Installing Foreman Server with Katello 4.13 plugin on Enterprise Linux

1. Preparing your environment for installation

Before you install Foreman, ensure that your environment meets the following requirements.

1.1. System requirements

The following requirements apply to the networked base operating system:

x86_64 architecture
4-core 2.0 GHz CPU at a minimum
A minimum of 20 GB RAM is required for Foreman server to function. In addition, a minimum of 4 GB RAM of swap space is also recommended. Foreman running with less RAM than the minimum value might not operate correctly.
A unique host name, which can contain lower-case letters, numbers, dots (.) and hyphens (-)
Administrative user (root) access
Full forward and reverse DNS resolution using a fully-qualified domain name

Foreman only supports UTF-8 encoding. If your territory is USA and your language is English, set en_US.utf-8 as the system-wide locale settings. For more information about configuring system locale in Enterprise Linux, see Configuring the system locale in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 Configuring basic system settings.

Foreman server and Smart Proxy server do not support shortnames in the hostnames. When using custom certificates, the Common Name (CN) of the custom certificate must be a fully qualified domain name (FQDN) instead of a shortname. This does not apply to the clients of a Foreman.

Before you install Foreman server, ensure that your environment meets the requirements for installation.

Foreman server must be installed on a freshly provisioned system that serves no other function except to run Foreman server. The freshly provisioned system must not have the following users provided by external identity providers to avoid conflicts with the local users that Foreman server creates:

apache
foreman
foreman-proxy
postgres
pulp
puppet
redis
tomcat

SELinux mode

SELinux must be enabled, either in enforcing or permissive mode. Installation with disabled SELinux is not supported.

Synchronized system clock

The system clock on the base operating system where you are installing your Foreman server must be synchronized across the network. If the system clock is not synchronized, SSL certificate verification might fail.

FIPS mode

You can install Foreman on a Enterprise Linux system that is operating in FIPS mode. You cannot enable FIPS mode after the installation of Foreman. Red Hat Enterprise Linux clones are not being actively tested in FIPS mode. If you require FIPS, consider using Red Hat Enterprise Linux. For more information, see Switching RHEL to FIPS mode in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 Security hardening or Switching RHEL to FIPS mode in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 Security hardening.

Note

Foreman supports DEFAULT and FIPS crypto-policies. The FUTURE crypto-policy is not supported for Foreman and Smart Proxy installations. The FUTURE policy is a stricter forward-looking security level intended for testing a possible future policy. For more information, see Using system-wide cryptographic policies in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 Security hardening.

1.2. Storage requirements

The following table details storage requirements for specific directories. These values are based on expected use case scenarios and can vary according to individual environments.

The runtime size was measured with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7, 8, and 9 repositories synchronized.

Table 1. Storage requirements for a Foreman server installation
Directory	Installation Size	Runtime Size
/var/log	10 MB	10 GB
/var/lib/pgsql	100 MB	20 GB
/usr	10 GB	Not Applicable
/opt/puppetlabs	500 MB	Not Applicable
/var/lib/pulp	1 MB	300 GB

For external database servers: /var/lib/pgsql with installation size of 100 MB and runtime size of 20 GB.

For detailed information on partitioning and size, see Disk partitions in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 Managing storage devices.

1.3. Storage guidelines

Consider the following guidelines when installing Foreman server to increase efficiency.

If you mount the /tmp directory as a separate file system, you must use the exec mount option in the /etc/fstab file. If /tmp is already mounted with the noexec option, you must change the option to exec and re-mount the file system. This is a requirement for the puppetserver service to work.
Because most Foreman server data is stored in the /var directory, mounting /var on LVM storage can help the system to scale.
Use high-bandwidth, low-latency storage for the /var/lib/pulp/ directories. As Foreman has many operations that are I/O intensive, using high latency, low-bandwidth storage causes performance degradation. Ensure your installation has a speed in the range 60 – 80 Megabytes per second.

File system guidelines

Do not use the GFS2 file system as the input-output latency is too high.

Log file storage

Log files are written to /var/log/messages/, /var/log/httpd/, and /var/lib/foreman-proxy/openscap/content/. You can manage the size of these files using logrotate.

The exact amount of storage you require for log messages depends on your installation and setup.

SELinux considerations for NFS mount

When the /var/lib/pulp directory is mounted using an NFS share, SELinux blocks the synchronization process. To avoid this, specify the SELinux context of the /var/lib/pulp directory in the file system table by adding the following lines to /etc/fstab:

nfs.example.com:/nfsshare  /var/lib/pulp  nfs  context="system_u:object_r:var_lib_t:s0"  1 2

If NFS share is already mounted, remount it using the above configuration and enter the following command:

# restorecon -R /var/lib/pulp

Duplicated packages

Packages that are duplicated in different repositories are only stored once on the disk. Additional repositories containing duplicate packages require less additional storage. The bulk of storage resides in the /var/lib/pulp/ directory. These end points are not manually configurable. Ensure that storage is available on the /var file system to prevent storage problems.

Symbolic links

You cannot use symbolic links for /var/lib/pulp/.

Synchronized RHEL ISO

If you plan to synchronize RHEL content ISOs to Foreman, note that all minor versions of Red Hat Enterprise Linux also synchronize. You must plan to have adequate storage on your Foreman to manage this.

1.4. Supported operating systems

The following operating systems are supported by the installer, have packages, and are tested for deploying Foreman:

Table 2. Operating systems supported by foreman-installer
Operating System	Architecture	Notes
Enterprise Linux 9	x86_64 only	EPEL is not supported.
Enterprise Linux 8	x86_64 only	EPEL is not supported.

Foreman community advises against using an existing system because the Foreman installer will affect the configuration of several components.

1.5. Supported browsers

Using the most recent version of a major browser is highly recommended, as Foreman and the frameworks it uses offer limited support for older versions.

The recommended requirements are as follows for major browsers:

Google Chrome – latest version
Microsoft Edge – latest version
Apple Safari – latest version
Mozilla Firefox – latest version
Mozilla Firefox Extended Support Release (ESR) – latest version

Other browsers may work unpredictably.

The Foreman web UI and command-line interface is translated into various languages.

1.6. Port and firewall requirements

For the components of Foreman architecture to communicate, ensure that the required network ports are open and free on the base operating system. You must also ensure that the required network ports are open on any network-based firewalls.

Use this information to configure any network-based firewalls. Note that some cloud solutions must be specifically configured to allow communications between machines because they isolate machines similarly to network-based firewalls. If you use an application-based firewall, ensure that the application-based firewall permits all applications that are listed in the tables and known to your firewall. If possible, disable the application checking and allow open port communication based on the protocol.

Integrated Smart Proxy

Foreman server has an integrated Smart Proxy and any host that is directly connected to Foreman server is a Client of Foreman in the context of this section. This includes the base operating system on which Smart Proxy server is running.

Clients of Smart Proxy

Hosts which are clients of Smart Proxies, other than Foreman’s integrated Smart Proxy, do not need access to Foreman server.

Required ports can change based on your configuration.

The following tables indicate the destination port and the direction of network traffic:

Table 3. Foreman server incoming traffic
Destination Port	Protocol	Service	Source	Required For	Description
53	TCP and UDP	DNS	DNS Servers and clients	Name resolution	DNS (optional)
67	UDP	DHCP	Client	Dynamic IP	DHCP (optional)
69	UDP	TFTP	Client	TFTP Server (optional)
443	TCP	HTTPS	Smart Proxy	Foreman API	Communication from Smart Proxy
443, 80	TCP	HTTPS, HTTP	Client	Global Registration	Registering hosts to Foreman Port 443 is required for registration initiation, uploading facts, and sending installed packages and traces Port 80 notifies Foreman on the `/unattended/built` endpoint that registration has finished
443	TCP	HTTPS	Foreman	Content Mirroring	Management
443	TCP	HTTPS	Foreman	Smart Proxy API	Smart Proxy functionality
443, 80	TCP	HTTPS, HTTP	Smart Proxy	Content Retrieval	Content
443, 80	TCP	HTTPS, HTTP	Client	Content Retrieval	Content
1883	TCP	MQTT	Client	Pull based REX (optional)	Content hosts for REX job notification (optional)
5910 – 5930	TCP	HTTPS	Browsers	Compute Resource’s virtual console
8000	TCP	HTTP	Client	Provisioning templates	Template retrieval for client installers, iPXE or UEFI HTTP Boot
8000	TCP	HTTPS	Client	PXE Boot	Installation
8140	TCP	HTTPS	Client	Puppet agent	Client updates (optional)
9090	TCP	HTTPS	Foreman	Smart Proxy API	Smart Proxy functionality
9090	TCP	HTTPS	Client	OpenSCAP	Configure Client (if the OpenSCAP plugin is installed)
9090	TCP	HTTPS	Discovered Node	Discovery	Host discovery and provisioning (if the discovery plugin is installed)

Any host that is directly connected to Foreman server is a client in this context because it is a client of the integrated Smart Proxy. This includes the base operating system on which a Smart Proxy server is running.

A DHCP Smart Proxy performs ICMP ping or TCP echo connection attempts to hosts in subnets with DHCP IPAM set to find out if an IP address considered for use is free. This behavior can be turned off using foreman-installer --foreman-proxy-dhcp-ping-free-ip=false.

Note	Some outgoing traffic returns to Foreman to enable internal communication and security operations.

