And just to close the loop.... While I'm still in the middle of the rebuild, this appears to be working for my particular situation. My intent was to keep as much client system detail as I could, and to completely rebuild my channel structures. All of the client systems are in place in the new SW server, I can update the hostname & SSL key data to get them connected to the new server pretty easily.
1) Build the new server 2) Install SW 2.2 3) Restore the database from the old server 4) Remove the channel data from all clients 5) Remove all channels, packages, & anything left over in /var/satellite/... 6) Rebuild channel configurations 7) Clone release channel trees to dev, qa, & production channel trees 8) Restore the channel configurations to each client server with appropriate child channels 9) Rebuild cobbler configurations (we run pretty highly customized kickstarts.) I finally figured out a year ago how to use the API with Perl, steps 4 & 8 are no longer difficult. Converting channel labels from old to new will take a bit of effort, but mostly mechanical (:1,$s/oldlabel/newlabel/g or some such. May just write a Perl program instead....) I don't see as much cruft left behind as I thought I'd see. In spite of running Spacewalk for a number of years, I keep learning new tricks every time I turn around. By the time I'm done in the next couple of days, I'll have a much more robust & properly configured Spacewalk instance. Jeff Kalchik Systems Engineering Land O'Lakes -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Kalchik, Jeffery Sent: Monday, October 26, 2015 5:47 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [Spacewalk-list] Preserving system registration date Good afternoon, all. I may have a better method.... start with a clean O/S install, install SW 2.2, restore the database, /var/satellite, etc. After the restore is complete, & /usr/bin/spacewalk-hostname-rename is complete, I can update /etc/sysconfig/rhn/up2date on all of the clients and probably the SSL cert (if necessary,) to to ensure the clients talk to the new server. I can run the SW 2.4 update in place at that point. There's still a pile of manual stuff to be done, but none of it relies on direct database modification. Jeff Kalchik Systems Engineering Land O'Lakes -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Tomas Lestach Sent: Monday, October 26, 2015 9:48 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [Spacewalk-list] Preserving system registration date I think it's the 'created' column in the 'rhnServer' table used as the 'Registered' date. So, the answer would be no. There's no API or any other tool, that would modify this field. You'd need to modify it manually in the DB if required. I'd suggest to set up an additional Spacewalk 2.4 machine, so you'd have two Spacewalk machines running at parallel for the time till you recreate the needed setup and register the clients to the new machine. By having remote commands enabled, they can significantly make the re-registering process more convenient. Regards, -- Tomas Lestach Red Hat Satellite Engineering, Red Hat ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Jeffery Kalchik" <[email protected]> > To: [email protected] > Sent: Friday, October 16, 2015 7:35:04 PM > Subject: [Spacewalk-list] Preserving system registration date > > > > > > I’m getting ready to bury a Spacewalk 2.2 server, and build a new > Spacewalk 2.4 server in its place. This will be a ground up rebuild, > all the way down to the operating system level. New channels (cleaning > up some missteps I’ve taken over the last several years.) Revisiting > all of the kickstart stuff. New distros. The whole nine yards. > > > > Channels & distributions aren’t an issue. Neither is errata. I > actually want to recreate all of that from scratch. > > > > I’m trying to avoid simply importing a database backup into the new > server & running a schema upgrade against it. That’ll bring in a lot > of bad baggage that I don’t want, and is a big reason for the > wholesale rebuild. > > > > The problem comes in with all of the clients that will need to be > registered into the new server. I can update the local up2date & rhn > configurations on the clients, and hand out the new server certs, I > don’t expect a problem with simply registering the servers again using > activation keys (as well as a couple of behind the scenes Perl Scripts > going through the XML RPC interface.) For the most part, the > registration & rhn_check processes should populate with the proper > values. > > > > I’d really like to preserve the system registration date from the old > Spacewalk server. I see how to extract this through the XML RPC API, > unless I’m blind (which is entirely possible,) is it possible to set > that value without going directly into the backend database? It’s not > the end of the world if I can’t save & restore the value, but we have > referenced the registration date as an indication of system lifespan. > I’m not necessarily averse to direct database activity if that’s the > only option but that seems a little too brute force. > > > > Jeff Kalchik > > Systems Engineering > > Land O’Lakes > > > > This message may contain confidential material from Land O'Lakes, Inc. > (or its subsidiary) for the sole use of the intended > recipient(s) and may not be reviewed, disclosed, copied, distributed > or used by anyone other than the intended recipient(s). If you are not > the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply email and > delete all copies of this message. > _______________________________________________ > Spacewalk-list mailing list > [email protected] > https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/spacewalk-list _______________________________________________ Spacewalk-list mailing list [email protected] https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/spacewalk-list This message may contain confidential material from Land O'Lakes, Inc. (or its subsidiary) for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may not be reviewed, disclosed, copied, distributed or used by anyone other than the intended recipient(s). If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply email and delete all copies of this message. _______________________________________________ Spacewalk-list mailing list [email protected] https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/spacewalk-list This message may contain confidential material from Land O'Lakes, Inc. (or its subsidiary) for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may not be reviewed, disclosed, copied, distributed or used by anyone other than the intended recipient(s). If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply email and delete all copies of this message. _______________________________________________ Spacewalk-list mailing list [email protected] https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/spacewalk-list
