Appendix B. Host Management Without Goferd


If you manage errata and package management through remote execution, you can disable the goferd service to reduce memory and CPU load on content hosts.

The Satellite Tools repository provides katello-host-tools, which provides communication services for managing Errata.

B.1. Prerequisites

The following must be made on all content hosts to allow host management by remote execution.

  • Ensure that the katello-host-tools package is installed:

    # yum install katello-host-tools
  • Stop the goferd service:

    # systemctl stop goferd.service
  • Disable the goferd service:

    # systemctl disable goferd.service
  • Distribute the SSH keys to the content hosts by following Section 9.3, “Distributing SSH Keys for Remote Execution”.

These steps configure host management to use remote execution as the system default for future package deployments.

To Configure Host Management Without Goferd as the System Default:

  1. Log in to the Satellite web UI.
  2. Navigate to Administer > Settings.
  3. Select the Content tab.
  4. Set the Use remote execution by default parameter to Yes.

The Satellite server now uses host management by remote execution instead of goferd.

B.3. Limitations with Hammer

The following applies if you are using the hammer command to push errata. The hammer command is dependent on goferd to manage errata on content hosts. As a workaround, use Satellite’s remote execution feature to apply errata.

To Use Hammer Remote Execution Commands:

For example, perform a yum -y update on host123.example.org:

# hammer job-invocation create \
--job-template "Run Command - SSH Default" \
--inputs command="yum -y update" \
--search-query "name ~ host123"
Job invocation 24 created
[.........................................] [100%]
1 task(s), 1 success, 0 fail
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