Using manifests to import non Red Hat repositories

Support
1

Hi!
I’d like to use Katello’s subscription manifest mechanism to also define and import non Red Hat content from an existing Katello server.
Therefore I’d like to ask the following questions:

  1. How can I create my own manifest pointing to content of an exiting foreman/katello server?
  2. How can I add more than one manifest and CDN URL to Katello’s subscription management mechanism?

Thanks for your help!
Mark

2

Hello,

This isn’t something that we support but I’m wondering if what you’re thinking of (distributing content from various geographic locations?) could be accomplished simply by using a Smart Proxy. They work similar to how you described, although the subscriptions would continue to live on the Katello instance and the content would be served from the Smart Proxies and/or Katello depending on where your systems are registered. In this setup Katello would keep the content on Smart Proxies in sync to your liking with no additional work (exporting subscriptions and maintaining a separate Katello instance for example). Here’s some documentation: Foreman :: Plugin Manuals

If I haven’t understood what you’re trying to achieve please elaborate.

3

Hi!
Thanks for your reply.
I’d like to use Katello/Candlepin to create my own manifest and import this into another Katello instance. (How) is this possible?

4

It’s not possible to export a manifest from an existing Katello instance for import into another. Why would you want to do this vs using a Smart Proxy? I don’t think I’m understanding your ultimate goal.

5

But is it possible to import two (or more) Manifests into one katello instance?
Let’s say you have subscriptions from two content sources and you need to make them avaliable in combined content views.

6

The way to do that right now would be to have a separate Organization since only one manifest is supported per org, but it breaks down when combining into a single content view as you mentioned since those are unique per org.

I’m not sure if supporting that has ever been considered since it doesn’t really map to the way the manifests are used which is for Red Hat content.

7

Using Katello and Smart Proxies is fine to deploy software and manage subscriptions inside a single company. What about using Katello to deliver custom software based on a subscription model to multiple users also using Katello?

8

Sorry, didn’t see your reply here!

I don’t think I’m seeing the true purpose or benefits in this model. The idea of using Katello to be able to export subscriptions to another Katello instance seems to me like like a long way around using a Smart Proxy since the subscriptions serve to provide access to content. It’s not a part of our roadmap right now.

If you are very much interested in doing this you might open an RFC in the Development category to gather feedback since this is more of an area to receive support with issues while running Foreman and its various plugins.