Using cvmanager to automate promotion of content views in Red Hat Satellite 6.2

February 7, 2017 - Reading time: 6 minutes

In the past this was done using a bash script consisting of hammer commands ran once a month. Since this stopped working in Satellite 6.2 and wasn't compatible with composite content views we switched to the katello-cvmanager → https://github.com/RedHatSatellite/katello-cvmanager/

The publish.yaml file should contain all the content views in use (NOT the composite ones)

DEV,yaml;TEST.yaml;UAT.yaml;PROD.yaml should contain all the content views and composite content views used in the appropriate environment.

And once a month the monthly_updates.sh script is triggered through the root cron. This will publish a new content view for every update of the repos underneath and afterwards promote the (composite) content views for the environments. Unused content views are deleted except one.

 We ran into an issue with repos that have never been synced (own content) and opened a ticket for that https://github.com/RedHatSatellite/katello-cvmanager/issues/25

For now this is fixed by this line replacement

-if repo.has_key?('last_sync') and repo['last_sync'].has_key?('ended_at') and repo['last_sync']['ended_at']
+if repo.has_key?('last_sync') and repo['last_sync'].is_a?(::Hash) and repo['last_sync'].has_key?('ended_at') and repo['last_sync']['ended_at']

This is the cron job that I run to publish, promote and clean the content views once every month.

30 05 * * 0 [ $(date +\%d) -le 07 ] && cd /opt/satellite6_scripts/katello-cvmanager/ && /opt/satellite6_scripts/katello-cvmanager/monthly_updates.sh | mail -E -s "Satellite Monthly report: Content view updates" systems@company.com

This is the script that I use to trigger all the actions

==> monthly_updates.sh <==

#!/bin/sh
set -e
#Publish all content views
./cvmanager --config=publish.yaml --wait publish

#Update content views for DEV
./cvmanager --config=DEV.yaml --wait update
./cvmanager --config=DEV.yaml --wait promote

#Update content views for TEST
./cvmanager --config=TEST.yaml --wait update
./cvmanager --config=TEST.yaml --wait promote

#Update content views for UAT
./cvmanager --config=UAT.yaml --wait update
./cvmanager --config=UAT.yaml --wait promote

#Update content views for PROD
./cvmanager --config=PROD.yaml --wait update
./cvmanager --config=PROD.yaml --wait promote

#clean up unused content views
./cvmanager --config=publish.yaml --wait clean

==> PROD.yaml <==

---
:settings:
:user: read_only_user
:pass: *changme*
:uri: https://localhost
:timeout: 300
:org: 1
:lifecycle: 4
:keep: 1
:promote_cvs: true
:checkrepos: true
:cv:
rhel-7-server-x86_64: latest
rhel-6-server-x86_64: latest
capsule-7-x86_64: latest
:promote:
- rhel-7-server-x86_64
- rhel-6-server-x86_64
- capsule-7-x86_64

==> TEST.yaml <==

---
:settings:
:user: read_only_user
:pass: *changme*
:uri: https://localhost
:timeout: 300
:org: 1
:lifecycle: 2
:keep: 1
:promote_cvs: true
:checkrepos: true
:cv:
rhel-7-server-x86_64: latest
rhel-6-server-x86_64: latest
capsule-7-x86_64: latest
cv-repo-remi: latest
:promote:
- rhel-7-server-x86_64
- rhel-6-server-x86_64
- capsule-7-x86_64
- cv-repo-remi

==> UAT.yaml <==

---
:settings:
:user: read_only_user
:pass: *changme*
:uri: https://localhost
:timeout: 300
:org: 1
:lifecycle: 10
:keep: 1
:promote_cvs: true
:checkrepos: true
:cv:
cv-repo-remi: latest
:ccv:
cv-RHEL7-app-php7:
cv-repo-remi: latest
rhel-7-server-x86_64: latest
cv-RHEL6-app-php7:
cv-repo-remi: latest
rhel-6-server-x86_64: latest
:promote:
- cv-repo-remi
- cv-RHEL7-app-php7
- cv-RHEL6-app-php7

==> DEV.yaml <==

---
:settings:
:user: read_only_user
:pass: *changme*
:uri: https://localhost
:timeout: 300
:org: 1
:lifecycle: 9
:keep: 1
:promote_cvs: true
:checkrepos: true
:cv:
rhel-7-server-x86_64: latest
rhel-6-server-x86_64: latest
cv-repo-remi: latest
:ccv:
cv-RHEL7-app-php7:
cv-repo-remi: latest
rhel-7-server-x86_64: latest
cv-RHEL6-app-php7:
cv-repo-remi: latest
rhel-6-server-x86_64: latest
:promote:
- rhel-7-server-x86_64
- rhel-6-server-x86_64
- cv-repo-remi
- cv-RHEL7-app-php7
- cv-RHEL6-app-php7

==> publish.yaml <==

---
:settings:
:user: read_only_user
:pass: *changme*
:uri: https://localhost
:timeout: 300
:org: 1
:lifecycle: 1
:keep: 1
:promote_cvs: true
:checkrepos: true
:publish:
- rhel-7-server-x86_64
- rhel-6-server-x86_64
- capsule-7-x86_64
- cv-repo-remi
- cv-RHEL7-app-php7
- cv-RHEL6-app-php7