1 About Tools for Administering Oracle Linux Manager

To administer Oracle Linux Manager for Oracle Linux, you use either the Oracle Linux Manager web interface or the spacecmd command, both of which become available after an Oracle Linux Manager installation. However, as an option, you can also create your own web and command interfaces by using Oracle Linux Manager XML/RPC API. For more information, see Oracle Linux Manager XML/RPC API.

About the Oracle Linux Manager Web Interface

As a first task after a completed installation, you created the initial organization and the main Oracle Linux Manager administrator account by using the Oracle Linux Manager web interface. See Configuring an Oracle Linux Manager Administrator and an Initial Organization in Oracle Linux Manager: Installation Guide for Release 2.10 .

This section introduces you to other web interface pages. These pages correspond to specific tabs. Every page displays summary information as well as a legend pane that explains the meaning of the different icons that appear on that page.

To access the web interface, go to your Oracle Linux Manager server's URL, which is typically the server's FQDN such as https://swksvr.mydom.com. Log in with the Oracle Linux Manager administrator's credentials that you created during the initial configuration process.

Overview Page

The Overview page is the default landing page after a successful login.

Figure 1-1 Oracle Linux Manager Overview Page

The default Overview page presents a dashboard view of the state of Oracle Linux Manager server. The page displays basic information about systems that are inactive or in a critical state, recently scheduled actions, relevant security errata that you can apply to your systems, and lists of system groups and recently registered systems. The page also provides links to administrative tasks that you can perform.

To customize the layout of the Overview page:

1. Select Your Preferences.

2. On the Your Preferences page in the Overview Start Page section, select or deselect the check boxes against the information that you want or do not want to display.

   You can configure other preferences on this page, such as whether to receive email notifications, the number of entries per-page in lists, and the separator character for comma-separated values (CSV) files.

3. Click Save Preferences.

Systems Tab

The Systems tab opens the Systems Overview Page.

Figure 1-2 System Overview Page

The System Overview page displays a summary of the number of available updates, errata, packages, configuration files and crashes, the name of the base channel, and any entitlements for each managed client system.

Errata Tab

The Errata tab opens the Errata Relevant to Your Systems page

Figure 1-3 Errata Relevant to Your Systems Page

The Errata Relevant to Your Systems page displays information about the errata that are available for your registered systems.

Channels Tab

The Channels tab opens the Software Channel Management page.

Figure 1-4 Software Channel Management Page

The Software Channel Management page displays the channels to which you can subscribe your registered systems. By default, only the base channels are shown. To display child channels, click the plus sign (+) next to the name of the base channel.

Audit Tab

The Audit tab opens the OpenSCAP Scans page.

Figure 1-5 OpenSCAP Scans Page

The OpenSCAP Scans page displays a summary of any scans that you have performed on your systems.

Configuration Tab

The Configuration tab opens the Configuration Overview page.

Figure 1-6 Configuration Overview Page

The Configuration Overview page displays a summary of the configuration files that are known to Oracle Linux Manager, links to actions you can perform with configuration files, and scheduled deployments of configuration files.

Schedule Tab

The Schedule tab opens the Pending Actions page.

Figure 1-7 Pending Actions Page

The Pending Actions page displays a list of actions that are scheduled to be performed.

Users Tab

The Users tab opens the Active Users page.

Figure 1-8 Active Users Page

The Active Users page displays a list of administrators or other users and their allocated roles.

The Oracle Linux Manager Administrator role permits a user to perform all actions in Oracle Linux Manager.

You can configure the Organization Administrator role to grant one or more of the following roles to a user who has administrative access to one or more organizations:

• System Group Administrator

• Channel Administrator

• Activation Key Administrator

• Configuration Administrator

A read-only API user has limited access to the XML/RPC API but cannot access the web interface.

Admin Tab

The Admin tab opens the Oragnizations page.

Figure 1-9 Organizations Page

The Organizations page displays the organizations for which you have configured Oracle Linux Manager server to administer and the number of systems, Oracle Linux Manager administrators, and trusts that are configured for the system. If a trust is enabled, you can share content and move systems between organizations.

About the spacecmd Command

The spacecmd command enables you to perform most of the functions that are available in the web interface. You can run the spacecmd command as an interactive shell by typing the command by itself without arguments or options. In this guide, the spacecmd examples show the use of the utility in the interactive shell mode.

You can issue spacecmd commands either locally on Oracle Linux Manager server or remotely. To run the command remotely, identify the server by its IP address or its FQDN, for example:

sudo spacecmd -s swksvr.mydom.com

You must enter your Oracle Linux Manager user name and password as prompted to gain full access to the interactive mode. The Oracle Linux Manager credentials were created together with the initial organization.

To access spacecmd securely while bypassing typing user credentials, do the following steps:

1. Create a file such as ~/.spacecmd/config that contains the credentials, for example:

   [spacecmd]
   server=swksvr.mydom.com
   username=swadmin
   password=password

2. Restrict the file's permissions.

   sudo chmod 400 ~/.spacecmd/config

To run the command non-interactively, use the following syntax:

sudo spacecmd [options] –- arguments

arguments consists of the subcommand, subcommand options, and parameter values.

For example, to create channels in the non-interactive mode, you might type the following:

sudo spacecmd -- softwarechannel_create -l oraclelinux7-x86_64-ksplice \
-n "Oracle Linux 7 x86_64 Ksplice Channel" -p oraclelinux7-x86_64 -a x86_64

INFO: Connected to https://swksvr.mydom.com/rpc/api as swadmin

The spacecmd options are different from subcommand options. You specify these options before entering the subcommand and its options. For example, spacecmd's -q option suppresses informational messages while the -y option skips all confirmation prompts.

The following example illustrates the use of spacecmd options.

sudo spacecmd -q -- softwarechannel_list

oraclelinux7-x86_64
oraclelinux7-x86_64-addons
oraclelinux7-x86_64-ksplice
oraclelinux7-x86_64-optional
oraclelinux7-x86_64-patch
oraclelinux7-x86_64-spacewalk26-client
oraclelinux7-x86_64-spacewalk26-server
oraclelinux7-x86_64-uek-r3
oraclelinux7-x86_64-uek-r4

To skip informational messages and confirmation prompts while deleting a channel, you would type, for example:

sudo spacecmd -q -y -- softwarechannel_delete oraclelinux7-x86_64-ksplice

Channels
--------
oraclelinux7-x86_64-ksplice

The softwarechannel_delete subcommand displays the channel to be deleted. When you run the softwarechannel_list subcommand again, the deleted channel is no longer included in the list.

For more information, see the spacecmd(1) man page.

Note:

Other commands to administer Oracle Linux Manager are also available through Oracle Linux Manager packages downloaded at installation. These commands are run directly from the command line prompt rather than in a spacecmd shell. They require that you have been granted permission in the /etc/sudoers file.