control Tab
36.7.4. The Printer and Job OptionsTab
36.8. Managing Print Jobs
36.9. Additional Resources
36.9.1. Installed Documentation
36.9.2. Useful Websites
37. Automated Tasks
37.1. Cron
37.1.1. Configuring Cron Tasks
37.1.2. Controlling Access to Cron
37.1.3. Starting and Stopping the Service
37.2. At and Batch
37.2.1. Configuring At Jobs
37.2.2. Configuring Batch Jobs
37.2.3. Viewing Pending Jobs
37.2.4. Additional Command Line Options
37.2.5. Controlling Access to At and Batch
37.2.6. Starting and Stopping the Service
37.3. Additional Resources
37.3.1. Installed Documentation
38. Log Files
38.1. Locating Log Files
38.2. Viewing Log Files
38.3. Adding a Log File
38.4. Monitoring Log Files

Chapter 29. Console Access

When normal (non-root) users log into a computer locally, they are given two types of special permissions:
  1. They can run certain programs that they would otherwise be unable to run.
  2. They can access certain files (normally special device files used to access diskettes, CD-ROMs, and so on) that they would otherwise be unable to access.
Since there are multiple consoles on a single computer and multiple users can be logged into the computer locally at the same time, one of the users has to essentially win the race to access the files. The first user to log in at the console owns those files. Once the first user logs out, the next user who logs in owns the files.
In contrast, every user who logs in at the console is allowed to run programs that accomplish tasks normally restricted to the root user. If X is running, these actions can be included as menu items in a graphical user interface. As shipped, these console-accessible programs include halt, poweroff, and reboot.

29.1. Disabling Shutdown Via Ctrl+Alt+Del

By default, /etc/inittab specifies that your system is set to shutdown and reboot in response to a Ctrl+Alt+Del key combination used at the console. To completely disable this ability, comment out the following line in /etc/inittab by putting a hash mark (#) in front of it:
ca::ctrlaltdel:/sbin/shutdown -t3 -r now
Alternatively, you may want to allow certain non-root users the right to shutdown or reboot the system from the console using Ctrl+Alt+Del . You can restrict this privilege to certain users, by taking the following steps:
  1. Add the -a option to the /etc/inittab line shown above, so that it reads:
    ca::ctrlaltdel:/sbin/shutdown -a -t3 -r now
    The -a flag tells shutdown to look for the /etc/shutdown.allow file.
  2. Create a file named shutdown.allow in /etc. The shutdown.allow file should list the usernames of any users who are allowed to shutdown the system using Ctrl+Alt+Del . The format of the shutdown.allow file is a list of usernames, one per line, like the following:
    stephen
    jack
    sophie
According to this example shutdown.allow file, the users stephen, jack, and sophie are allowed to shutdown the system from the console using Ctrl+Alt+Del . When that key combination is used, the shutdown -a command in /etc/inittab checks to see if any of the users in /etc/shutdown.allow (or root) are logged in on a virtual console. If one of them is, the shutdown of the system continues; if not, an error message is written to the system console instead.
For more information on shutdown.allow, refer to the shutdown man page.

29.2. Disabling Console Program Access

To disable access by users to console programs, run the following command as root:
rm -f /etc/security/console.apps/*
In environments where the console is otherwise secured (BIOS and boot loader passwords are set, Ctrl+Alt+Delete is disabled, the power and reset switches are disabled, and so forth), you may not want to allow any user at the console to run poweroff, halt, and reboot, which are accessible from the console by default.
To disable these abilities, run the following commands as root:
rm -f /etc/security/console.apps/poweroff
rm -f /etc/security/console.apps/halt
rm -f /etc/security/console.apps/reboot

29.3. Defining the Console

The pam_console.so module uses the /etc/security/console.perms file to determine the permissions for users at the system console. The syntax of the file is very flexible; you can edit the file so that these instructions no longer apply. However, the default file has a line that looks like this:
<console>=tty[0-9][0-9]* vc/[0-9][0-9]* :[0-9]\.[0-9] :[0-9]
When users log in, they are attached to some sort of named terminal, which can be either an X server with a name like :0 or mymachine.example.com:1.0, or a device like /dev/ttyS0 or /dev/pts/2. The default is to define that local virtual consoles and local X servers are considered local, but if you want to consider the serial terminal next to you on port /dev/ttyS1 to also be local, you can change that line to read:
<console>=tty[0-9][0-9]* vc/[0-9][0-9]* :[0-9]\.[0-9] :[0-9] /dev/ttyS1