Table 4. Foreman server outgoing traffic
Destination Port	Protocol	Service	Destination	Required For	Description
	ICMP	ping	Client	DHCP	Free IP checking (optional)
7	TCP	echo	Client	DHCP	Free IP checking (optional)
22	TCP	SSH	Target host	Remote execution	Run jobs
22, 16514	TCP	SSH SSH/TLS	Compute Resource	Foreman originated communications, for compute resources in libvirt
53	TCP and UDP	DNS	DNS Servers on the Internet	DNS Server	Resolve DNS records (optional)
53	TCP and UDP	DNS	DNS Server	Smart Proxy DNS	Validation of DNS conflicts (optional)
53	TCP and UDP	DNS	DNS Server	Orchestration	Validation of DNS conflicts
68	UDP	DHCP	Client	Dynamic IP	DHCP (optional)
80	TCP	HTTP	Remote repository	Content Sync	Remote repositories
389, 636	TCP	LDAP, LDAPS	External LDAP Server	LDAP	LDAP authentication, necessary only if external authentication is enabled. The port can be customized when `LDAPAuthSource` is defined
443	TCP	HTTPS	Foreman	Smart Proxy	Smart Proxy Configuration management Template retrieval OpenSCAP Remote Execution result upload
443	TCP	HTTPS	Amazon EC2, Azure, Google GCE	Compute resources	Virtual machine interactions (query/create/destroy) (optional)
443	TCP	HTTPS	Smart Proxy	Content mirroring	Initiation
443	TCP	HTTPS	Infoblox DHCP Server	DHCP management	When using Infoblox for DHCP, management of the DHCP leases (optional)
623			Client	Power management	BMC On/Off/Cycle/Status
5000	TCP	HTTPS	OpenStack Compute Resource	Compute resources	Virtual machine interactions (query/create/destroy) (optional)
5900 – 5930	TCP	SSL/TLS	Hypervisor	noVNC console	Launch noVNC console
5985	TCP	HTTP	Client	WinRM	Configure Client running Windows
5986	TCP	HTTPS	Client	WinRM	Configure Client running Windows
7911	TCP	DHCP, OMAPI	DHCP Server	DHCP	The DHCP target is configured using `--foreman-proxy-dhcp-server` and defaults to localhost ISC and `remote_isc` use a configurable port that defaults to 7911 and uses OMAPI
8443	TCP	HTTPS	Client	Discovery	Smart Proxy sends reboot command to the discovered host (optional)
9090	TCP	HTTPS	Smart Proxy	Smart Proxy API	Management of Smart Proxies

1.7. Enabling connections from a client to Foreman server

Smart Proxies and Content Hosts that are clients of a Foreman server’s internal Smart Proxy require access through Foreman’s host-based firewall and any network-based firewalls.

Use this procedure to configure the host-based firewall on the system that Foreman is installed on, to enable incoming connections from Clients, and to make the configuration persistent across system reboots. For more information on the ports used, see Port and firewall requirements in Installing Foreman Server with Katello 4.13 plugin on Enterprise Linux.

If you do not use firewall-cmd to configure the Linux firewall, implement using the command of your choice.

Procedure

Open the ports for clients on Foreman server:

# firewall-cmd \
--add-port="8000/tcp" \
--add-port="9090/tcp"

Allow access to services on Foreman server:

# firewall-cmd \
--add-service=dns \
--add-service=dhcp \
--add-service=tftp \
--add-service=http \
--add-service=https \
--add-service=puppetmaster

Make the changes persistent:
```
# firewall-cmd --runtime-to-permanent
```

Verification

Enter the following command:
```
# firewall-cmd --list-all
```

For more information, see Using and configuring firewalld in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 Configuring firewalls and packet filters or Using and configuring firewalld in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 Configuring and managing networking.

1.8. Verifying DNS resolution

Verify the full forward and reverse DNS resolution using a fully-qualified domain name to prevent issues while installing Foreman.

Procedure

Ensure that the host name and local host resolve correctly:

# ping -c1 localhost
# ping -c1 `hostname -f` # my_system.domain.com

Successful name resolution results in output similar to the following:

# ping -c1 localhost
PING localhost (127.0.0.1) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from localhost (127.0.0.1): icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=0.043 ms

--- localhost ping statistics ---
1 packets transmitted, 1 received, 0% packet loss, time 0ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 0.043/0.043/0.043/0.000 ms

# ping -c1 `hostname -f`
PING hostname.gateway (XX.XX.XX.XX) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from hostname.gateway (XX.XX.XX.XX): icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=0.019 ms

--- localhost.gateway ping statistics ---
1 packets transmitted, 1 received, 0% packet loss, time 0ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 0.019/0.019/0.019/0.000 ms

To avoid discrepancies with static and transient host names, set all the host names on the system by entering the following command:
```
# hostnamectl set-hostname name
```

Warning

Name resolution is critical to the operation of Foreman. If Foreman cannot properly resolve its fully qualified domain name, tasks such as content management, subscription management, and provisioning will fail.

1.9. Tuning Foreman server with predefined profiles

If your Foreman deployment includes more than 5000 hosts, you can use predefined tuning profiles to improve performance of Foreman.

Note that you cannot use tuning profiles on Smart Proxies.

You can choose one of the profiles depending on the number of hosts your Foreman manages and available hardware resources.

The tuning profiles are available in the /usr/share/foreman-installer/config/foreman.hiera/tuning/sizes directory.

When you run the foreman-installer command with the --tuning option, deployment configuration settings are applied to Foreman in the following order:

The default tuning profile defined in the /usr/share/foreman-installer/config/foreman.hiera/tuning/common.yaml file
The tuning profile that you want to apply to your deployment and is defined in the /usr/share/foreman-installer/config/foreman.hiera/tuning/sizes/ directory
Optional: If you have configured a /etc/foreman-installer/custom-hiera.yaml file, Foreman applies these configuration settings.

Note that the configuration settings that are defined in the /etc/foreman-installer/custom-hiera.yaml file override the configuration settings that are defined in the tuning profiles.

Therefore, before applying a tuning profile, you must compare the configuration settings that are defined in the default tuning profile in /usr/share/foreman-installer/config/foreman.hiera/tuning/common.yaml, the tuning profile that you want to apply and your /etc/foreman-installer/custom-hiera.yaml file, and remove any duplicated configuration from the /etc/foreman-installer/custom-hiera.yaml file.

default: Number of hosts: 0 – 5000

RAM: 20G

Number of CPU cores: 4
medium: Number of hosts: 5001 – 10000

RAM: 32G

Number of CPU cores: 8
large: Number of hosts: 10001 – 20000

RAM: 64G

Number of CPU cores: 16
extra-large: Number of hosts: 20001 – 60000

RAM: 128G

Number of CPU cores: 32
extra-extra-large: Number of hosts: 60000+

RAM: 256G

Number of CPU cores: 48+

Procedure

Optional: If you have configured the custom-hiera.yaml file on Foreman server, back up the /etc/foreman-installer/custom-hiera.yaml file to custom-hiera.original. You can use the backup file to restore the /etc/foreman-installer/custom-hiera.yaml file to its original state if it becomes corrupted:
```
# cp /etc/foreman-installer/custom-hiera.yaml \
/etc/foreman-installer/custom-hiera.original
```
Optional: If you have configured the custom-hiera.yaml file on Foreman server, review the definitions of the default tuning profile in /usr/share/foreman-installer/config/foreman.hiera/tuning/common.yaml and the tuning profile that you want to apply in /usr/share/foreman-installer/config/foreman.hiera/tuning/sizes/. Compare the configuration entries against the entries in your /etc/foreman-installer/custom-hiera.yaml file and remove any duplicated configuration settings in your /etc/foreman-installer/custom-hiera.yaml file.
Enter the foreman-installer command with the --tuning option for the profile that you want to apply. For example, to apply the medium tuning profile settings, enter the following command:
```
# foreman-installer --tuning medium
```

2. Preparing your environment for Foreman installation in an IPv6 network

You can install and use Foreman in an IPv6 network. Before installing Foreman in an IPv6 network, view the limitations and ensure that you meet the requirements.

To provision hosts in an IPv6 network, after installing Foreman, you must also configure Foreman for the UEFI HTTP boot provisioning. For more information, see Configuring Foreman for UEFI HTTP boot provisioning in an IPv6 network.

2.1. Limitations of Foreman installation in an IPv6 network

Foreman installation in an IPv6 network has the following limitations:

You can install Foreman and Smart Proxies in IPv6-only systems, dual-stack installation is not supported.
Although Foreman provisioning templates include IPv6 support for PXE and HTTP (iPXE) provisioning, the only tested and certified provisioning workflow is the UEFI HTTP Boot provisioning. This limitation only relates to users who plan to use Foreman to provision hosts.

2.2. Requirements for Foreman installation in an IPv6 network

Before installing Foreman in an IPv6 network, ensure that you meet the following requirements:

You must deploy an external DHCP IPv6 server as a separate unmanaged service to bootstrap clients into GRUB2, which then configures IPv6 networking either using DHCPv6 or assigning static IPv6 address. This is required because the DHCP server in Red Hat Enterprise Linux (ISC DHCP) does not provide an integration API for managing IPv6 records, therefore the Smart Proxy DHCP plugin that provides DHCP management is limited to IPv4 subnets.
Optional: If you rely on content from IPv4 networks, you must deploy an external IPv4 HTTP proxy server. This is required to access Content Delivery Networks that distribute content only over IPv4 networks, therefore you must use this proxy to pull content into Foreman on your IPv6 network.
You must configure Foreman to use this dual stack (supporting both IPv4 and IPv6) HTTP proxy server as the default proxy. For more information, see Adding a Default HTTP Proxy to Foreman.

3. Installing Foreman server

Use the following procedures to install Foreman server and perform the initial configuration.

Note that the Foreman installation script is based on Puppet, which means that if you run the installation script more than once, it might overwrite any manual configuration changes. ⁠ To avoid this and determine which future changes apply, use the --noop argument when you run the installation script. This argument ensures that no actual changes are made. Potential changes are written to /var/log/foreman-installer/katello.log.

