Chapter 2. Client Applications

The Package Updater (pup), yum, the yum RHN Plugin (yum-rhn-plugin)and the Red Hat Network Registration Client (rhn_register) on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 and 6 are prerequisites for using much of Red Hat Network's enterprise functionality. It is crucial to install them on client systems before attempting to use RHN Proxy Server or RHN Satellite Server in your environment.

There are several sensible approaches to accomplish this update of the RHN client software. One of which involves storing the RPMs in a location that is accessible by all client systems and deploying the packages with the simplest command possible. In nearly all cases, a manual deployment of yum, pup, and rhn_register do not need to be performed. Those client tools should have no issues connecting to the RHN Satellite or Proxy environment. The following information below assumes that the "out of box" yum, pup, and rhn_register are not the latest and do not work for your environment.

Note that systems running Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 and 6 must have registered with RHN in either firstboot after installation or using the rhn_register command.

This document presumes that the customer has installed at least one RHN Satellite Server and/or RHN Proxy Server on their network. The example below demonstrates a simple approach of deploying yum, pup, and rhn_register (or up2date) for the first time by an administrator, assuming the machines do not have an existing, working RHN:

rpm -Uvh
http://satellite.example.com/pub/rhn-setup-0.4.17-8.el5.i386.rpm
http://satellite.example.com/pub/yum-3.2.8-9.el5.i386.rpm
http://satellite.example.com/pub/pirut-1.3.28-13.3l5.noarch.rpm

rpm -Uvh
http://satellite.example.com/pub/rhn-setup-0.4.17-8.el5.i386.rpm
http://satellite.example.com/pub/yum-3.2.8-9.el5.i386.rpm
http://satellite.example.com/pub/pirut-1.3.28-13.3l5.noarch.rpm

The administrator has already pre-populated the /var/www/html/pub/ directory, on the RHN Satellite or RHN Proxy environment, with a copy of the yum, pup, and rhn_register RPMs that the client systems need, and then by running the command above, the RPMs have been deployed onto the client systems with a simple rpm -Uvh command. The rpm -Uvh command, when run from a client, installs the RPMs to that client, assuming the domain name, paths, and RPM versions are correct (note that the command has been split into multiple lines for print and PDF purposes but should be typed as one line at a shell prompt):

Keep in mind that the architecture (in this case, i386) and package versions may need to be altered depending on the systems to be served.