Registering Amazon Linux Clients

This section contains information about registering traditional and Salt clients running Amazon Linux operating systems.

Traditional clients are not available on Amazon Linux 2. Amazon Linux 2 clients are only supported as Salt clients.

When created at AWS, Amazon Linux instances always have the same machine-id id at /etc/machine-id. Make sure you regenerate the machine-id after the instance is created. For more information, see administration:tshoot-registerclones.adoc.

1. Add Software Channels

Before you register Amazon Linux clients to your Uyuni Server, you need to add the required software channels, and synchronize them.

The architectures currently supported are: x86_64 and aarch64. For full list of supported products and architectures, see client-configuration:supported-features.adoc.

In the following section, descriptions often default to the x86_64 architecture. Replace it with other architectures if appropriate.

The channels you need for this procedure are:

Table 1. Amazon Linux Channels - CLI
OS Version Core Channel Client Channel

Amazon Linux 2

amazonlinux2-core

amazonlinux2-uyuni-client

Make sure you also add and sync amazonlinux2-extra-docker channel if you plan to use Docker at your Amazon Linux instances.
Procedure: Adding Software Channels at the Command Prompt

  1. At the command prompt on the Uyuni Server, as root, use the spacewalk-common-channels command to add the appropriate channels:

    spacewalk-common-channels \
<base_channel_label>
<child_channel_label_1> \
<child_channel_label_2> \
... <child_channel_label_n>

  2. Synchronize the channels:

    spacewalk-repo-sync -p <base_channel_label>

  3. Ensure the synchronization is complete before continuing.

The client tools channel provided by spacewalk-common-channels is sourced from Uyuni and not from SUSE.

2. Check Synchronization Status

Procedure: Checking Synchronization Progress from the Web UI

  1. In the Uyuni Web UI, navigate to Software  Manage  Channels, then click the channel associated to the repository.

  2. Navigate to the Repositories tab, then click Sync and check Sync Status.

Procedure: Checking Synchronization Progress from the Command Prompt

  1. At the command prompt on the Uyuni Server, as root, use the tail command to check the synchronization log file:

    tail -f /var/log/rhn/reposync/<channel-label>.log

  2. Each child channel generates its own log during the synchronization progress. You need to check all the base and child channel log files to be sure that the synchronization is complete.

3. Create an Activation Key

You need to create an activation key that is associated with your Amazon Linux channels.

For more information on activation keys, see client-configuration:activation-keys.adoc.

4. Trust GPG Keys on Clients

5. Trust GPG Keys on Clients

Operating systems either trust their own GPG keys directly or at least ship them installed with the minimal system. But third party packages signed by a different GPG key need manual handling. The clients can be successfully bootstrapped without the GPG key being trusted. However, you cannot install new client tool packages or update them until the keys are trusted.

Salt clients use now GPG key information entered for a software channel to manage the trusted keys. When a software channel with GPG key information is assigned to a client, the key gets trusted as soon as the channel is refreshed or the first package gets installed from this channel.

The GPG key URL which is set of a software channel must exist. In case it is a file URL, the GPG key file must be deployed on the client before the software channel is used.

The GPG keys for the Client Tools Channels of Red Hat based clients are deployed on the client into /etc/pki/rpm-gpg/ and can be referenced with file URLs. Same is the case with the GPG keys of Expanded Support clients. Only in case a software channel is assigned to the client they will be imported and trusted by the system.

Because Debian based systems sign only metadata, there is typically no need to specify extra keys for single channels. If a user configures an own GPG key to sign the metadata as described in "Use Your Own GPG Key" in administration:repo-metadata.adoc the deployment and trust of that key is executed automatically.

5.1. User defined GPG keys

Users can define their own GPG keys to be deployed to the client.

By providing some pillar data and providing the GPG key files in the Salt filesystem, they are automatically deployed to the client.

These keys are deployed into /etc/pki/rpm-gpg/ on RPM based operating systems and to /usr/share/keyrings/ on Debian systems:

Define the pillar key [literalcustom_gpgkeys for the client you want to deploy the key to and list the names of the key file.

cat /etc/pillar/mypillar.sls
custom_gpgkeys:
  - my_first_gpg.key
  - my_second_gpgkey.gpg

Additionally in the Salt filesystem create a directory named gpg and store there the GPG key files with the name specified in the custom_gpgkeys pillar data.

ls -la /etc/salt/gpg/
/etc/salt/gpg/my_first_gpg.key
/etc/salt/gpg/my_second_gpgkey.gpg

The keys are now deployed to the client at /etc/pki/rpm-gpg/my_first_gpg.key and /etc/pki/rpm-gpg/my_second_gpgkey.gpg.

The last step is to add the URL to the GPG key URL field of the software channel. Navigate to Software  Manage  Channels and select the channel you want to modify. Add to GPG key URL the value file:///etc/pki/rpm-gpg/my_first_gpg.key.

5.2. GPG Keys in Bootstrap Scripts

Procedure: Trusting GPG Keys on Clients Using a Bootstrap Script

  1. On the Uyuni Server, at the command prompt, check the contents of the /srv/www/htdocs/pub/ directory. This directory contains all available public keys. Take a note of the key that applies to the channel assigned to the client you are registering.

  2. Open the relevant bootstrap script, locate the ORG_GPG_KEY= parameter and add the required key. For example:

    uyuni-gpg-pubkey-0d20833e.key

    You do not need to delete any previously stored keys.

Trusting a GPG key is important for security on clients. It is the task of the admin to decide which keys are needed and can be trusted. Because a software channel cannot be used when the GPG key is not trusted, the decision of assigning a channel to a client depends on the decision of trusting the key.

6. Register Clients

Amazon Linux clients are registered in the same way as all other clients. For more information, see client-configuration:registration-overview.adoc.