Files are always backed up and so you can revert any unwanted changes. For example, in the foreman-installer logs, you can see an entry similar to the following about Filebucket:

/Stage[main]/Dhcp/File[/etc/dhcp/dhcpd.conf]: Filebucketed /etc/dhcp/dhcpd.conf to puppet with sum 622d9820b8e764ab124367c68f5fa3a1

You can restore the previous file as follows:

# puppet filebucket -l \
restore /etc/dhcp/dhcpd.conf 622d9820b8e764ab124367c68f5fa3a1

3.1. Configuring the HTTP proxy to connect to Red Hat CDN

Prerequisites

Your network gateway and the HTTP proxy must allow access to the following hosts:

Host name	Port	Protocol
subscription.rhsm.redhat.com	443	HTTPS
cdn.redhat.com	443	HTTPS

Host name

Port

Protocol

subscription.rhsm.redhat.com

443

HTTPS

cdn.redhat.com

443

HTTPS

Foreman server uses SSL to communicate with the Red Hat CDN securely. An SSL interception proxy interferes with this communication. These hosts must be allowlisted on your HTTP proxy.

For a list of IP addresses used by the Red Hat CDN (cdn.redhat.com), see the Knowledgebase article Public CIDR Lists for Red Hat on the Red Hat Customer Portal.

To configure the Subscription Manager with the HTTP proxy, follow the procedure below.

Procedure

On Foreman server, complete the following details in the /etc/rhsm/rhsm.conf file:

# an http proxy server to use (enter server FQDN)
proxy_hostname = http-proxy.example.com

# port for http proxy server
proxy_port = 8080

# user name for authenticating to an http proxy, if needed
proxy_user =

# password for basic http proxy auth, if needed
proxy_password =

3.2. Configuring repositories

Procedure

Enterprise Linux 9
Enterprise Linux 8

Clear any metadata:
```
# dnf clean all
```

Install the foreman-release.rpm package:

# dnf install https://yum.theforeman.org/releases/3.11/el9/x86_64/foreman-release.rpm

Install the katello-repos-latest.rpm package:

# dnf install https://yum.theforeman.org/katello/4.13/katello/el9/x86_64/katello-repos-latest.rpm

Install the puppet7-release-el-9.noarch.rpm package:

# dnf install https://yum.puppet.com/puppet7-release-el-9.noarch.rpm

Clear any metadata:
```
# dnf clean all
```

Install the foreman-release.rpm package:

# dnf install https://yum.theforeman.org/releases/3.11/el8/x86_64/foreman-release.rpm

Install the katello-repos-latest.rpm package:

# dnf install https://yum.theforeman.org/katello/4.13/katello/el8/x86_64/katello-repos-latest.rpm

Install the puppet7-release-el-8.noarch.rpm package:

# dnf install https://yum.puppet.com/puppet7-release-el-8.noarch.rpm

Enable the DNF modules:

# dnf module enable katello:el8

Note	If there is any warning about conflicts with Ruby or PostgreSQL while enabling `katello:el8` module, see Troubleshooting DNF modules. For more information about modules and lifecycle streams on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8, see Red Hat Enterprise Linux Application Streams Lifecycle.

Verification

Verify that the required repositories are enabled:
```
# dnf repolist enabled
```

3.3. Optional: Using fapolicyd on Foreman server

By enabling fapolicyd on your Foreman server, you can provide an additional layer of security by monitoring and controlling access to files and directories. The fapolicyd daemon uses the RPM database as a repository of trusted binaries and scripts.

You can turn on or off the fapolicyd on your Foreman server or Smart Proxy server at any point.

3.3.1. Installing fapolicyd on Foreman server

You can install fapolicyd along with Foreman server or can be installed on an existing Foreman server. If you are installing fapolicyd along with the new Foreman server, the installation process will detect the fapolicyd in your Enterprise Linux host and deploy the Foreman server rules automatically.

Prerequisites

Ensure your host has access to the BaseOS repositories of Enterprise Linux.

Procedure

For a new installation, install fapolicyd:
```
# dnf install fapolicyd
```
For an existing installation, install fapolicyd using dnf install:
```
# dnf install fapolicyd
```
Start the fapolicyd service:
```
# systemctl enable --now fapolicyd
```

Verification

Verify that the fapolicyd service is running correctly:
```
# systemctl status fapolicyd
```

New Foreman server or Smart Proxy server installations

In case of new Foreman server or Smart Proxy server installation, follow the standard installation procedures after installing and enabling fapolicyd on your Enterprise Linux host.

Additional resources

For more information on fapolicyd, see Blocking and allowing applications using fapolicyd in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 Security hardening or Blocking and allowing applications using fapolicyd in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 Security hardening.

3.4. Installing Foreman server packages

Procedure

Update all packages:
```
# dnf upgrade
```
Install foreman-installer-katello:
```
# dnf install foreman-installer-katello
```

3.5. Configuring Foreman server

Install Foreman server using the foreman-installer installation script.

This method is performed by running the installation script with one or more command options. The command options override the corresponding default initial configuration options and are recorded in the Foreman answer file. You can run the script as often as needed to configure any necessary options.

3.5.1. Configuring Foreman installation

This initial configuration procedure creates an organization, location, user name, and password. After the initial configuration, you can create additional organizations and locations if required. The initial configuration also installs PostgreSQL databases on the same server.

The installation process can take tens of minutes to complete. If you are connecting remotely to the system, use a utility such as tmux that allows suspending and reattaching a communication session so that you can check the installation progress in case you become disconnected from the remote system. If you lose connection to the shell where the installation command is running, see the log at /var/log/foreman-installer/katello.log to determine if the process completed successfully.

Considerations

Use the foreman-installer --scenario katello --help command to display the most commonly used options and any default values.
Use the foreman-installer --scenario katello --full-help command to display advanced options.
Specify a meaningful value for the option: --foreman-initial-organization. This can be your company name. An internal label that matches the value is also created and cannot be changed afterwards. If you do not specify a value, an organization called Default Organization with the label Default_Organization is created. You can rename the organization name but not the label.
By default, all configuration files configured by the installer are managed. When foreman-installer runs, it overwrites any manual changes to the managed files with the intended values. This means that running the installer on a broken system should restore it to working order, regardless of changes made. For more information on how to apply custom configuration on other services, see Applying Custom Configuration to Foreman.

Procedure

Enter the following command with any additional options that you want to use:

# foreman-installer --scenario katello \
--foreman-initial-organization "My_Organization" \
--foreman-initial-location "My_Location" \
--foreman-initial-admin-username admin_user_name \
--foreman-initial-admin-password admin_password

The script displays its progress and writes logs to /var/log/foreman-installer/katello.log.

4. Performing additional configuration on Foreman server

4.1. Configuring Foreman Server to consume content from a custom CDN

If you have an internal Content Delivery Network (CDN) or serve content on an accessible web server, you can configure your Foreman server to consume Red Hat repositories from this CDN server instead of the Red Hat CDN. A CDN server can be any web server that mirrors repositories in the same directory structure as the Red Hat CDN.

You can configure the source of content for each organization. Foreman recognizes automatically which Red Hat repositories from the subscription manifest in your organization are available on your CDN server.

Prerequisites

You have a CDN server that provides Red Hat content and is accessible by Foreman server.
If your CDN server uses HTTPS, ensure you have uploaded the SSL certificate into Foreman. For more information, see Importing Custom SSL Certificates in Managing content.
You have uploaded a manifest to your organization.

Procedure

In the Foreman web UI, navigate to Content > Subscriptions.
Click Manage Manifest.
Select the CDN Configuration tab.
Select the Custom CDN tab.
In the URL field, enter the URL of your CDN server from which you want Foreman server to consume Red Hat repositories.
Optional: In the SSL CA Content Credential, select the SSL certificate of the CDN server.
Click Update.
You can now enable Red Hat repositories consumed from your internal CDN server.

CLI procedure

Connect to your Foreman server using SSH.

Set CDN configuration to your custom CDN server:

# hammer organization configure-cdn --name="My_Organization" \
--type=custom_cdn \
--url https://my-cdn.example.com \
--ssl-ca-credential-id "My_CDN_CA_Cert_ID"

Additional resources

Content Delivery Network Structure in Planning for Foreman

4.2. Configuring Foreman for UEFI HTTP boot provisioning in an IPv6 network

Use this procedure to configure Foreman to provision hosts in an IPv6 network with UEFI HTTP Boot provisioning.

Prerequisites

Ensure that your clients can access DHCP and HTTP servers.
Ensure that the UDP ports 67 and 68 are accessible by clients so clients can send DHCP requests and receive DHCP offers.
Ensure that the TCP port 8000 is open for clients to download files and Kickstart templates from Foreman and Smart Proxies.
Ensure that the host provisioning interface subnet has an HTTP Boot Smart Proxy, and Templates Smart Proxy set. For more information, see Adding a Subnet to Foreman server in Provisioning hosts.
In the Foreman web UI, navigate to Administer > Settings > Provisioning and ensure that the Token duration setting is not set to 0. Foreman cannot identify clients that are booting from the network by a remote IPv6 address because of unmanaged DHCPv6 service, therefore provisioning tokens must be enabled.

Procedure

You must disable DHCP management in the installer or not use it.
For all IPv6 subnets created in Foreman, set the DHCP Smart Proxy to blank.
Optional: If the host and the DHCP server are separated by a router, configure the DHCP relay agent and point to the DHCP server.
On Foreman or Smart Proxy from which you provision, update the grub2-efi package to the latest version:
```
# dnf upgrade grub2-efi
```

4.3. Configuring Foreman server with an HTTP proxy

Use the following procedures to configure Foreman with an HTTP proxy.

4.3.1. Adding a default HTTP proxy to Foreman

If your network uses an HTTP Proxy, you can configure Foreman server to use an HTTP proxy for requests to the Red Hat Content Delivery Network (CDN) or another content source. Use the FQDN instead of the IP address where possible to avoid losing connectivity because of network changes.

The following procedure configures a proxy only for downloading content for Foreman. To use the CLI instead of the Foreman web UI, see the CLI procedure.

Procedure

In the Foreman web UI, navigate to Infrastructure > HTTP Proxies.
Click New HTTP Proxy.
In the Name field, enter the name for the HTTP proxy.
In the Url field, enter the URL of the HTTP proxy in the following format: https://http-proxy.example.com:8080.
Optional: If authentication is required, in the Username field, enter the username to authenticate with.
Optional: If authentication is required, in the Password field, enter the password to authenticate with.
To test connection to the proxy, click Test Connection.
Click Submit.
In the Foreman web UI, navigate to Administer > Settings, and click the Content tab.
Set the Default HTTP Proxy setting to the created HTTP proxy.

