Red Hat Network Frequently Asked Questions
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Does RHN come with every Red Hat subscription purchase?
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Once I have purchased a Red Hat subscription, how do I register with RHN?
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How can I purchase RHN?
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What is the pricing for Red Hat Network?
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What is included in the purchase of Proxy and Satellite Server?
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What level of service is included with RHN?
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What kind of Database is required to run Satellite Server on my environment?
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Are there installation and consulting services available for Satellite Server?
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Can I evaluate the Red Hat Network Solution before purchasing?
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Can I become a member of Red Hat Network's Beta Program?
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Where can I obtain more information about the road map for Red Hat Network?
Technical
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What are the hardware requirements for Red Hat Network Proxy and Satellite Server?
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What is the scalability of the Red Hat Network?
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Can Satellite be configured to be made Highly Available?
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Does Red Hat Network have an API Access Layer?
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What communication standards does Red Hat Network use?
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What security features does RHN offer?
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Can Red Hat Network third party or custom content?
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What are staged environments and how does Red Hat Network provide them?
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Is the RHN documentation online and available?
Yes, included in every Red Hat subscription offering is the Hosted Version of RHN Update Entitlement. Customers wishing to move to another architecture such as Proxy or Satellite Server, or wishing to upgrade their services to Management or Provisioning Entitlements will have to make additional purchases.
Connecting to Red Hat Network is easy - all you need is an active subscription. Follow these simple steps to activate your subscription.
As mentioned above, the RHN Update Entitlement is included in every Red Hat product offering. Customers wishing to purchase Management or Provisioning Entitlements can do so by bundling them in with their original purchase of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, or by purchasing additional entitlements at the RHN store.
Customers wishing to purchase Proxy or Satellite Servers, or who wish to purchase large volumes of RHN Entitlements, should contact their sales representative or complete the contact sales form.
Red Hat Network Management Entitlements are priced at $96 per system annually.
Red Hat Network Provisioning Entitlements (which include Management functionality) are priced at $192 per system annually.
Volume discounts do apply and customers should contact their sales representative or call Red Hat Sales directly at 866-273-3428 x45606.
The purchase of the RHN Proxy Server includes the following:
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- RHN Proxy ISO entitlement (access to the RHN Proxy ISOs)
- All necessary installation and usage documents
- RHEL AS Premium subscription
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Premium Level Support
- Installation Support
- Updates and Upgrades as available
The purchase of the RHN Satellite Server includes the following:
- Everything listed above for the RHN Proxy Server
- Embedded Oracle Database (optional)
Please note that all hardware must be supplied by the customer and that no physical media is provided. All ISOs and documentation are electronically provided.
For RHN service entitlements (Update, Management, and Provisioning), customers receive the same Service Level Agreement as they currently subscribe to for the operating system.
For Proxy and Satellite Servers, these offerings include a subscription to Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS Premium, which ensures that customers receive Red Hat Premium support.
RHN Satellite Server utilizes an Oracle Database. Customers may use their own Oracle Database instance, or they can use the embedded database that is available with the subscription (at no additional charge).
Red Hat recommends that if you plan on scaling your environment to greater than 2,000 systems, or if you intend to run a High Availability Satellite, that you run your own independent Oracle instance.
Yes, Red Hat Global Professional Services has a one week package defined specifically for Satellite customers. Please contact Red Hat sales for more information: 866-273-3428 x45606.
Yes, evaluations are available for qualified accounts. Please contact your local sales representative or call Red Hat Sales directly at 866-273-3428 x45606.
Yes, please contact your local sales representative for more information about the Red Hat Network Beta Program.
The best place to find the technical direction of RHN is to learn more about our Open Source Architecture. Red Hat Network is dedicated to serving as the management backplane for the OSA and making your entire Open Source solution set easily deployable, scalable, and manageable.
Please view Red Hat Network Technical Requirements
RHN currently scales to over ten thousand managed systems. This is enabled by the use of a Satellite Server and Proxy Servers at each remote location and for every two thousand managed systems. Red Hat continues to make changes that greatly enhance the scalability of the RHN solution and releases this with every new RHN release. For more information about the scalability of RHN, please consult your sales representative or call Red Hat Sales directly at 866-273-3428 x45606.
Yes, the Satellite Server can be configured for either Active-Active or Active-Passive High Availability configurations. Please note that the Highly Available mode refers only to the Satellite Application itself and not to the Database (therefore, customers wishing to run in High Availability mode cannot use the Embedded Database model in Satellite). Users are encouraged to consult with their Oracle representatives to learn more about making an HA Database. For pricing options with the HA configuration, please talk with your Red Hat sales representative.
Yes. Please view the API Access Layer documentation. All of Red Hat's API calls are XML-RPC based. View a complete list of API calls. Please note that this is only a preliminary list and Red Hat is planning on having a complete set of APIs available with the next release of Red Hat Network (scheduled before end of year 2004). Red Hat will then continue to aggregate requests for APIs from customers and provide new APIs with each subsequent release.
RHN is completely written in Perl, Python, and Java. All communication occurs via XML-RPC and HTTP over SSL.
This can be a very open ended question, so we have included a number of ways to answer that.
From a features perspective, Red Hat Network offers administrators the ability to implement a full audit trail of all activities taken through Red Hat Network, as well as assign policies and permissions for simple role based administration. View a complete list of RHN features and functionality.
From the network side, Red Hat Network ensures safe and secure communications. The communication method between Client and Server is always client initiated, and all communication is SSL based, encrypted using GPG. In addition, customers looking to reduce their exposure to the Internet can use the Proxy and/or Satellite architectural model. For more information, please see our Architectural Model Security Overview.
For questions regarding data privacy, Red Hat invites you to read the Red Hat Network Privacy Policy.
Yes, RHN is capable of allowing you to provision, manage, and update using third party and custom content. To do this, customers must be using Proxy and/or Satellite architecture, and the content must be packaged in RPM format consistent with the RPM version(s) that Red Hat Network uses. To facilitate this process, RHN provides Package Management tools.
Many customers enjoy the ability to stage their environments (usually development, QA, and production - and others as customer desires). This gives customers the ability to control the flow of content through the various stages (and departments) of its deployment, complete with policies and permissions for each of the stage. The main feature used here are channel and errata cloning.
Yes - all documentation can be found online.