1.3. Provisioning
As the highest management service level, RHN Provisioning encompasses all of the features offered in the RHN Update and Management subscription levels. It is designed to allow you to deploy and manage your network of Red Hat Enterprise Linux systems, users, and system groups.
Like Management, Provisioning is based upon an organization. It takes this concept a step further by enabling customers with Provisioning entitlements to kickstart, reconfigure, track, and revert systems on the fly.
In addition to all of the features mentioned in lower service levels, Provisioning provides:
- Kickstarting — Systems with Provisioning entitlements may be re-installed through RHN with a whole host of options established in kickstart profiles. Options include everything from the type of bootloader and time zone to packages included/excluded and IP address ranges allowed. Even GPG and SSL keys can be pre-configured.
- Client Configuration — RHN Satellite Customers may use RHN to manage the configuration files on Provisioning-entitled systems. Users can upload files to custom configurations channels on the Satellite, verify local configuration files against those stored on the Satellite, and deploy files from the Satellite.
- Snapshot Rollbacks — Provisioning-level users have the ability to revert the package profile and RHN settings of systems. RHN Satellite customers can also roll back local configurations files. This is possible because snapshots are captured whenever an action takes place on a system. These snapshots identify groups, channels, packages, and configuration files.
- Custom System Information — Provisioning customers may identify any type of information they choose about their registered systems. This differs from System Profile information, which is generated automatically, and the Notes, which are unrestricted, in that the Custom System Information allows you to develop specific keys of your choosing and assign searchable values for that key to each Provisioning-entitled system. For instance, this feature allows you to identify the cubicle in which each system is located and search through all registered systems according to their cubicle.