CLI procedure

Verify that the http_proxy, https_proxy, and no_proxy variables are not set:
```
# unset http_proxy https_proxy no_proxy
```

Add an HTTP proxy entry to Foreman:

# hammer http-proxy create \
--name=My_HTTP_Proxy \
--username=My_HTTP_Proxy_User_Name \
--password=My_HTTP_Proxy_Password \
--url http://http-proxy.example.com:8080

Configure Foreman to use this HTTP proxy by default:

# hammer settings set \
--name=content_default_http_proxy \
--value=My_HTTP_Proxy

4.3.2. Configuring SELinux to ensure access to Foreman on custom ports

SELinux ensures access of Foreman only to specific ports. In the case of the HTTP cache, the TCP ports are 8080, 8118, 8123, and 10001 – 10010. If you use a port that does not have SELinux type http_cache_port_t, complete the following steps.

Procedure

On Foreman, to verify the ports that are permitted by SELinux for the HTTP cache, enter a command as follows:

# semanage port -l | grep http_cache
http_cache_port_t       tcp    8080, 8118, 8123, 10001-10010
[output truncated]

To configure SELinux to permit a port for the HTTP cache, for example 8088, enter a command as follows:
```
# semanage port -a -t http_cache_port_t -p tcp 8088
```

4.3.3. Using an HTTP proxy for all Foreman HTTP requests

If your Foreman server must remain behind a firewall that blocks HTTP and HTTPS, you can configure a proxy for communication with external systems, including compute resources.

Note that if you are using compute resources for provisioning, and you want to use a different HTTP proxy with the compute resources, the proxy that you set for all Foreman communication takes precedence over the proxies that you set for compute resources.

Procedure

In the Foreman web UI, navigate to Administer > Settings.
In the HTTP(S) proxy row, select the adjacent Value column and enter the proxy URL.
Click the tick icon to save your changes.

CLI procedure

Enter the following command:

# hammer settings set --name=http_proxy --value=Proxy_URL

4.3.4. Excluding hosts from receiving proxied requests

If you use an HTTP Proxy for all Foreman HTTP or HTTPS requests, you can prevent certain hosts from communicating through the proxy.

Procedure

In the Foreman web UI, navigate to Administer > Settings.
In the HTTP(S) proxy except hosts row, select the adjacent Value column and enter the names of one or more hosts that you want to exclude from proxy requests.
Click the tick icon to save your changes.

CLI procedure

Enter the following command:

# hammer settings set --name=http_proxy_except_list --value=[hostname1.hostname2...]

4.3.5. Configuring a proxy for PXE file downloads

For Red Hat content served through the Content Delivery Network, Smart Proxy downloads PXE files from synchronized repositories. However, when configuring and installing an operating system using Installation Media, Smart Proxy connects directly using the wget utility.

Procedure

On your TFTP Smart Proxy, verify the ports that are permitted by SELinux for the HTTP cache by entering the following command:
```
# systemctl edit foreman-proxy
```

Configure the HTTP proxy in /etc/systemd/system/foreman-proxy.service.d/overrides.conf:

[Service]
Environment="http_proxy=http://http-proxy.example.com:8080"
Environment="https_proxy=https://http-proxy.example.com:8443"

Restart the foreman-proxy service:
```
# systemctl restart foreman-proxy
```
Create a host or enter build mode for an existing host to re-download PXE files to the TFTP Smart Proxy.

4.3.6. Resetting the HTTP proxy

If you want to reset the current HTTP proxy setting, unset the Default HTTP Proxy setting.

Procedure

In the Foreman web UI, navigate to Administer > Settings, and click the Content tab.
Set the Default HTTP Proxy setting to no global default.

CLI procedure

Set the content_default_http_proxy setting to an empty string:

# hammer settings set --name=content_default_http_proxy --value=""

4.4. Enabling power management on hosts

To perform power management tasks on hosts using the intelligent platform management interface (IPMI) or a similar protocol, you must enable the baseboard management controller (BMC) module on Foreman server.

Prerequisites

All hosts must have a network interface of BMC type. Foreman server uses this NIC to pass the appropriate credentials to the host. For more information, see Adding a Baseboard Management Controller (BMC) Interface in Managing hosts.

Procedure

To enable BMC, enter the following command:

# foreman-installer \
--foreman-proxy-bmc "true" \
--foreman-proxy-bmc-default-provider "freeipmi"

4.5. Configuring DNS, DHCP, and TFTP

You can manage DNS, DHCP, and TFTP centrally within the Foreman environment, or you can manage them independently after disabling their maintenance on Foreman. You can also run DNS, DHCP, and TFTP externally, outside of the Foreman environment.

4.5.1. Configuring DNS, DHCP, and TFTP on Foreman server

To configure the DNS, DHCP, and TFTP services on Foreman server, use the foreman-installer command with the options appropriate for your environment.

Any changes to the settings require entering the foreman-installer command again. You can enter the command multiple times and each time it updates all configuration files with the changed values.

Prerequisites

Ensure that the following information is available to you:
- DHCP IP address ranges
- DHCP gateway IP address
- DHCP nameserver IP address
- DNS information
- TFTP server name
Use the FQDN instead of the IP address where possible in case of network changes.
Contact your network administrator to ensure that you have the correct settings.

Procedure

Enter the foreman-installer command with the options appropriate for your environment. The following example shows configuring full provisioning services:

# foreman-installer \
--foreman-proxy-dns true \
--foreman-proxy-dns-managed true \
--foreman-proxy-dns-zone example.com \
--foreman-proxy-dns-reverse 2.0.192.in-addr.arpa \
--foreman-proxy-dhcp true \
--foreman-proxy-dhcp-managed true \
--foreman-proxy-dhcp-range "192.0.2.100 192.0.2.150" \
--foreman-proxy-dhcp-gateway 192.0.2.1 \
--foreman-proxy-dhcp-nameservers 192.0.2.2 \
--foreman-proxy-tftp true \
--foreman-proxy-tftp-managed true \
--foreman-proxy-tftp-servername 192.0.2.3

You can monitor the progress of the foreman-installer command displayed in your prompt. You can view the logs in /var/log/foreman-installer/katello.log.

Additional resources

For more information about the foreman-installer command, enter foreman-installer --help.

4.5.2. Disabling DNS, DHCP, and TFTP for unmanaged networks

If you want to manage TFTP, DHCP, and DNS services manually, you must prevent Foreman from maintaining these services on the operating system and disable orchestration to avoid DHCP and DNS validation errors. However, Foreman does not remove the back-end services on the operating system.

Procedure

On Foreman server, enter the following command:

# foreman-installer --foreman-proxy-dhcp false \
--foreman-proxy-dns false \
--foreman-proxy-tftp false

In the Foreman web UI, navigate to Infrastructure > Subnets and select a subnet.
Click the Smart Proxies tab and clear the DHCP Smart Proxy, TFTP Smart Proxy, and Reverse DNS Smart Proxy fields.
In the Foreman web UI, navigate to Infrastructure > Domains and select a domain.
Clear the DNS Smart Proxy field.
Optional: If you use a DHCP service supplied by a third party, configure your DHCP server to pass the following options:
```
Option 66: IP address of Foreman or Smart Proxy
Option 67: /pxelinux.0
```
For more information about DHCP options, see RFC 2132.

Note

Foreman does not perform orchestration when a Smart Proxy is not set for a given subnet and domain. When enabling or disabling Smart Proxy associations, orchestration commands for existing hosts can fail if the expected records and configuration files are not present. When associating a Smart Proxy to turn orchestration on, ensure the required DHCP and DNS records as well as the TFTP files are in place for the existing Foreman hosts in order to prevent host deletion failures in the future.

4.5.3. Additional resources

For more information about configuring DNS, DHCP, and TFTP externally, see Configuring Foreman server with external services.
For more information about configuring DHCP, DNS, and TFTP services, see Configuring Network Services in Provisioning hosts.

4.6. Configuring Foreman server for outgoing emails

To send email messages from Foreman server, you can use either an SMTP server, or the sendmail command.

Prerequisites

Some SMTP servers with anti-spam protection or grey-listing features are known to cause problems. To setup outgoing email with such a service either install and configure a vanilla SMTP service on Foreman server for relay or use the sendmail command instead.

Procedure

In the Foreman web UI, navigate to Administer > Settings.

Click the Email tab and set the configuration options to match your preferred delivery method. The changes have an immediate effect.

The following example shows the configuration options for using an SMTP server:

Table 5. Using an SMTP server as a delivery method
Name	Example value
Delivery method	SMTP
SMTP address	smtp.example.com
SMTP authentication	login
SMTP HELO/EHLO domain	example.com
SMTP password	password
SMTP port	25
SMTP username	user@example.com

The SMTP username and SMTP password specify the login credentials for the SMTP server.

The following example uses gmail.com as an SMTP server:

Table 6. Using gmail.com as an SMTP server
Name	Example value
Delivery method	SMTP
SMTP address	smtp.gmail.com
SMTP authentication	plain
SMTP HELO/EHLO domain	smtp.gmail.com
SMTP enable StartTLS auto	Yes
SMTP password	password
SMTP port	587
SMTP username	user@gmail.com

The following example uses the sendmail command as a delivery method:

Table 7. Using sendmail as a delivery method

Name Example value

Delivery method

Sendmail

Sendmail location

/usr/sbin/sendmail

Sendmail arguments

-i

For security reasons, both Sendmail location and Sendmail argument settings are read-only and can be only set in /etc/foreman/settings.yaml. Both settings currently cannot be set via foreman-installer. This is being tracked in issue #33543. For more information see the sendmail 1 man page.

