Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 Administration Unleashed

Using System Groups on the RHN Website 83menu appears on the page under the name of the system. Click Software from thesecondary horizontal menu. Then, click on the Errata menu item that appears below thatto view a list of relevant errata. Select the errata you want to apply (there might be morethan one page of errata), and click Apply Errata. Review the errata updates selected. Toadd the errata update action to the list of pending actions for the system, click Confirm.On the confirmation page, notice that three times are shown: the last system check-intime, the current RHN time, and the expected next check-in time. When actions areperformed using the RHN website, they are actually scheduled to happen the next timethe system checks in with RHN. A system registered with RHN should have the RHNdaemon (rhnsd) running on it. The daemon periodically connects the RHN servers andasks whether any actions have been scheduled for it. Having the system contact the RHNservers for actions prevents a non-RHN server from trying to contact your system andmasquerade as a real RHN server. To determine whether the RHN daemon is running,execute the service rhnsd status command. If it is not running, start it with theservice rhnsd start command as the root user. To make sure it is started every time thesystem boots, execute the chkconfig rhnsd on command as the root user.3TIPIf you want to apply all available errata to a system, there is a quicker way. ClickSystems on the horizontal menu, click on the name of system, and click the updatenow link. A list of all errata available for the selected system is shown. Click Confirmto apply them all. The next time the system checks in with the RHN daemon, all relevanterrata will be applied to the system. The update now link is only shown whenupdates are available.To install new software on an individual system, from the individual system view, clickthe Software link in the secondary horizontal menu under the system name. Click theInstall New Packages option from the list of actions. Select one or more packages to beinstalled. The list can be filtered by name, or you can skip to packages that begin with aspecific letter. After selecting all the packages to be installed, click Install SelectedPackages. Finally, click Confirm to schedule the installation action.Using System Groups on the RHN WebsiteSystems can be grouped for two main reasons: to allow actions to be performed on thegroup as a whole, and to grant users access to the systems within a defined group insteadof having to grant them access to individual systems. This section describes how toperform these two actions as well as how to perform actions on a system group.Performing Actions on a System GroupIt is also possible to perform actions such as software updates and package installation tomultiple systems at the same time either using a defined system group or selecting certainsystems from the system list and performing a one-time action using the System SetManager (SSM).