Chapter 3. Configuring and Setting up Remote Jobs

1. Satellite finds the host’s interfaces that have the Remote execution check box selected.
2. Satellite finds the subnets of these interfaces.
3. Satellite finds remote execution Capsules assigned to these subnets.
4. From this set of Capsules, Satellite selects the Capsule that has the least number of running jobs. By doing this, Satellite ensures that the jobs load is balanced between remote execution Capsules.

5. If Satellite does not find a remote execution Capsule at this stage, and if the Fallback to Any Capsule setting is enabled, Satellite adds another set of Capsules to select the remote execution Capsule from. Satellite selects the most lightly loaded Capsule from the following types of Capsules that are assigned to the host:

   • DHCP, DNS and TFTP Capsules assigned to the host’s subnets
   • DNS Capsule assigned to the host’s domain
   • Realm Capsule assigned to the host’s realm
   • Puppet Master Capsule
   • Puppet CA Capsule
   • OpenSCAP Capsule
6. If Satellite does not find a remote execution Capsule at this stage, and if the Enable Global Capsule setting is enabled, Satellite selects the most lightly loaded remote execution Capsule from the set of all Capsules in the host’s organization and location to execute a remote job.

1. Navigate to Hosts > Job templates.
2. Click New Job Template.
3. Click the Template tab, and in the Name field, enter a unique name for your job template.
4. Select Default to make the template available for all organizations and locations.
5. Create the template directly in the template editor or upload it from a text file by clicking Import.
6. Optional: In the Audit Comment field, add information about the change.
7. Click the Job tab, and in the Job category field, enter your own category or select from the default categories listed in Section A.2, “Default Job Template Categories”.
8. Optional: In the Description Format field, enter a description template. For example, Install package %{package_name}. You can also use %{template_name} and %{job_category} in your template.
9. From the Provider Type list, select SSH for shell scripts and Ansible for Ansible tasks or playbooks.
10. Optional: In the Timeout to kill field, enter a timeout value to terminate the job if it does not complete.
11. Optional: Click Add Input to define an input parameter. Parameters are requested when executing the job and do not have to be defined in the template. For examples, see the Help tab.
12. Optional: Click Foreign input set to include other templates in this job.
13. Optional: In the Effective user area, configure a user if the command cannot use the default remote_execution_effective_user setting.
14. Optional: If this template is a snippet to be included in other templates, click the Type tab and select Snippet.
15. Click the Location tab and add the locations where you want to use the template.
16. Click the Organizations tab and add the organizations where you want to use the template.
17. Click Submit to save your changes.

Procedure

1. In the Satellite web UI, navigate to Administer > Settings.
2. Click RemoteExecution.
3. Configure the Fallback to Any Capsule setting.

Procedure

1. In the Satellite web UI, navigate to Administer > Settings.
2. Click RemoteExection.
3. Configure the Enable Global Capsule setting.

1. Create a new directory, for example new_place:

   # mkdir /remote_working_dir

2. Copy the SELinux context from the default var directory:

   # chcon --reference=/var /remote_working_dir

3. Edit the ansible_working_dir setting in the /etc/foreman-proxy/settings.d/ansible.yml file to point to the required directory, for example:

   :ansible_working_dir: /remote_working_dir

1. Section 3.9, “Distributing SSH Keys for Remote Execution Manually”.
2. Section 3.10, “Using the Satellite API to Obtain SSH Keys for Remote Execution”.
3. Section 3.11, “Configuring a Kickstart Template to Distribute SSH Keys during Provisioning”.