If you decide to send email using an SMTP server which uses TLS authentication, also perform one of the following steps:
- Mark the CA certificate of the SMTP server as trusted. To do so, execute the following commands on Foreman server:
  # cp mailca.crt /etc/pki/ca-trust/source/anchors/ # update-ca-trust enable # update-ca-trust
  Where mailca.crt is the CA certificate of the SMTP server.
- Alternatively, in the Foreman web UI, set the SMTP enable StartTLS auto option to No.
Click Test email to send a test message to the user’s email address to confirm the configuration is working. If a message fails to send, the Foreman web UI displays an error. See the log at /var/log/foreman/production.log for further details.

Table 7. Using sendmail as a delivery method
Name	Example value
Delivery method	Sendmail
Sendmail location	/usr/sbin/sendmail
Sendmail arguments	-i

Additional resources

For information on configuring email notifications for individual users or user groups, see Configuring Email Notification Preferences in Administering Foreman.

4.7. Configuring an alternate CNAME for Foreman

You can configure an alternate CNAME for Foreman. This might be useful if you want to deploy the Foreman web interface on a different domain name than the one that is used by client systems to connect to Foreman. You must plan the alternate CNAME configuration in advance prior to installing Smart Proxies and registering hosts to Foreman to avoid redeploying new certificates to hosts.

4.7.1. Configuring Foreman with an alternate CNAME

Use this procedure to configure Foreman with an alternate CNAME. Note that the procedures for users of a default Foreman certificate and custom certificate differ.

For default Foreman certificate users

If you have installed Foreman with a default Foreman certificate and want to configure Foreman with an alternate CNAME, enter the following command on Foreman to generate a new default Foreman SSL certificate with an additional CNAME.
```
# foreman-installer --certs-cname alternate_fqdn --certs-update-server
```
If you have not installed Foreman, you can add the --certs-cname alternate_fqdn option to the foreman-installer command to install Foreman with an alternate CNAME.

For custom certificate users

If you use Foreman with a custom certificate, when creating a custom certificate, include the alternate CNAME records to the custom certificate. For more information, see Creating a Custom SSL Certificate for Foreman server.

4.7.2. Configuring hosts to use an alternate Foreman CNAME for content management

If Foreman is configured with an alternate CNAME, you can configure hosts to use the alternate Foreman CNAME for content management. To do this, you must point hosts to the alternate Foreman CNAME prior to registering the hosts to Foreman. You can do this using the bootstrap script or manually.

Configuring hosts with the bootstrap script

On the host, run the bootstrap script with the --server alternate_fqdn.example.com option to register the host to the alternate Foreman CNAME:

# ./bootstrap.py --server alternate_fqdn.example.com

Configuring hosts manually

On the host, edit the /etc/rhsm/rhsm.conf file to update hostname and baseurl settings to point to the alternate host name, for example:

[server]
# Server hostname:
hostname = alternate_fqdn.example.com

content omitted

[rhsm]
# Content base URL:
baseurl=https://alternate_fqdn.example.com/pulp/content/

Now you can register the host with the subscription-manager.

4.8. Configuring Foreman server with a custom SSL certificate

By default, Foreman uses a self-signed SSL certificate to enable encrypted communications between Foreman server, external Smart Proxy servers, and all hosts. If you cannot use a Foreman self-signed certificate, you can configure Foreman server to use an SSL certificate signed by an external certificate authority (CA).

When you configure Foreman with custom SSL certificates, you must fulfill the following requirements:

You must use the privacy-enhanced mail (PEM) encoding for the SSL certificates.
You must not use the same SSL certificate for both Foreman server and Smart Proxy server.
The same CA must sign certificates for Foreman server and Smart Proxy server.
An SSL certificate must not also be a CA certificate.
An SSL certificate must include a subject alt name (SAN) entry that matches the common name (CN).
An SSL certificate must be allowed for Key Encipherment using a Key Usage extension.
An SSL certificate must not have a shortname as the CN.
You must not set a passphrase for the private key.

To configure your Foreman server with a custom certificate, complete the following procedures:

Creating a custom SSL certificate for Foreman server
Deploying a custom SSL certificate to Foreman server
Deploying a SSL certificate to hosts
If you have external Smart Proxy servers registered to Foreman server, configure them with custom SSL certificates. For more information, see Configuring Smart Proxy server with a Custom SSL Certificate in Installing a Smart Proxy Server 3.11 on Enterprise Linux.

4.8.1. Creating a custom SSL certificate for Foreman server

Use this procedure to create a custom SSL certificate for Foreman server. If you already have a custom SSL certificate for Foreman server, skip this procedure.

Procedure

To store all the source certificate files, create a directory that is accessible only to the root user:
```
# mkdir /root/foreman_cert
```
Create a private key with which to sign the certificate signing request (CSR).

Note that the private key must be unencrypted. If you use a password-protected private key, remove the private key password.

If you already have a private key for this Foreman server, skip this step.
```
# openssl genrsa -out /root/foreman_cert/foreman_cert_key.pem 4096
```

Create the /root/foreman_cert/openssl.cnf configuration file for the CSR and include the following content:

[ req ]
req_extensions = v3_req
distinguished_name = req_distinguished_name
prompt = no

[ req_distinguished_name ]
commonName = foreman.example.com

[ v3_req ]
basicConstraints = CA:FALSE
keyUsage = digitalSignature, nonRepudiation, keyEncipherment, dataEncipherment
extendedKeyUsage = serverAuth, clientAuth, codeSigning, emailProtection
subjectAltName = @alt_names

[ alt_names ]
DNS.1 = foreman.example.com

Optional: If you want to add Distinguished Name (DN) details to the CSR, add the following information to the [ req_distinguished_name ] section:

[req_distinguished_name]
CN = foreman.example.com
countryName =My_Country_Name (1)
stateOrProvinceName = My_State_Or_Province_Name (2)
localityName = My_Locality_Name (3)
organizationName = My_Organization_Or_Company_Name
organizationalUnitName = My_Organizational_Unit_Name (4)

Two letter code
Full name
Full name (example: New York)
Division responsible for the certificate (example: IT department)

Generate CSR:

# openssl req -new \
-key /root/foreman_cert/foreman_cert_key.pem \ (1)
-config /root/foreman_cert/openssl.cnf \ (2)
-out /root/foreman_cert/foreman_cert_csr.pem (3)

Path to the private key
Path to the configuration file
Path to the CSR to generate

Send the certificate signing request to the certificate authority (CA). The same CA must sign certificates for Foreman server and Smart Proxy server.

When you submit the request, specify the lifespan of the certificate. The method for sending the certificate request varies, so consult the CA for the preferred method. In response to the request, you can expect to receive a CA bundle and a signed certificate, in separate files.

4.8.2. Deploying a custom SSL certificate to Foreman server

Use this procedure to configure your Foreman server to use a custom SSL certificate signed by a Certificate Authority.

Important

Do not store the SSL certificates or .tar bundles in /tmp or /var/tmp directory. The operating system removes files from these directories periodically. As a result, foreman-installer fails to execute while enabling features or upgrading Foreman server.

Procedure

Update certificates on your Foreman server:

# foreman-installer \
--certs-server-cert "/root/foreman_cert/foreman_cert.pem" \ (1)
--certs-server-key "/root/foreman_cert/foreman_cert_key.pem" \ (2)
--certs-server-ca-cert "/root/foreman_cert/ca_cert_bundle.pem" \ (3)
--certs-update-server --certs-update-server-ca

Path to Foreman server certificate file that is signed by a Certificate Authority.
Path to the private key that was used to sign Foreman server certificate.
Path to the Certificate Authority bundle.

Verification

On a computer with network access to Foreman server, navigate to the following URL: https://foreman.example.com.
In your browser, view the certificate details to verify the deployed certificate.

4.8.3. Deploying a SSL certificate to hosts

After you configure Foreman to use a SSL certificate, you must deploy the certificate to hosts registered to Foreman.

Procedure

Update the SSL certificate on each host:

On Debian and Ubuntu:

# wget http://foreman.example.com/pub/katello-rhsm-consumer
# chmod +x katello-rhsm-consumer
# ./katello-rhsm-consumer

On Enterprise Linux 8+:

# dnf install http://foreman.example.com/pub/katello-ca-consumer-latest.noarch.rpm

On Enterprise Linux 7:

# yum install http://foreman.example.com/pub/katello-ca-consumer-latest.noarch.rpm

On OpenSUSE and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server:

# zypper install http://foreman.example.com/pub/katello-ca-consumer-latest.noarch.rpm

4.9. Resetting SSL certificate to default self-signed certificate on Foreman server

Procedure

Reset the SSL certificate to default self-signed certificate:
```
# foreman-installer --certs-reset
```

Verification

Verify that the following parameters in /etc/foreman-installer/scenarios.d/foreman-answers.yaml have no values:

server_cert:
server_key:
server_cert_req:
server_ca_cert:

Additional resources

Reset SSL certificate to default self-signed certificate on Smart Proxy server in Installing a Smart Proxy Server 3.11 on Enterprise Linux.
Reset SSL certificate to default self-signed certificate on hosts in Managing hosts.

4.10. Using external databases with Foreman

As part of the installation process for Foreman, the foreman-installer command installs PostgreSQL databases on the same server as Foreman. In certain Foreman deployments, using external databases instead of the default local databases can help with the server load.

To create and use external databases for Foreman, you must complete the following procedures:

Preparing a host for external databases. Prepare a host for the external databases.
Installing PostgreSQL. Prepare PostgreSQL with databases for Foreman, Candlepin and Pulp with dedicated users owning them.
Configuring Foreman server to use external databases. Edit the parameters of foreman-installer to point to the new databases, and run foreman-installer.

4.10.1. PostgreSQL as an external database considerations

Foreman, Katello, and Candlepin use the PostgreSQL database. If you want to use PostgreSQL as an external database, the following information can help you decide if this option is right for your Foreman configuration. Foreman supports PostgreSQL version 12.

