[rhn-users] rhnreg_ks, kickstart and "reregistration"

[Lazarev, Roman]

A few actually ;)

A) API Overview Method: system.obtain_reactivation_key (ver. 0.1), save the sid of on say a webserver/ext db and associate it with say serial # of the box, then pull and reactivate.

B) API Overview Method: system.list_user_systems (ver. 0.1), list, whack (delete_systems), and re-register clean, as long as you keep the hostname the same.

C) Work on your timing, 30 minutes is kind-a slow, get it down to 10-15... no bragging just... maybe just bragging ;)

Check APIs at http://rhn.redhat.com/rpc/api or use ur boxen's name instead, since diff vers carry diff APIs. Check RHN manuals, they got a code snippet as a sample.

Roman Lazarev
Fidelity Investment Management Technology
245 Summer Street V2E
Boston, MA 02210
(617) 563-1173


-----Original Message-----
From: Håkan Olsson [mailto:hakan at carmen.se] 
Sent: Monday, December 19, 2005 11:31 AM
To: rhn-users at redhat.com
Subject: [rhn-users] rhnreg_ks, kickstart and "reregistration"


Hi,

I'm new to this list, hoping this is the correct forum for a question  
like this...

I'm using kickstart for, among other things, a bunch of classroom  
computers (making it possible to "switch" the classroom from running,  
say, RHEL4_64 to something else quickly, or simply reinstalling  
everything in time for the next class), and RHN registration is  
presenting a problem.

Re-kickstarting will "reregister" the system, but the system name  
will now listed twice in the Systems list (and another entitlement  
has been used). And so on... a colleague spotted 10+ instances of my  
"test system" in the list. :(

I'm running something like;

	%post
	... other setup
	rhnreg_ks --profilename $FQDN --force --username=foo --password=bar
	...

The manpage suggests '--force' is exacly what I want to use here (and  
I'm fairly sure it worked fine perhaps a month(?) ago), but it's not  
working now.  Documentation on how RHN manages it's database is a bit  
scarce. For instance, what selectors are used by RHN to identify a  
system? The name, and ... appearantly more?

I know I can manually delete the old profile using the web before  
kickstarting, but such manual steps kind of defeat the purpose. I  
don't see how the "reregistration" activation key stuff can help me  
either.  Ideally, I'd like the teachers to be able to re-install a  
borked system in the middle of a class (within, say, 30mins) --  
without involving me or anyone else with RHN admin access. (The  
kickstart setup uses PXE etc, so that part is fairly painless.)

Any ideas? :)

/Håkan




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