Linux – I have servers that keep becoming inactive in RHEL Satellite 5.3

linuxredhatrhel5satellite

I have lots of RHEL 5 servers subscribed to a Satellite 5.3 server (I know it's all old, not my choice). After I register servers, many of them seem to fall out and become inactive and require reregistration. This used to affect almost all our servers until I realized the NTP server we were using was way off (also not my choice) but I was able to rectify that and so now this only affects a few dozen. But I can't find a source and there are practically no log entries giving hints as to the problem.

Best Answer

The best way to ensure RHEL clients stay continually connected to an RHN Satellite server is to run the OSAD daemon (osad) on each client and osa-dipatcher on the Satellite server.

You can install OSAD on the clients by subscribing them to the rhn-tools channel and running:

yum install osad`
chkconfig osad on
service osad start

On the RHN Satellite server, just make sure the osa-dipatcher package is installed and that the service is running.

More simply you can create a cron job on the clients to periodically check in with the Satellite server. Something like the following would do great:

#!/bin/sh
# Check for scheduled actions
perl -le 'sleep rand 9000' && rhn_check >& /dev/null
# send latest system info
perl -le 'sleep rand 9000' && rhn-profile-sync >& /dev/null

Lastly, if a client ever stops checking in, just run rhn_check manually for troubleshooting purposes.

Hope this helps!

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