Advantages of external PostgreSQL

Increase in free memory and free CPU on Foreman
Flexibility to set shared_buffers on the PostgreSQL database to a high number without the risk of interfering with other services on Foreman
Flexibility to tune the PostgreSQL server’s system without adversely affecting Foreman operations

Disadvantages of external PostgreSQL

Increase in deployment complexity that can make troubleshooting more difficult
The external PostgreSQL server is an additional system to patch and maintain
If either Foreman or the PostgreSQL database server suffers a hardware or storage failure, Foreman is not operational
If there is latency between the Foreman server and database server, performance can suffer

4.10.2. Preparing a host for external databases

Install a freshly provisioned system with the latest Enterprise Linux 9 or Enterprise Linux 8 to host the external databases.

Prerequisites

The prepared host must meet Foreman’s Storage Requirements.

Procedure

Select the operating system and version you are installing external database on:

Enterprise Linux 9
Enterprise Linux 8

Enterprise Linux 9

Install the katello-repos-latest.rpm package

# dnf install https://yum.theforeman.org/releases/3.11/el9/x86_64/foreman-release.rpm \
https://yum.theforeman.org/katello/4.13/katello/el9/x86_64/katello-repos-latest.rpm

Verification

Verify that the required repositories are enabled:
```
# dnf repolist enabled
```

Enterprise Linux 8

Install the katello-repos-latest.rpm package

# dnf install https://yum.theforeman.org/releases/3.11/el8/x86_64/foreman-release.rpm \
https://yum.theforeman.org/katello/4.13/katello/el8/x86_64/katello-repos-latest.rpm

Enable the following module:

# dnf module enable katello:el8

Note

Enablement of the module katello:el8 warns about a conflict with postgresql:10 and ruby:2.5 as these modules are set to the default module versions on Enterprise Linux 8. The module katello:el8 has a dependency for the modules postgresql:12 and ruby:2.7 that will be enabled with the katello:el8 module. These warnings do not cause installation process failure, hence can be ignored safely.

Verification

Verify that the required repositories are enabled:
```
# dnf repolist enabled
```

4.10.3. Installing PostgreSQL

You can install only the same version of PostgreSQL that is installed with the foreman-installer tool during an internal database installation. Foreman supports PostgreSQL version 12.

If you do not use firewall-cmd to configure the Linux firewall, implement using the command of your choice.

Procedure

To install PostgreSQL, enter the following command:

# dnf install postgresql-server postgresql-evr postgresql-contrib

To initialize PostgreSQL, enter the following command:
```
# postgresql-setup initdb
```
Edit the /var/lib/pgsql/data/postgresql.conf file:
```
# vi /var/lib/pgsql/data/postgresql.conf
```
Note that the default configuration of external PostgreSQL needs to be adjusted to work with Foreman. The base recommended external database configuration adjustments are as follows:
- checkpoint_completion_target: 0.9
- max_connections: 500
- shared_buffers: 512MB
- work_mem: 4MB
Remove the # and edit to listen to inbound connections:
```
listen_addresses = '*'
```
Add the following line to the end of the file to use SCRAM for authentication:
```
password_encryption=scram-sha-256
```
Edit the /var/lib/pgsql/data/pg_hba.conf file:
```
# vi /var/lib/pgsql/data/pg_hba.conf
```

Add the following line to the file:

  host  all   all   Foreman_ip/32   scram-sha-256

To start, and enable PostgreSQL service, enter the following commands:
```
# systemctl enable --now postgresql
```
Open the postgresql port on the external PostgreSQL server:
```
# firewall-cmd --add-service=postgresql
```
Make the changes persistent:
```
# firewall-cmd --runtime-to-permanent
```
Switch to the postgres user and start the PostgreSQL client:
```
$ su - postgres -c psql
```

Create three databases and dedicated roles: one for Foreman, one for Candlepin, and one for Pulp:

CREATE USER "foreman" WITH PASSWORD 'Foreman_Password';
CREATE USER "candlepin" WITH PASSWORD 'Candlepin_Password';
CREATE USER "pulp" WITH PASSWORD 'Pulpcore_Password';
CREATE DATABASE foreman OWNER foreman;
CREATE DATABASE candlepin OWNER candlepin;
CREATE DATABASE pulpcore OWNER pulp;

Connect to the Pulp database:

postgres=# \c pulpcore
You are now connected to database "pulpcore" as user "postgres".

Create the hstore extension:

pulpcore=# CREATE EXTENSION IF NOT EXISTS "hstore";
CREATE EXTENSION

Exit the postgres user:
```
# \q
```

From Foreman server, test that you can access the database. If the connection succeeds, the commands return 1.

# PGPASSWORD='Foreman_Password' psql -h postgres.example.com  -p 5432 -U foreman -d foreman -c "SELECT 1 as ping"
# PGPASSWORD='Candlepin_Password' psql -h postgres.example.com -p 5432 -U candlepin -d candlepin -c "SELECT 1 as ping"
# PGPASSWORD='Pulpcore_Password' psql -h postgres.example.com -p 5432 -U pulp -d pulpcore -c "SELECT 1 as ping"

4.10.4. Configuring Foreman server to use external databases

Use the foreman-installer command to configure Foreman to connect to an external PostgreSQL database.

Prerequisites

You have installed and configured a PostgreSQL database on a Enterprise Linux server.

Procedure

To configure the external databases for Foreman, enter the following command:

# foreman-installer \
--katello-candlepin-manage-db false \
--katello-candlepin-db-host postgres.example.com \
--katello-candlepin-db-name candlepin \
--katello-candlepin-db-user candlepin \
--katello-candlepin-db-password Candlepin_Password \
--foreman-proxy-content-pulpcore-manage-postgresql false \
--foreman-proxy-content-pulpcore-postgresql-host postgres.example.com \
--foreman-proxy-content-pulpcore-postgresql-db-name pulpcore \
--foreman-proxy-content-pulpcore-postgresql-user pulp \
--foreman-proxy-content-pulpcore-postgresql-password Pulpcore_Password \
--foreman-db-manage false \
--foreman-db-host postgres.example.com \
--foreman-db-database foreman \
--foreman-db-username foreman \
--foreman-db-password Foreman_Password

To enable the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) protocol for these external databases, add the following options:

--foreman-db-root-cert <path_to_CA>
--foreman-db-sslmode verify-full
--foreman-proxy-content-pulpcore-postgresql-ssl true
--foreman-proxy-content-pulpcore-postgresql-ssl-root-ca <path_to_CA>
--katello-candlepin-db-ssl true
--katello-candlepin-db-ssl-ca <path_to_CA>
--katello-candlepin-db-ssl-verify true

5. Configuring external authentication and enabling single sign-on and two-factor authentication

If you store users in an external identity provider, you can connect the provider to your Foreman server to enable these users to log in to Foreman. Some external identity providers also enable you to implement authentication features such as single sign-on or two-factor authentication in Foreman, providing an additional layer of security.

Foreman derives user and user group permissions based on user group membership defined in the external identity provider.

5.1. Configuring an LDAP server as an external identity provider for Foreman

Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) is a set of open protocols used to access centrally stored information over a network. With Foreman, you can use one or multiple LDAP directories for external authentication.

Note

While you can configure the LDAP server integrated with FreeIPA as an external authentication source, FreeIPA users will not be able to log in using single sign-on. Instead, consider configuring FreeIPA as an external identity provider. For more information, see Configuring Kerberos single sign-on with FreeIPA in Foreman.

Important

Users cannot use both FreeIPA and LDAP as an authentication method. After a user authenticates by using one of these methods, they cannot use the other method.

To change the authentication method for a user, remove the automatically created user from Foreman.

5.1.1. Configuring TLS for secure LDAP

If Foreman uses TLS to establish a secure LDAP connection (LDAPS), you must obtain the CA certificates of your LDAP server and add them to the trusted CA list on the base operating system of your Foreman server.

If your LDAP server uses a certificate chain with intermediate certificate authorities, you must obtain all root and intermediate certificates and add them to the trusted CA list.

Procedure

Obtain the CA certificate from the LDAP Server:
1. If you use Active Directory Certificate Services, export the Enterprise PKI CA Certificate using the Base64 encoded X.509 format. See How to configure Active Directory authentication with TLS on Foreman for information on creating and exporting a CA certificate from an Active Directory server.
2. Download the LDAP server certificate to a temporary location on the Foreman server, such as /tmp/example.crt. You will remove the certificate when finished.
  
  The filename extensions .cer and .crt are only conventions and can refer to DER binary or PEM ASCII format certificates.
Add the LDAP server certificate to the system truststore:
1. Import the certificate:
  # cp /tmp/example.crt /etc/pki/tls/source/anchors
2. Update the certificate authority truststore:
  # update-ca-trust extract
Delete the downloaded LDAP certificate from the temporary location on your Foreman server.

Additional resources

For more information about adding certificates to the system truststore, see Using shared system certificates in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 Securing networks.

5.1.2. Configuring Foreman to use LDAP

Configure an LDAP authentication source to enable users to log in to Foreman with their existing LDAP credentials.

Prerequisites

Your LDAP server complies with the RFC 2307 schema.
Your user account has the following permissions:
- view_authenticators, create_authenticators, edit_authenticators
- view_locations, assign_locations
- view_organizations, assign_organizations

Procedure

On your Foreman server, enable the Network Information System (NIS) service so that SELinux does not block outgoing LDAP connections:
```
# setsebool -P nis_enabled on
```
In the Foreman web UI, navigate to Administer > Authentication Sources.
From the LDAP menu, select Create.
On the LDAP server tab, enter the details of your LDAP server.

For TLS encrypted connections, select LDAPS to enable encryption.
On the Account tab, enter the account information and domain name details.

See Example settings for LDAP connections and Example LDAP filters.
On the Attribute mappings tab, map LDAP attributes to Foreman attributes.
On the Locations tab, select the locations you want Foreman to assign to users created from the LDAP authentication source. These locations are available to users after they log in for the first time.
On the Organizations tab, select the organizations you want Foreman to assign to users created from the LDAP authentication source. These locations are available to users after they log in for the first time.
Click Submit.

