104 Chapter 6. Red Hat Network Website
6.6.6. Manage Config Channels —
Provides the means to create and oversee channels containing configuration files. You must be an
Configuration Administrator or Organization Administrator to view this section of the website. Like
software channels, configuration channels store files to be installed on systems. Unlike software pack-
ages, various versions of configuration files may prove useful to a system at any given time. Further,
RHN allows you to include variables, or macros, that may make your configuration files templates that
can be deployed across your organization, with the relevant values populated upon individual system
installation.
Please note that whenever a configuration file is deployed via RHN, a backup of the previous file
including its full path is made in the /var/lib/rhncfg/backups/directory on the affected system.
The backup will retain its filename but have a .rhn-cfg-backup extension appended.
6.6.6.1. Preparing Systems for Config Management
For a system to have its configuration managed through RHN, it must have the appropriate tools and
config-enable file installed. These tools may already be installed on your system, especially if you
kickstarted the system with configuration management functionality. If not, they can be found within
the RHNTools child channel for yourdistribution. Download and install the latest rhncfg* packages.
They are:
• rhncfg — The base libraries and functions needed by all rhncfg-* packages.
• rhncfg-actions — The code required to run configuration actions scheduled via the RHN web-
site.
• rhncfg-client — A command line interface to the client features of the RHN Configuration
Management system.
• rhncfg-management — A command line interface used to manage RHN configuration.
Next, you must place a config-enable file on the system to have config actions scheduled. This file
is required to allow configuration management on the system while preventing inadvertent and po-
tentially dangerous changes. To create this file, issue the following commands as root on the target
system. First, create the necessary directory:
mkdir -p /etc/sysconfig/rhn/allowed-actions/configfiles
Then, you should decide exactly what actions should be allowed by system administrators. The fol-
lowing modes are available:
• deploy — Install configuration files from the central repository on the system. Without this set, the
configuration management interface provides no real value for this system.
• verify — Identify any differences between configuration files on the system and those associated
with it in the central repository.
• diff — Display differences between configuration files on the system and those associated with it
in the central repository.
• upload — Send any files from the system to the central repository. This is similar to granting root
privileges on the machine.
• mtime_upload — Send files modified since a certain date and time from the system to the central
repository.
• all — Enable all of these modes for configuration management on the system.
To set individual modes, issue this command (repeatedly, as root), appending the mode name to the
end:
