Registering RHEL 8 or CentOS Linux 8 with RMT
This guide describes how to use SUSE Liberty Linux to update Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 or CentOS Linux 8.
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1 Introduction #
SUSE Liberty Linux is a technology and support solution for mixed Linux environments. With a SUSE Liberty Linux subscription, you can register and receive updates for Red Hat Enterprise Linux, CentOS Linux, and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server. An optional High Availability extension is also available.
CentOS Stream is not supported.
You can register RHEL 8 or CentOS Linux 8 with one of the following tools:
Repository Mirroring Tool (RMT)
SUSE Manager
This guide describes how to register with an RMT server. RMT is a proxy system for the SUSE Customer Center. The RMT server is registered with the SUSE Customer Center, and other systems in the network are registered with the RMT server and receive packages from it directly.
If you already have an RMT server and only need to register your RHEL 8 or CentOS Linux 8 system, skip straight to Section 5, “Registering RHEL or CentOS Linux with RMT”.
If you already have an RMT server but still need to mirror the SUSE Liberty Linux 8 repositories, go to Section 4, “Mirroring SUSE Liberty Linux repositories with RMT”.
If you still need to set up the RMT server, start with Section 2, “Installing a virtual machine to host RMT” and Section 3, “Configuring the RMT server”.
SUSE Liberty Linux now provides what used to be covered by the SUSE Linux Enterprise Server with Expanded Support subscription. Some components might still use the Expanded Support name during the transition period.
2 Installing a virtual machine to host RMT #
Use this procedure to install a SLES Minimal VM, a preconfigured virtual machine image that contains a slimmed-down version of SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES). This machine will be the Repository Mirroring Tool (RMT) server. You can use your SUSE Liberty Linux subscription to register this machine.
If you would prefer to install a full SLES machine on bare metal, see Installation Quick Start.
You have a SUSE Liberty Linux subscription.
You have a SUSE Customer Center account.
The VM must have a static IP address and host name. This guide includes steps for configuring the VM's network setup, but you must have basic networking knowledge to fill in the details.
You have the infrastructure to run virtual machines. This guide explains how to set up the VM to host RMT, but does not describe how to use different virtualization products. See the relevant documentation for your product.
The RMT server needs enough available disk space to mirror the SUSE Liberty Linux 8 repositories. Downloaded packages are stored in
/var/lib/rmt/public/repo/
. The amount of storage required depends on the number of repositories you mirror. We recommend at least 1.5 times the total size of all enabled repositories.Important: SUSE Liberty Linux 8 repository sizeThe SUSE Liberty Linux repositories will grow over time because older package versions are not removed. To meet the 1.5x size recommendation, based on the current[1] size of the SUSE Liberty Linux 8 repositories, you will need approximately 495 GB of disk space available for the RMT server.
If you also need the
Source
andDebug
repositories, you will need an additional 1335 GB available.
Download the appropriate
Minimal-VM
image for your virtualization infrastructure from https://www.suse.com/download/sles/.Use the
Minimal-VM
image to start the virtual machine.The default disk size for SLES Minimal VM is 24 GB. If you can customize the configuration before the installation begins, increase the available storage so there is enough disk space for repository mirroring.
When the
JeOS Firstboot
screen appears, select .Choose your keyboard layout and select
.Review the
End User License Agreement
and select . To agree with the terms of the license, select .Choose your time zone and select
.Enter a
root
password and select , then confirm the password and select again.JeOS Firstboot shows the command to use to register this VM. You do not need to write this down; the command is explained in this procedure. Select
.When the VM is ready, log in as the
root
user with the password you entered during setup.Register the VM using your SUSE Customer Center email address and the registration code for SUSE Liberty Linux:
#
SUSEConnect -e EMAIL_ADDRESS -r REGISTRATION_CODE
This activates the
Basesystem
,Server Applications
, andPython 3
modules.If you did not already increase the VM's disk space before the installation began, increase it now. You might need to shut down the VM to do so. The VM must have enough space to mirror the SUSE Liberty Linux 8 repository.
You must also configure a static IP address and host name for the VM. If you are familiar with any networking tools in SLES, configure the network with your preferred tool. If not, use the YaST graphical interface:
Install YaST and the YaST
network
module:#
zypper install yast2 yast2-network
Start the YaST
network
module:#
yast2 lan
In the
tab, select to change the settings of theeth0
device. The dialog opens.In the
tab, activate .Fill in the
, , and fields.Select
.Switch to the
tab and fill in the field.Change
tono
.Fill in at least one
field.Switch to the
tab and select . A new dialog opens.Fill in the
field. Make sure to remove the-
character.From the
drop-down list, selecteth0
.Select
to close the dialog.Select
to complete the configuration and close YaST.Check the network settings:
#
ip addr
Check that the network interface can access external networks:
#
ping www.suse.com
Cancel the ping with Ctrl–C.
You can now install RMT on the virtual machine.
3 Configuring the RMT server #
Use this procedure to configure the Repository Mirroring Tool (RMT) on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) 15.
A SLES 15 virtual machine is installed as described in Section 2, “Installing a virtual machine to host RMT”.
The SLES machine has a static IP address and host name.
You have a SUSE Customer Center account and organization credentials.
On the SLES machine, install RMT:
#
zypper in rmt-server
Install the following packages, which are not installed by default on a SLES Minimal VM:
#
zypper install yast2-rmt mariadb nginx
Start the YaST
rmt
:#
yast2 rmt
Enter your
, then select .To find your organization credentials, log in to the SUSE Customer Center, select your organization from , and click . Your organization's are in the top right corner.
