Red Hat Network
| Company type | Service / Platform |
|---|---|
| Industry | Software / Systems management |
| Founded | late 2000 |
| Founder | Red Hat |
| Products | Systems management platform, RHN Proxy Server, RHN Satellite Server |
| Owner | Red Hat |
Red Hat Network (RHN) is a comprehensive systems management platform provided by Red Hat. It delivers updates, patches, and bug corrections for software packages included in Red Hat Linux and Red Hat Enterprise Linux distributions to its subscribers. Additionally, RHN facilitates the deployment of tailored content, system provisioning, configuration management, reporting, and client system monitoring.
Subscribers obtain updates through tools such as up2date or yum, which retrieve and apply patches directly from RHN. This update mechanism operates similarly to Microsoft Update for Microsoft Windows, with subscription access being a prerequisite.
On June 18, 2008, Red Hat's CEO Jim Whitehurst revealed intentions to release the RHN Satellite software as open source, following the Fedora/RHEL development approach. This initiative resulted in the creation of the Spacewalk project.
Architecture
With a standard subscription, data about managed hosts and update files are stored on and downloaded from Red Hat’s central servers. For enterprises overseeing numerous systems, this method may lead to inefficient bandwidth usage. To mitigate this issue, Red Hat provides the RHN Proxy Server, which allows secure local caching of update downloads.
More sophisticated capabilities—including lifecycle management, provisioning (such as bare-metal PXE boot), and centralized monitoring of resources like CPU and disk usage—necessitate deploying an on-premises RHN Satellite Server. As of December 2009, the annual subscription fee for the RHN Proxy Server is $2,500, whereas the RHN Satellite Server subscription is priced at $13,500 per year, which also includes licensing for the embedded Oracle Database.
History
| Date | Version | Description |
|---|---|---|
| late 2000 | Launch of Red Hat Network as a hosted service. | |
| late 2001 | Introduction of the RHN Proxy Server. | |
| January 2002 | Major reduction in RHN pricing. | |
| February 2002 | Release of RHN Satellite server as a standalone version. | |
| October 2002 | Acquisition of Sunnyvale-based company by Red Hat; integration of NOCpulse Command Center into RHN. | |
| 2004 | RHN 3.2 released | Added provisioning features, Bootstrap Script functionality, and improved channel cloning. |
| Spring 2004 | RHN 3.3 released | |
| July 20, 2004 | RHN 3.4 released | |
| December 15, 2004 | RHN 3.6 released | Debuted Monitoring preview; support for RHEL AS 3; introduced rhn bootstrap utility and push technology utilizing Jabber protocol. |
| March 22, 2005 | RHN 3.7 released | |
| August 31, 2005 | RHN 4.0 released | |
| February 2, 2007 | RHN Satellite 4.2 released | Added support for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 clients. |
| June 26, 2007 | RHN Satellite 5.0 released | Introduced virtualization management capabilities. |
| April 7, 2008 | RHN Satellite 5.1 released | Implemented Multi-Org functionality; Apache 2.0 support; exporter tool; PPC provisioning; extended platform compatibility including S390X. |
| June 18, 2008 | Open sourcing of RHN Satellite and Proxy; launch of Spacewalk project. | |
| November 5, 2008 | RHN Satellite 5.2 released | RHEL 5 supported as base OS; added Oracle 10g compatibility. |
| September 2, 2009 | RHN Satellite 5.3 released | Enhanced Multiple Organizations feature; automated installation via Cobbler; Inter-Satellite Sync; VMware guest install support; command line proxy installation; SELinux integration. |
| October 27, 2010 | RHN Satellite 5.4 released | Support for RHEL 6 clients; introduced spacewalk-repo-sync; Duplicate Profile feature; Oracle 11g support; package install date tracking; symbolic links and SELinux for configuration management. |
| June 16, 2011 | RHN Satellite 5.4.1 released | RHEL 6 supported as base OS; added support for internationalized domain names. |
| September 21, 2012 | RHN Satellite 5.5 released | Enabled IPv6; OpenSCAP integration; Clone-By-Date function; bonded network interface provisioning. |
| October 1, 2013 | RHN Satellite 5.6 released | Improved subscription and system reporting; client system service analysis capabilities; Inter-Satellite Sync content management; server hot-backups; automated PXE-less provisioning; enhanced scalability; option for externally managed DBA database. |
External links
- Red Hat Network (access requires login to the hosted RHN platform)
- RHN Satellite
- Spacewalk Project