[rhn-users] Various RHN config options

[jef e]

inode0 wrote:

> As far as I know they have no "pushing" capabilities. In addition to
> what you get with RHN hosted a proxy server does support custom
> channels for making non-RHEL packages available to your users via
> up2date/yum and managing those packages within the RHN framework. This
> has worked well for us until recently.

We have very few packages that we build ourselves in our current Debian
environment, but making our own repository has been helpful. Knowing
that we could do the same with the proxy is good to know.

I've not had to do this yet, but does the basic Hosted RHN let you push
out updates to systems, or at least schedule automatic updating of them?
(Rather than logging in to each one and doing 'up2date -u'?)


> Normal management of machines and users is still all done via RHN at Red
> Hat.

Thats what I figured, despite sales person saying the opposite. :-)


> One other often missed feature of a proxy server at an edu is the
> included site subscription which to me is worth more than anything
> else, but this must be weighed against your needs and inclination to
> support systems not owned by your university. Some perhaps aren't even
> allowed to do this by local regulations.

We don't wish to get into the Redhat support game at the moment (we are
stretched pretty thin as it is), so the site license is definitely not
on our radar. :)

For us, even the Department license is overkill at 500 subscriptions --
however, it does include a proxy server. If we take into account the
cost of the number of individual subs. that we need plus the cost of
adding a proxy server, the Department license isn't that much more
expensive, even if we do have 'wasted' subscriptions. (Thus my questions
about the proxy's usefulness - just trying to get a feel for what we
might get out of it that isn't really mentioned in RH's literature and
such.)

Thanks much for the information.

jef