Enter
for a new MariaDB database user, then select . The new user is created.When prompted, enter and confirm a new password for the MariaDB root user, then select
.Enter a
for the SSL certificates. The common name is usually the host name of the server.If the server has other domain names or IP addresses, enter these as
. Select to add new names. When all common names are entered, select .If prompted, enter and confirm a password for the CA private key, then select
.Activate the check box
, then select .YaST displays the
. If there are no issues, select .Review the
, then select to close YaST.
YaST enables and starts all RMT systemd
services and timers.
4 Mirroring SUSE Liberty Linux repositories with RMT #
Use this procedure to mirror the SUSE Liberty Linux repositories for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 and CentOS Linux 8.
The RMT server is installed and up to date.
The RMT server has enough storage available for repository mirroring. The amount of storage required depends on the number of repositories you mirror. We recommend at least 1.5 times the total size of all enabled repositories. Be aware that the SUSE Liberty Linux repositories will grow substantially over time.
Your organization credentials appear correctly in
/etc/rmt.conf
.You have a SUSE Liberty Linux subscription activated in the SUSE Customer Center.
On the RMT server, update the available product and repository metadata:
#
rmt-cli sync
Synchronization is also performed automatically by
rmt-server-sync.timer
. You can check the status and the next scheduled synchronization time with the following command:#
systemctl status rmt-server-sync.timer
Enable SUSE Liberty Linux 8 using the product ID
1921
:#
rmt-cli product enable 1921
This enables all the default repositories associated with the product.
If your subscription includes the High Availability extension, enable the extension using the product ID
1922
:#
rmt-cli product enable 1922
To check whether the High Availability extension is available, run this command:
rmt-cli products list --all --name="Liberty" --version=8
If you also need the
Source
orDebug
repositories, find and enable them with the following commands:#
rmt-cli repo list --all | grep RES-
#
rmt-cli repo enable REPO_ID
Start package mirroring for the enabled repositories:
#
rmt-cli mirror
Packages are downloaded to the RMT server once per day by
rmt-server-mirror.timer
. You can check the status and the next scheduled download time with the following command:#
systemctl status rmt-server-mirror.timer
5 Registering RHEL or CentOS Linux with RMT #
Use this procedure to register Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 or CentOS Linux 8 with the RMT server.
CentOS Stream is not supported.
The RMT server is running rmt-server version 2.10 or later.
The SUSE Liberty Linux 8 repositories are available on the RMT server.
The system you want to register can access the RMT server.
The system you want to register is up to date. SUSE Liberty Linux only supports the latest minor release of RHEL 8 or CentOS Linux 8.
You have a SUSE Liberty Linux subscription activated in the SUSE Customer Center.
You have removed the system from any Red Hat subscription services it was registered to.
Download the
rmt-client-setup-res
script:#
curl http://RMT_SERVER/tools/rmt-client-setup-res --output rmt-client-setup-res
Run the
rmt-client-setup-res
script with the URL of the RMT server as a parameter:#
sh rmt-client-setup-res https://RMT_SERVER
The script installs
SUSEConnect
and its dependencies, then downloads and runs thermt-client-setup
script, which performs the following tasks:Downloads all keys from
http://RMT_SERVER/repo/keys
.Imports the keys with
gpg --import
andrpm --import
.Downloads the CA certificate from
https://RMT_SERVER/rmt.crt
.Imports the CA certificate to the trust store.
Uses
SUSEConnect
to register the system with the RMT server. Registering the system usingSUSEConnect
adds and enables all default repositories.
You should see
Successfully registered system
.Verify the installed product:
#
SUSEConnect --status-text
You should see the following output:
Installed Products: ------------------------------------------ SLES Expanded Support platform release file (RES/8/x86_64) Registered ------------------------------------------
Verify the available repositories:
#
dnf repolist
You should see
RES-8-Updates
,RES-AS-8-Updates
, andRES-CB-8-Updates
.If your subscription includes the High Availability extension, activate it with the following command:
#
SUSEConnect -p RES-HA/8/x86_64
To check whether the extension is available, run the
SUSEConnect --list-extensions
command.Run the update command to make sure there are no errors:
#
dnf update
You can now keep your system up to date from repositories provided by SUSE Liberty Linux.
6 Troubleshooting #
nginx.service
is inactive after installing the rmt-server packageContinue the procedure to configure RMT in YaST. This often resolves the issue. If that fails, Apache might be installed on your server, and must be disabled. Apache conflicts with NGINX because both web servers listen on port 80.
- SUSE Liberty Linux doesn't appear in
rmt-cli products list
afterrmt-cli sync
Check your network. If the network is down,
rmt-cli sync
fails without showing an error.- Mirroring completes with errors
If some packages could not be downloaded because of timeouts, rerun the
rmt-cli mirror
command until all packages are downloaded.- Setup script cannot access the SUSE Liberty Linux repository
The
repodata
directory on the RMT server will not be available until all of the packages for that repository are downloaded. If some packages could not be downloaded to the RMT server because of timeouts during the first mirroring, rerun thermt-cli mirror
command until all packages are downloaded.- Setup script cannot install SUSEConnect because of package dependencies
SUSE Liberty Linux only supports the latest minor release of RHEL or CentOS Linux. If your system is running the latest version and SUSEConnect still has package dependency issues, try the following workaround:
Edit the
rmt-client-setup-res
script to add--skip-broken
to the following line:$DNF install SUSEConnect librepo --skip-broken
Run the script and accept any proposed package changes. SUSEConnect will be skipped.
Run the script a second time. The package changes from the first attempt can sometimes resolve the package dependency issues, allowing the second attempt to successfully install SUSEConnect.