29.4. Making Files Accessible From the Console

The default settings for individual device classes and permission definitions are defined in /etc/security/console.perms.d/50-default.perms. To edit file and device permissions, it is advisable to create a new default file in /etc/security/console.perms.d/ containing your preferred settings for a specified set of files or devices. The name of the new default file must begin with a number higher than 50 (for example, 51-default.perms) in order to override 50-default.perms.
To do this, create a new file named 51-default.perms in /etc/security/console.perms.d/:
touch /etc/security/console.perms.d/51-default.perms
Open the original default perms file, 50-default.perms. The first section defines device classes, with lines similar to the following:
<floppy>=/dev/fd[0-1]* \
          /dev/floppy/* /mnt/floppy*
<sound>=/dev/dsp* /dev/audio* /dev/midi* \ 
	  /dev/mixer* /dev/sequencer \ 
	  /dev/sound/* /dev/beep \ 
	  /dev/snd/*
<cdrom>=/dev/cdrom* /dev/cdroms/* /dev/cdwriter* /mnt/cdrom*
Items enclosed in brackets name the device; in the above example, <cdrom> refers to the CD-ROM drive. To add a new device, do not define it in the default 50-default.perms file; instead, define it in 51-default.perms. For example, to define a scanner, add the following line to 51-default.perms:
<scanner>=/dev/scanner /dev/usb/scanner*
Of course, you must use the appropriate name for the device. Ensure that /dev/scanner is really your scanner and not some other device, such as your hard drive.
Once you have properly defined a device or file, the second step is to specify its permission definitions. The second section of /etc/security/console.perms.d/50-default.perms defines this, with lines similar to the following:
<console> 0660 <floppy> 0660 root.floppy
<console> 0600 <sound>  0640 root
<console> 0600 <cdrom>  0600 root.disk
To define permissions for a scanner, add a line similar to the following in 51-default.perms:
<console> 0600 <scanner> 0600 root
Then, when you log in at the console, you are given ownership of the /dev/scanner device with the permissions of 0600 (readable and writable by you only). When you log out, the device is owned by root, and still has the permissions 0600 (now readable and writable by root only).

Warning

You must never edit the default 50-default.perms file. To edit permissions for a device already defined in 50-default.perms, add the desired permission definition for that device in 51-default.perms. This will override whatever permissions are defined in 50-default.perms.

29.5. Enabling Console Access for Other Applications

To make other applications accessible to console users, a bit more work is required.
First of all, console access only works for applications which reside in /sbin/ or /usr/sbin/, so the application that you wish to run must be there. After verifying that, perform the following steps:
  1. Create a link from the name of your application, such as our sample foo program, to the /usr/bin/consolehelper application:
    cd /usr/bin
    ln -s consolehelper foo
  2. Create the file /etc/security/console.apps/foo:
    touch /etc/security/console.apps/foo
  3. Create a PAM configuration file for the foo service in /etc/pam.d/. An easy way to do this is to copy the PAM configuration file of the halt service, and then modify the copy if you want to change the behavior:
    cp /etc/pam.d/halt /etc/pam.d/foo
Now, when /usr/bin/foo is executed, consolehelper is called, which authenticates the user with the help of /usr/sbin/userhelper. To authenticate the user, consolehelper asks for the user's password if /etc/pam.d/foo is a copy of /etc/pam.d/halt (otherwise, it does precisely what is specified in /etc/pam.d/foo) and then runs /usr/sbin/foo with root permissions.
In the PAM configuration file, an application can be configured to use the pam_timestamp module to remember (or cache) a successful authentication attempt. When an application is started and proper authentication is provided (the root password), a timestamp file is created. By default, a successful authentication is cached for five minutes. During this time, any other application that is configured to use pam_timestamp and run from the same session is automatically authenticated for the user — the user does not have to enter the root password again.
This module is included in the pam package. To enable this feature, add the following lines to your PAM configuration file in etc/pam.d/:
auth            include         config-util
account         include         config-util
session         include         config-util
These lines can be copied from any of the /etc/pam.d/system-config-* configuration files. Note that these lines must be added below any other auth sufficient session optional lines in your PAM configuration file.
If an application configured to use pam_timestamp is successfully authenticated from the Applications (the main menu on the panel), the icon is displayed in the notification area of the panel if you are running the GNOME or KDE desktop environment. After the authentication expires (the default is five minutes), the icon disappears.
The user can select to forget the cached authentication by clicking on the icon and selecting the option to forget authentication.

29.6. The floppy Group

If, for whatever reason, console access is not appropriate for you and your non-root users require access to your system's diskette drive, this can be done using the floppy group. Add the user(s) to the floppy group using the tool of your choice. For example, the gpasswd command can be used to add user fred to the floppy group:
gpasswd -a fred floppy
Now, user fred is able to access the system's diskette drive from the console.

