[Spacewalk-list] Patch Baseline Process

[Nathan Butcher]

The way I approach channel management is to have a base channel that is constantly updated from RHN with new packages all the time.

From that, we clone a channel and treat it as a point-in-time checkpoint or a snapshot of the packages at that moment in time, and set all our severs to tune-in to that cloned channel.
That way we can keep all our servers on the same patch level, and when patching occurs, we can know for sure that all servers will receive all the same patches.

When we want to update the servers to a new set of patches, we clone the base channel again and create a new snapshot of packages at that point-in-time. Then we tell all server profiles to use that new cloned channel and force upgrades.

At this point, the older cloned channel can be either kept for future reference (e.g. rebuilding a server), or deleted for being obsolete.



On 15 Apr 2014, at 9:03 am, Michael Ward <Michael.Ward at melbourneit.com.au> wrote:

> Hi everyone,
> 
> My apologies if this has already been answered, but I wasn’t able to find anything when I searched. I’m completely new to spacewalk, I’ve read most of the manuals but they seem a bit light on with regards to proper processes, etc so I’m reaching out here in the hope of additional support.
> 
> I’d like to set up spacewalk with a couple of patch ‘baselines’. I.e. I’d like a Test/Pilot baseline with patches that are deployed to a test set of systems. After a month or so, I’d clone that baseline to become a release baseline and deploy that on the remainder of my systems. However, to complicate matters, I need to report against the current RHEL base channel so I’m aware of which systems are missing patches based on the current RHEL repositories so I can look at ‘fast tracking’ critical patches if necessary.
> 
> At this stage I’m hoping to set up scripts using the API to do something like the following:
> 
> Clone pilot channel to create a release channel every month. Delete the pilot channel.
> Clone base channel to create a new pilot channel.
> Move the systems from the normal base channel to the release channel and apply errata. 
> Move the systems back to the normal base channel so reporting functionality works.
> 
> Does anyone have any experience with this and able to advise me if the above will work, or if there is some other recommended way of approaching this ?
> 
> Regards,
> Michael Ward.
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