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Appendix F. Synchronizing Templates with Git

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Red Hat Satellite 6 enables synchronization of Job Templates, Provisioning Templates, and Partition Table Templates between Satellite Server and a Git repository or a local directory.

Note

Synchronizing templates between Satellite Server and a Git repository or a local directory is a Technology Preview feature. Technology Preview features are not fully supported under Red Hat Subscription Service Level Agreements (SLAs), may not be functionally complete, and are not intended for production use. However, these features provide early access to upcoming product innovations, enabling customers to test functionality and provide feedback during the development process.

This section details the workflow for:

  • installing and configuring the TemplateSync plug-in
  • performing exporting and importing tasks

F.1. Enabling the TemplateSync plug-in

  1. To enable the plug-in on your Satellite Server:

    # satellite-installer --enable-foreman-plugin-templates
  2. To verify that the plug-in is installed correctly, ensure Administer > Settings includes the TemplateSync menu.

F.2. Configuring the TemplateSync plug-in

Navigate to Administer > Settings > TemplateSync to configure the plug-in. The following table explains the attributes behavior. Note that some attributes are only used on importing or exporting tasks.

Table F.1. Synchronizing Templates Plug-in configuration
ParameterAPI parameter nameMeaning on importingMeaning on exporting

Associate

associate

Accepted values: always, new, never

Associates templates with OS, Organization, and Location based on metadata.

N/A

Branch

branch

Specifies the default branch in Git repository to read from.

Specifies the default branch in Git repository to write to.

Dirname

dirname

Specifies the subdirectory under the repository to read from.

Specifies the subdirectory under the repository to write to.

Filter

filter

Imports only templates with names that match this regular expression.

Exports only templates with names that match this regular expression.

Force import

force

Imported templates overwrite locked templates with the same name.

N/A

Metadata export mode

metadata_export_mode

Accepted values: refresh, keep, remove

N/A

Defines how metadata is handled when exporting:

  • Refresh — remove existing metadata from the template content and generate new metadata based on current assignments and attributes.
  • Keep — retain the existing metadata.
  • Remove — export template without metadata. Useful if you want to add metadata manually.

Negate

negate

Accepted values: true, false

Imports templates ignoring the filter attribute.

Exports templates ignoring the filter attribute.

Prefix

prefix

Adds specified string to the beginning of the template if the template name does not start with the prefix already.

N/A

Repo

repo

Defines the path to the repository to synchronize from.

Defines the path to a repository to export to.

Verbosity

verbose

Accepted values: true, false

Enables writing verbose messages to the logs for this action.

N/A

F.3. Importing and Exporting Templates

Importing and exporting tasks are available through a series of API calls. API calls use the role-based access control system, which enables the tasks to be executed as any user. The TemplateSync plug-in allows synchronizing with a Git repository or a local directory.

Prerequisites

For imported templates to appear in the Satellite web UI, each template must contain the location and organization that the template belongs to. This applies to all template types. Before you import a template, ensure that you add the following section to the template:

<%#
kind: provision
name: My Kickstart File
oses:
- RedHat 7
- RedHat 6
locations:
- First Location
- Second Location
organizations:
- Default Organization
- Extra Organization
%>

F.3.1. Synchronizing Templates with a Git repository

  1. Configure a Git server that uses SSH authorization, for example gitosis, gitolite, or git daemon.
  2. Configure the TemplateSync plug-in settings on a TemplateSync tab.

    1. Change the Branch setting to match the target branch on a Git server.
    2. Change the Repo setting to match the Git repository. For example, for the repository located in git@git.example.com/templates.git set the setting into ssh://git@git.example.com/templates.git.
  3. Accept Git SSH host key as the foreman user:

    # sudo -u foreman ssh git.example.com

    You can see the Permission denied, please try again. message in the output, which is expected, because the SSH connection cannot succeed yet.

  4. Create an SSH key pair if you do not already have it. Do not specify any passphrase.

    # sudo -u foreman ssh-keygen
  5. Configure your Git server with the public key from your Satellite, which resides in /usr/share/foreman/.ssh/id_rsa.pub.
  6. Export templates from your Satellite Server to the Git repository specified in the TemplateSync menu:

    $ curl -H "Accept:application/json,version=2" \
    -H "Content-Type:application/json" \
    -u login:password \
    -k https://satellite.example.com/api/v2/templates/export \
    -X POST
    
    {"message":"Success"}
  7. Import templates to Satellite Server after their content was changed:

    $ curl -H "Accept:application/json,version=2" \
    -H "Content-Type:application/json" \
    -u login:password \
    -k https://satellite.example.com/api/v2/templates/import \
    -X POST
    
    {“message”:”Success”}

    Note that templates provided by Satellite are locked and you cannot import them by default. To overwrite this behavior, change the Force import setting in the TemplateSync menu to yes or add the force parameter -d '{ "force": "true" }’ to the import command.

F.3.2. Synchronizing templates with a local directory

Synchronizing templates with a local directory is useful if you have configured any revision control system repository in the local directory. That way, you can edit templates and track the history of edits in the directory. You can also synchronize changes to Satellite Server after editing the templates.

  1. Create the directory where templates are stored and apply appropriate permissions and SELinux context:

    # mkdir -p /usr/share/templates_dir/
    # chown foreman /usr/share/templates_dir/
    # chcon -t httpd_sys_rw_content_t /usr/share/templates_dir/ -R
  2. Change the Repo setting on the TemplateSync tab to match the export directory /usr/share/templates_dir/.
  3. Export templates from your Satellite Server to a local directory:

    $ curl -H "Accept:application/json,version=2" \
    -H "Content-Type:application/json" \
    -u login:password \
    -k https://satellite.example.com/api/v2/templates/export \
    -X POST \
    
    {"message":"Success"}
  4. Import templates to Satellite Server after their content was changed:

    $ curl -H "Accept:application/json,version=2" \
    -H "Content-Type:application/json" \
    -u login:password \
    -k https://satellite.example.com/api/v2/templates/import \
    -X POST
    
    {“message”:”Success”}

    Note that templates provided by Satellite are locked and you cannot import them by default. To overwrite this behavior, change the Force import setting in the TemplateSync menu to yes or add the force parameter -d '{ "force": "true" }’ to the import command.

Note

You can override default API settings by specifying them in the request with the -d parameter. The following example exports templates to the git.example.com/templates repository:

$ curl -H "Accept:application/json,version=2" \
-H "Content-Type:application/json" \
-u login:password \
-k https://satellite.example.com/api/v2/templates/export \
-X POST \
-d "{\"repo\":\"git.example.com/templates\"}"

F.4. Advanced Git Configuration

You can perform additional Git configuration for the TemplateSync plug-in using the command line or editing the .gitconfig file.

Accepting a self-signed Git certificate

If you are using a self-signed certificate authentification on your Git server, validate the certificate with the git config http.sslCAPath command.

For example, the following command verifies a self-signed certificate stored in /cert/cert.pem:

# sudo -u foreman git config --global http.sslCAPath cert/cert.pem

For a complete list of advanced options, see the git-config manual page.

F.5. Uninstalling the plug-in

To avoid errors after uninstallation:

  1. Disable the plug-in using the Satellite installer:

    # satellite-installer --no-enable-foreman-plugin-templates
  2. Clean custom data of the plug-in. The command does not affect any templates that you created.

    # foreman-rake templates:cleanup
  3. Uninstall the plug-in:

    # yum remove tfm-rubygem-foreman_templates
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