Procedure

1. Enter the following command on Capsule. Repeat for each target host you want to manage:

   # ssh-copy-id -i ~foreman-proxy/.ssh/id_rsa_foreman_proxy.pub root@target.example.com

2. To confirm that the key was successfully copied to the target host, enter the following command on Capsule:

   # ssh -i ~foreman-proxy/.ssh/id_rsa_foreman_proxy root@target.example.com

Procedure

1. On the target host, create the _/.ssh directory to store the SSH key:

   # mkdir ~/.ssh

2. Download the SSH key from Capsule:

   # curl https://capsule.example.com:9090/ssh/pubkey >> ~/.ssh/authorized_keys

3. Configure permissions for the ~/.ssh directory:

   # chmod 700 ~/.ssh

4. Configure permissions for the authorized_keys file:

   # chmod 600 ~/.ssh/authorized_keys

1. Find the ID of the foreman-proxy user:

   # id -u foreman-proxy

2. Modify the umask value so that new files have the permissions 600:

   # umask 077

3. Create the directory for the keytab:

   # mkdir -p "/var/kerberos/krb5/user/USER_ID"

4. Create a keytab or copy an existing keytab to the directory:

   # cp your_client.keytab /var/kerberos/krb5/user/USER_ID/client.keytab

5. Change the directory owner to the foreman-proxy user:

   # chown -R foreman-proxy:foreman-proxy "/var/kerberos/krb5/user/USER_ID"

6. Ensure that the keytab file is read-only:

   # chmod -wx "/var/kerberos/krb5/user/USER_ID/client.keytab"

7. Restore the SELinux context:

   # restorecon -RvF /var/kerberos/krb5

1. To install and enable Kerberos authentication for remote execution, enter the following command:

   # satellite-installer --scenario satellite \
    --foreman-proxy-plugin-remote-execution-ssh-ssh-kerberos-auth true

2. To edit the default user for remote execution, in the Satellite web UI, navigate to Administer > Settings and click the RemoteExecution tab. In the SSH User row, edit the second column and add the user name for the Kerberos account.
3. Navigate to remote_execution_effective_user and edit the second column to add the user name for the Kerberos account.

1. To clone a template, in the Actions column, select Clone.
2. Enter a unique name for the clone and click Submit to save the changes.

Procedure

1. Navigate to Hosts > All Hosts and select the target hosts on which you want to execute a remote job. You can use the search field to filter the host list.
2. From the Select Action list, select Schedule Remote Job.
3. On the Job invocation page, define the main job settings:
4. Select the Job category and the Job template you want to use.
5. Optional: Select a stored search string in the Bookmark list to specify the target hosts.
6. Optional: Further limit the targeted hosts by entering a Search query. The Resolves to line displays the number of hosts affected by your query. Use the refresh button to recalculate the number after changing the query. The preview icon lists the targeted hosts.
7. The remaining settings depend on the selected job template. See Section 3.4, “Creating a Job Template:” for information on adding custom parameters to a template.

8. Optional: To configure advanced settings for the job, click Display advanced fields. Some of the advanced settings depend on the job template, the following settings are general:

   • Effective user defines the user for executing the job, by default it is the SSH user.
   • Concurrency level defines the maximum number of jobs executed at once, which can prevent overload of systems' resources in a case of executing the job on a large number of hosts.
   • Timeout to kill defines time interval in seconds after which the job should be killed, if it is not finished already. A task which could not be started during the defined interval, for example, if the previous task took too long to finish, is canceled.
   • Type of query defines when the search query is evaluated. This helps to keep the query up to date for scheduled tasks.

   • Execution ordering determines the order in which the job is executed on hosts: alphabetical or randomized.

     Concurrency level and Timeout to kill settings enable you to tailor job execution to fit your infrastructure hardware and needs.

9. To run the job immediately, ensure that Schedule is set to Execute now. You can also define a one-time future job, or set up a recurring job. For recurring tasks, you can define start and end dates, number and frequency of runs. You can also use cron syntax to define repetition. For more information about cron, see the Automating System Tasks section of the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 System Administrator’s Guide.
10. Click Submit. This displays the Job Overview page, and when the job completes, also displays the status of the job.

1. Find the ID of the job template you want to use:

   # hammer job-template list

2. Show the template details to see parameters required by your template:

   # hammer job-template info --id template_ID

3. Execute a remote job with custom parameters:

   # hammer job-invocation create \
   --job-template "template_name" \
   --inputs key1="value",key2="value",... \
   --search-query "query"

   Replace query with the filter expression that defines hosts, for example "name ~ rex01". For more information about executing remote commands with hammer, enter hammer job-template --help and hammer job-invocation --help.

Procedure

1. Navigate to the Job page. This page is automatically displayed if you triggered the job with the Execute now setting. To monitor scheduled jobs, navigate to Monitor > Jobs and select the job run you wish to inspect.
2. On the Job page, click the Hosts tab. This displays the list of hosts on which the job is running.
3. In the Host column, click the name of the host that you want to inspect. This displays the Detail of Commands page where you can monitor the job execution in real time.
4. Click Back to Job at any time to return to the Job Details page.

1. Find the ID of a job:

   # hammer job-invocation list

2. Monitor the job output:

   # hammer job-invocation output \
   --id job_ID \
   --host host_name

3. Optional: to cancel a job, enter the following command:

   # hammer job-invocation cancel \
   --id job_ID