Next steps

If you did not select Automatically Create Accounts In Foreman on the Account tab, create user accounts manually. For more information, see Creating a User in Administering Foreman.
If you selected Automatically Create Accounts In Foreman, LDAP users can now log in to Foreman using their LDAP accounts and passwords.
After users log in for the first time, the Foreman administrator must assign roles to them manually. For more information about assigning appropriate roles to user accounts, see Assigning Roles to a User in Administering Foreman.

5.1.3. Example settings for LDAP connections

Example 1. Example settings for Active Directory LDAP connections

This example uses a dedicated service account called redhat that has bind, read, and search permissions on the user and group entries.

Account Username: DOMAIN\redhat
Account password: P@ssword
Base DN: DC=example,DC=COM
Login name attribute: userPrincipalName
First name attribute: givenName
Last name attribute: sn
Email address attribute: mail
Photo attribute: thumbnailPhoto

The userPrincipalName attribute allows the use of whitespace in usernames. The sAMAccountName attribute, which provides backwards compatibility with legacy Microsoft systems, does not allow the use of whitespace in usernames.

Example 2. Example settings for FreeIPA LDAP connections

This example uses a dedicated service account called redhat that has bind, read, and search permissions on the user and group entries.

Account Username: uid=redhat,cn=users,cn=accounts,dc=example,dc=com
Base DN: dc=example,dc=com
Groups Base DN: cn=groups,cn=accounts,dc=example,dc=com
Login name attribute: uid
First name attribute: givenName
Last name attribute: sn
Email address attribute: mail

Example 3. Example settings for POSIX LDAP connections

This example uses a dedicated service account called redhat that has bind, read, and search permissions on the user and group entries.

Account Username: uid=redhat,ou=users,dc=example,dc=com
Base DN: dc=example,dc=com
Groups Base DN: cn=employee,ou=userclass,dc=example,dc=com
Login name attribute: uid
First name attribute: givenName
Last name attribute: sn
Email address attribute: mail

5.1.4. Example LDAP filters

Example 4. Example LDAP filters for allowing specific users to login

You are using the following LDAP directory structure:

DC=Domain,DC=Example
   |
   |----- CN=Users
         |
         |----- CN=Group1
         |----- CN=Group2
         |----- CN=User1
         |----- CN=User2
         |----- CN=User3

Group membership is defined as follows:

Group1 includes users User1 and User3
Group2 includes users User2 and User3

For example, you can define the following search filters:

Search result (users)	Filter
User1	(distinguishedName=cn=User1,cn=Users,dc=domain,dc=example)
User1, User3	(memberOf=cn=Group1,cn=Users,dc=domain,dc=example)
User2, User3	(memberOf=cn=Group2,cn=Users,dc=domain,dc=example)
User1, User2, User3	(\|(memberOf=cn=Group1,cn=Users,dc=domain,dc=example)(memberOf=cn=Group2,cn=Users,dc=domain,dc=example))
User1, User2, User3	(memberOf:1.2.840.113556.1.4.1941:=cn=Users,dc=domain,dc=example)

Search result (users)

Filter

User1

(distinguishedName=cn=User1,cn=Users,dc=domain,dc=example)

User1, User3

(memberOf=cn=Group1,cn=Users,dc=domain,dc=example)

User2, User3

(memberOf=cn=Group2,cn=Users,dc=domain,dc=example)

User1, User2, User3

(|(memberOf=cn=Group1,cn=Users,dc=domain,dc=example)(memberOf=cn=Group2,cn=Users,dc=domain,dc=example))

User1, User2, User3

(memberOf:1.2.840.113556.1.4.1941:=cn=Users,dc=domain,dc=example)

Because group Users is a nested group that contains groups Group1 and Group2, the filter must include memberOf:1.2.840.113556.1.4.1941:= before the nested group name. This enables you to filter all users from the nested group.

5.2. Configuring Kerberos single sign-on with FreeIPA in Foreman

FreeIPA is an open-source identity management solution that provides centralized authentication, authorization, and account management services. With Foreman, you can integrate Foreman server with your existing FreeIPA server to enable FreeIPA users to authenticate to Foreman.

With your FreeIPA server configured as an external identity provider, users defined in FreeIPA can log in to Foreman with their FreeIPA credentials. If a cross-forest trust is configured between FreeIPA and Active Directory, Active Directory users can also log in to Foreman.

The following login methods are available for FreeIPA users:

Username and password
Kerberos single sign-on

When a cross-forest trust is configured between FreeIPA and Active Directory, Active Directory users can log in to Foreman with their user principal name (UPN) and password.

For information about FreeIPA, including its cross-forest trust functionality, see Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 Planning Identity Management and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 Installing Identity Management.

5.2.1. Enrolling Foreman server in a FreeIPA domain

Create a host entry for your Foreman server system in the FreeIPA LDAP and configure the system to be a client in your FreeIPA domain.

Prerequisites

An existing FreeIPA server
FreeIPA user account with privileges to enroll new FreeIPA hosts

Procedure

On the FreeIPA server:
1. Create a host entry for the Foreman server system.
  
  For more information, see Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 Configuring and managing Identity Management or Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 Managing IdM users, groups, hosts, and access control rules.
2. Create an entry for the HTTP service for Foreman server. This enables access to the keytab file by creating a service principal for your Foreman server.
  
  For more information on creating a service entry in FreeIPA, see Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 Managing IdM users, groups, hosts, and access control rules or Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 Managing IdM users, groups, hosts, and access control rules.
On your Foreman server, configure the system as client in the FreeIPA domain. This includes ensuring that the system meets the necessary prerequisites, installing the necessary packages, and running the ipa-client-install utility.

For more information, see Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 Installing Identity Management or Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 Installing Identity Management.

Note

To install packages on your Foreman server, use the foreman-installer utility.

Verification

On your Foreman server, check that you are able to resolve a user defined on the FreeIPA server. For example, to check the admin user that FreeIPA creates by default:
```
$ id admin
```

Example 5. Enrolling a Foreman server system as a FreeIPA client from the command line by using a one-time password

On the FreeIPA server, a user named admin who has administrative privileges on the FreeIPA server prepares a host entry for the Foreman server system:

Authenticate as the FreeIPA admin user:
```
# kinit admin
```
Optional: Verify that you have authenticated successfully:
```
# klist
```

Create a host entry from the command line. Specify that you want to use a random password for the enrollment.

# ipa host-add --random foreman-server.example.com
--------------------------------------------------
 Added host "foreman-server.example.com"
 --------------------------------------------------
  Host name: foreman-server.example.com
  Random password: W5YpARl=7M.n
  Password: True
  Keytab: False
  Managed by: ipa-server.example.com

Enable access to the keytab file by creating a service principal for your Foreman server:
```
# ipa service-add HTTP/foreman-server.example.com
```

On the Foreman server system, a user with Foreman administrative privileges enrolls the system into the FreeIPA domain:

Install the FreeIPA client packages:
```
# dnf install ipa-client
```
Configure the Foreman server system a client in FreeIPA by using the random password produced by ipa host-add in a previous step:
```
# ipa-client-install --password 'W5YpARl=7M.n'
```
Verify that you are able to resolve the FreeIPA admin user from your Foreman server:
```
$ id admin
```

5.2.2. Configuring the FreeIPA authentication source on Foreman server

Enable FreeIPA users to access Foreman by configuring FreeIPA as an authentication provider on your Foreman server.

Prerequisites

Foreman server running on a system that is enrolled in the FreeIPA domain.

Procedure

To enable access to the Foreman web UI only:

# foreman-installer \
--foreman-ipa-authentication=true

To enable access to the Foreman web UI and the Foreman API, including Hammer CLI:

# foreman-installer \
--foreman-ipa-authentication-api=true \
--foreman-ipa-authentication=true

Warning

Enabling access to both the Foreman web UI and the Foreman API poses a security risk. After the FreeIPA user enters kinit to receive a Kerberos ticket-granting ticket (TGT), an attacker might obtain an API session. The attack is possible even if the user did not previously enter the Foreman login credentials anywhere, for example in the browser.

To disable external authentication with FreeIPA, reset the options. For example, to disable access to the Foreman API and Hammer CLI:
```
# foreman-installer --reset-foreman-ipa-authentication-api
```

Verification

5.2.3. Configuring host-based access control for FreeIPA users logging in to Foreman

You can use host-based access control (HBAC) rules to manage access control within your FreeIPA domain. In FreeIPA, HBAC rules define which users can access which hosts and which services can be used to gain access.

For example, you can configure HBAC on the FreeIPA server to limit access to Foreman server only to selected users or user groups. By configuring a HBAC rule in the FreeIPA domain, you can ensure Foreman does not create database entries for users who should not have access.

Prerequisites

FreeIPA user account with privileges to configure HBAC rules

Procedure

On the FreeIPA server, configure HBAC control. For more information, see Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 Managing IdM users, groups, hosts, and access control rules or Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 Managing IdM users, groups, hosts, and access control rules.
1. Create a HBAC service for Foreman server.
2. Create a new HBAC rule to define the required access control. Add the following FreeIPA entities to the HBAC rule:
  1. The HBAC service for Foreman server
  2. The Foreman server host
  3. The users or user groups to whom you want to grant access
3. Make sure the default FreeIPA allow_all rule is disabled.
On your Foreman server, load the host-based access control rules from FreeIPA:
```
# foreman-installer --foreman-pam-service=foreman-prod
```

Verification

Log in to the Foreman web UI as a user defined in FreeIPA.
- If the user is included in the HBAC rule, Foreman web UI will grant access.
- If the user is not included in the HBAC rule, Foreman web UI will not grant access.

Additional resources

For more information about the allow_all rule and configuring HBAC in FreeIPA, see Host-based access control (HBAC) in FreeIPA documentation.