Chapter 30. The sysconfig Directory

The /etc/sysconfig/ directory contains a variety of system configuration files for Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
This chapter outlines some of the files found in the /etc/sysconfig/ directory, their function, and their contents. The information in this chapter is not intended to be complete, as many of these files have a variety of options that are only used in very specific or rare circumstances.

30.1. Files in the /etc/sysconfig/ Directory

The following sections offer descriptions of files normally found in the /etc/sysconfig/ directory. Files not listed here, as well as extra file options, are found in the /usr/share/doc/initscripts-<version-number>/sysconfig.txt file (replace <version-number> with the version of the initscripts package). Alternatively, looking through the initscripts in the /etc/rc.d/ directory can prove helpful.

Note

If some of the files listed here are not present in the /etc/sysconfig/ directory, then the corresponding program may not be installed.

30.1.1. /etc/sysconfig/amd

The /etc/sysconfig/amd file contains various parameters used by amd; these parameters allow for the automatic mounting and unmounting of file systems.

30.1.2. /etc/sysconfig/apmd

The /etc/sysconfig/apmd file is used by apmd to configure what power settings to start/stop/change on suspend or resume. This file configures how apmd functions at boot time, depending on whether the hardware supports Advanced Power Management (APM) or whether the user has configured the system to use it. The apm daemon is a monitoring program that works with power management code within the Linux kernel. It is capable of alerting users to low battery power on laptops and other power-related settings.

30.1.3. /etc/sysconfig/arpwatch

The /etc/sysconfig/arpwatch file is used to pass arguments to the arpwatch daemon at boot time. The arpwatch daemon maintains a table of Ethernet MAC addresses and their IP address pairings. By default, this file sets the owner of the arpwatch process to the user pcap and sends any messages to the root mail queue. For more information regarding available parameters for this file, refer to the arpwatch man page.

30.1.4. /etc/sysconfig/authconfig

The /etc/sysconfig/authconfig file sets the authorization to be used on the host. It contains one or more of the following lines:
  • USEMD5=<value>, where <value> is one of the following:
    • yes — MD5 is used for authentication.
    • no — MD5 is not used for authentication.
  • USEKERBEROS=<value>, where <value> is one of the following:
    • yes — Kerberos is used for authentication.
    • no — Kerberos is not used for authentication.
  • USELDAPAUTH=<value>, where <value> is one of the following:
    • yes — LDAP is used for authentication.
    • no — LDAP is not used for authentication.

30.1.5. /etc/sysconfig/autofs

The /etc/sysconfig/autofs file defines custom options for the automatic mounting of devices. This file controls the operation of the automount daemons, which automatically mount file systems when you use them and unmount them after a period of inactivity. File systems can include network file systems, CD-ROMs, diskettes, and other media.
The /etc/sysconfig/autofs file may contain the following:
  • LOCALOPTIONS="<value>", where <value> is a string for defining machine-specific automount rules. The default value is an empty string ("").
  • DAEMONOPTIONS="<value>", where <value> is the timeout length in seconds before unmounting the device. The default value is 60 seconds ("--timeout=60").
  • UNDERSCORETODOT=<value>, where <value> is a binary value that controls whether to convert underscores in file names into dots. For example, auto_home to auto.home and auto_mnt to auto.mnt. The default value is 1 (true).
  • DISABLE_DIRECT=<value>, where <value> is a binary value that controls whether to disable direct mount support, as the Linux implementation does not conform to the Sun Microsystems' automounter behavior. The default value is 1 (true), and allows for compatibility with the Sun automounter options specification syntax.

30.1.6. /etc/sysconfig/clock

The /etc/sysconfig/clock file controls the interpretation of values read from the system hardware clock.
The correct values are:
  • UTC=<value>, where <value> is one of the following boolean values:
    • true or yes — The hardware clock is set to Universal Time.
    • false or no — The hardware clock is set to local time.
  • ARC=<value>, where <value> is the following:
    • false or no — This value indicates that the normal UNIX epoch is in use. Other values are used by systems not supported by Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
  • SRM=<value>, where <value> is the following:
    • false or no — This value indicates that the normal UNIX epoch is in use. Other values are used by systems not supported by Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
  • ZONE=<filename> — The time zone file under /usr/share/zoneinfo that /etc/localtime is a copy of. The file contains information such as:
    ZONE="America/New York"
    Note that the ZONE parameter is read by the Time and Date Properties Tool (system-config-date), and manually editing it does not change the system timezone.
Earlier releases of Red Hat Enterprise Linux used the following values (which are deprecated):
  • CLOCKMODE=<value>, where <value> is one of the following:
    • GMT — The clock is set to Universal Time (Greenwich Mean Time).
    • ARC — The ARC console's 42-year time offset is in effect (for Alpha-based systems only).

30.1.7. /etc/sysconfig/desktop

The /etc/sysconfig/desktop file specifies the desktop for new users and the display manager to run when entering runlevel 5.
Correct values are:
  • DESKTOP="<value>", where "<value>" is one of the following:
    • GNOME — Selects the GNOME desktop environment.
    • KDE — Selects the KDE desktop environment.
  • DISPLAYMANAGER="<value>", where "<value>" is one of the following:
    • GNOME — Selects the GNOME Display Manager.
    • KDE — Selects the KDE Display Manager.
    • XDM — Selects the X Display Manager.
For more information, refer to Chapter 33, The X Window System.

30.1.8. /etc/sysconfig/dhcpd

The /etc/sysconfig/dhcpd file is used to pass arguments to the dhcpd daemon at boot time. The dhcpd daemon implements the Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) and the Internet Bootstrap Protocol (BOOTP). DHCP and BOOTP assign hostnames to machines on the network. For more information about what parameters are available in this file, refer to the dhcpd man page.

30.1.9. /etc/sysconfig/exim

The /etc/sysconfig/exim file allows messages to be sent to one or more clients, routing the messages over whatever networks are necessary. The file sets the default values for exim to run. Its default values are set to run as a background daemon and to check its queue each hour in case something has backed up.
The values include:
  • DAEMON=<value>, where <value> is one of the following:
    • yesexim should be configured to listen to port 25 for incoming mail. yes implies the use of the Exim's -bd options.
    • noexim should not be configured to listen to port 25 for incoming mail.
  • QUEUE=1h which is given to exim as -q$QUEUE. The -q option is not given to exim if /etc/sysconfig/exim exists and QUEUE is empty or undefined.

30.1.10. /etc/sysconfig/firstboot

The first time the system boots, the /sbin/init program calls the etc/rc.d/init.d/firstboot script, which in turn launches the Setup Agent. This application allows the user to install the latest updates as well as additional applications and documentation.
The /etc/sysconfig/firstboot file tells the Setup Agent application not to run on subsequent reboots. To run it the next time the system boots, remove /etc/sysconfig/firstboot and execute chkconfig --level 5 firstboot on.

30.1.11. /etc/sysconfig/gpm

The /etc/sysconfig/gpm file is used to pass arguments to the gpm daemon at boot time. The gpm daemon is the mouse server which allows mouse acceleration and middle-click pasting. For more information about what parameters are available for this file, refer to the gpm man page. By default, the DEVICE directive is set to /dev/input/mice.

30.1.12. /etc/sysconfig/hwconf

The /etc/sysconfig/hwconf file lists all the hardware that kudzu detected on the system, as well as the drivers used, vendor ID, and device ID information. The kudzu program detects and configures new and/or changed hardware on a system. The /etc/sysconfig/hwconf file is not meant to be manually edited. If edited, devices could suddenly show up as being added or removed.

30.1.13. /etc/sysconfig/i18n

The /etc/sysconfig/i18n file sets the default language, any supported languages, and the default system font. For example:
LANG="en_US.UTF-8"
SUPPORTED="en_US.UTF-8:en_US:en"
SYSFONT="latarcyrheb-sun16"

30.1.14. /etc/sysconfig/init

The /etc/sysconfig/init file controls how the system appears and functions during the boot process.
The following values may be used:
  • BOOTUP=<value>, where <value> is one of the following:
    • color — The standard color boot display, where the success or failure of devices and services starting up is shown in different colors.
    • verbose — An old style display which provides more information than purely a message of success or failure.
    • Anything else means a new display, but without ANSI-formatting.
  • RES_COL=<value>, where <value> is the number of the column of the screen to start status labels. The default is set to 60.
  • MOVE_TO_COL=<value>, where <value> moves the cursor to the value in the RES_COL line via the echo -en command.
  • SETCOLOR_SUCCESS=<value>, where <value> sets the success color via the echo -en command. The default color is set to green.
  • SETCOLOR_FAILURE=<value>, where <value> sets the failure color via the echo -en command. The default color is set to red.
  • SETCOLOR_WARNING=<value>, where <value> sets the warning color via the echo -en command. The default color is set to yellow.
  • SETCOLOR_NORMAL=<value>, where <value> resets the color to "normal" via the echo -en.
  • LOGLEVEL=<value>, where <value> sets the initial console logging level for the kernel. The default is 3; 8 means everything (including debugging), while 1 means only kernel panics. The syslo