Example 6. Configuring host-based access control to allow access to Foreman only for selected FreeIPA users by using the command line

On the FreeIPA server, a user with administrative privileges configures a HBAC rule to allow selected users access to Foreman server:

Authenticate as the user with privileges required to configure HBAC rules:
```
$ kinit admin
```
Optional: Verify that you have authenticated successfully:
```
$ klist
```
Create a new HBAC service named foreman-prod:
```
$ ipa hbacsvc-add foreman-prod
```
Create a new HBAC rule:
```
$ ipa hbacrule-add allow-foreman-prod
```

Add the following FreeIPA entities to the HBAC rule:

The foreman-prod HBAC service:

$ ipa hbacrule-add-service allow-foreman-prod --hbacsvcs=foreman-prod

The Foreman server host:

$ ipa hbacrule-add-host allow-foreman-prod --hosts=foreman.example.com

The users or user groups to whom you want to grant access:

$ ipa hbacrule-add-user allow-foreman-prod --user=ipa-user

Optional: Verify the status of the rule:

$ ipa hbacrule-find foreman-prod
$ ipa hbactest --user=ipa-user --host=foreman.example.com --service=foreman-prod

Disable the default allow_all rule:

$ ipa hbacrule-disable allow_all

On Foreman server, a Foreman administrator re-runs foreman-installer to load the host-based access control rules from FreeIPA:

# foreman-installer --foreman-pam-service=foreman-prod

5.2.4. Configuring Hammer CLI to accept FreeIPA credentials

Configure the Foreman Hammer CLI tool to use FreeIPA to authenticate users.

Prerequisites

You have enabled FreeIPA access to the Foreman API. For more information, see Configuring the FreeIPA authentication source on Foreman server.

Procedure

Open the ~/.hammer/cli.modules.d/foreman.yml file on your Foreman server and update the list of foreman parameters:
- To enforce session usage, enable :use_sessions::
  :foreman: :use_sessions: true
  With this configuration, you will need to initiate an authentication session manually with hammer auth login negotiate.
- Alternatively, to enforce session usage and also negotiate authentication by default:
  :foreman: :default_auth_type: 'Negotiate_Auth' :use_sessions: true
  With this configuration, Hammer will negotiate authentication automatically when you enter the first hammer command.

5.2.5. Logging in to Hammer CLI with FreeIPA credentials

Authenticate to the Foreman Hammer CLI with your FreeIPA username and password.

Prerequisites

You have configured Hammer CLI to accept FreeIPA credentials. See Configuring Hammer CLI to accept FreeIPA credentials.

Procedure

Authenticate as a user defined in FreeIPA to obtain a Kerberos ticket-granting ticket (TGT):

$ kinit FreeIPA_user

Warning

If you enabled access to the Foreman API and the Foreman web UI when you were configuring FreeIPA as the authentication provider for Foreman, an attacker might now obtain an API session after the user receives the Kerberos TGT. The attack is possible even if the user did not previously enter the Foreman login credentials anywhere, for example in the browser.

If Hammer is not configured to negotiate authentication, initiate an authentication session manually:
```
$ hammer auth login negotiate
```

Note	If you destroy the active Kerberos ticket, for example with `kdestroy`, you will still be logged in to Hammer. To log out, enter `hammer auth logout`.

Verification

Use any hammer command to check that the system does not ask you to authenticate. For example:
```
$ hammer host list
```

Additional resources

For more information about authenticating with Hammer, see hammer auth --help.

5.2.6. Logging in to the Foreman web UI with FreeIPA credentials in Mozilla Firefox

You can use Mozilla Firefox to log in to the Foreman web UI with your FreeIPA credentials.

Use the latest stable Mozilla Firefox browser.

Prerequisites

You have FreeIPA authentication configured in your Foreman environment.
The host on which you are using Mozilla Firefox is a client in the FreeIPA domain.
Your Mozilla Firefox is configured for Single Sign-On (SSO).

Procedure

Obtain the Kerberos ticket granting ticket (TGT):
```
$ kinit user
Password for user@EXAMPLE.COM:
```
In Mozilla Firefox, go to the URL of your Foreman server.
You are logged in automatically.

Alternatively:

In your browser address bar, enter the URL of your Foreman server.
Enter your username and password.

5.2.7. Logging in to the Foreman web UI with FreeIPA credentials in Chrome

You can use Chrome to log in to the Foreman web UI with your FreeIPA credentials.

Use the latest stable Chrome browser.

Prerequisites

You have FreeIPA authentication configured in your Foreman environment.
The host on which you are using Chrome is a client in the FreeIPA domain.

Procedure

Enable the Chrome browser to use Kerberos authentication:
```
$ google-chrome --auth-server-whitelist="*.example.com" --auth-negotiate-delegate-whitelist="*.example.com"
```
Note

Instead of allowlisting the whole domain, you can also allowlist a specific Foreman server.
Obtain the Kerberos ticket-granting ticket (TGT):
```
$ kinit user
Password for user@EXAMPLE.COM:
```
In Chrome, go to the URL of your Foreman server.
You are logged in automatically.

Alternatively:

In your browser address bar, enter the URL of your Foreman server.
Enter your username and password.

5.2.8. Configuring a cross-forest trust between FreeIPA and Active Directory for Foreman

When your FreeIPA deployment includes a cross-forest trust with Active Directory (AD), configure host-based access control (HBAC) and the System Security Services Daemon (SSSD) to enable AD users to log in to Foreman.

Prerequisites

An existing FreeIPA server with a cross-forest trust with AD established. For more information, see Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 Installing trust between IdM and AD.

Procedure

On your FreeIPA server:

Enable HBAC:
1. Create an external group and add the AD group to it.
2. Add the new external group to a POSIX group.
3. Use the POSIX group in a HBAC rule.

On your FreeIPA server and all replicas in your FreeIPA topology, configure SSSD to transfer additional attributes of AD users:

Add the AD user attributes to the nss and domain sections in /etc/sssd/sssd.conf. For example:

[domain/EXAMPLE.com]
...
krb5_store_password_if_offline = True
ldap_user_extra_attrs=email:mail, lastname:sn, firstname:givenname

[nss]
user_attributes=+email, +firstname, +lastname

[ifp]
allowed_uids = ipaapi, root
user_attributes=+email, +firstname, +lastname

Clear the SSSD cache:
1. Stop SSSD:
  # systemctl stop sssd
2. Clear the cache:
  # sss_cache -E
3. Start SSSD:
  # systemctl start sssd

Verify the AD attributes value by using the dbus-send command on your Foreman server and on your FreeIPA server. Make sure that both outputs match.

# dbus-send --print-reply --system --dest=org.freedesktop.sssd.infopipe /org/freedesktop/sssd/infopipe org.freedesktop.sssd.infopipe.GetUserAttr string:ad-user@ad-domain array:string:email,firstname,lastname

5.3. Configuring Wildfly-based Keycloak authentication for Foreman

Note

The default Keycloak distribution is now based on Quarkus.

Quarkus-based Keycloak replaces Wildfly-based Keycloak in Foreman deployments. For information about configuring Quarkus-based Keycloak authentication, see Configuring single sign-on and two-factor authentication with Quarkus-based Keycloak in Foreman.

For information about migrating from Wildfly-based Keycloak to Quarkus-based Keycloak, see Migrating to Quarkus distribution.

Keycloak is an open-source identity and access management solution that provides authentication features, such as single sign-on functionality, user federation, or centralized authentication management. With Wildfly-based Keycloak, you can integrate Foreman server with your existing Keycloak server to delegate user authentication and authorization to Keycloak. The following login methods are available:

User name and password in Foreman web UI and Hammer CLI
Time-based one-time password (TOTP)
PIV cards

5.3.1. Prerequisites for configuring Foreman with Wildfly-based Keycloak authentication

A Keycloak account with administrative privileges.
A Keycloak server that uses HTTPS instead of HTTP.
If the certificates or the CA are self-signed, ensure that they are added to the end-user certificate truststore.
A Keycloak realm created for Foreman user accounts, for example Foreman_Realm.
Users imported or added to Keycloak. For more information about importing or creating users, see the Red Hat Single Sign-On Server Administration Guide.

5.3.2. Registering Foreman as a client of Keycloak

Users defined in Keycloak can authenticate to Foreman by using the Foreman web UI or by using Hammer CLI. Each authentication method requires you to register a separate Foreman client to Keycloak. If you want users to authenticate by using both Foreman web UI and Hammer CLI, you must register two different Foreman clients to Keycloak.

Procedure

On your Foreman server:

Install the packages required for registering a Keycloak client:

# dnf install mod_auth_openidc keycloak-httpd-client-install python3-lxml

Choose the authentication method you want Keycloak users to use when authenticating to Foreman:

If you want users to authenticate by using the Foreman web UI:

Create a client for Foreman. Use foreman-openidc as the application name.

# keycloak-httpd-client-install --app-name foreman-openidc \
--keycloak-server-url "https://keycloak.example.com" \
--keycloak-admin-username "admin" \
--keycloak-realm "Foreman_Realm" \
--keycloak-admin-realm master \
--keycloak-auth-role root-admin \
-t openidc -l /users/extlogin --force

Configure Foreman to use Keycloak as an authentication source for Foreman web UI:

# foreman-installer --foreman-keycloak true \
--foreman-keycloak-app-name "foreman-openidc" \
--foreman-keycloak-realm "Foreman_Realm"

If you want users to authenticate by using the Hammer CLI:

Create a client for Foreman. Use hammer-openidc as the application name.

# keycloak-httpd-client-install --app-name hammer-openidc \
--keycloak-server-url "https://keycloak.example.com" \
--keycloak-admin-username "admin" \
--keycloak-realm "Foreman_Realm" \
--keycloak-admin-realm master \
--keycloak-auth-role root-admin \
-t openidc -l /users/extlogin --force

Configure Foreman to use Keycloak as an authentication source for Hammer CLI:

# foreman-installer --foreman-keycloak true \
--foreman-keycloak-app-name "hammer-openidc" \
--foreman-keycloak-realm "Foreman_Realm"

Reset Keycloak support to the default value to ensure that users are not authenticated also in Foreman web UI:
```
# foreman-installer --reset-foreman-keycloak
```

Restart the httpd service:
```
# systemctl restart httpd
```

Note	To disable Keycloak authentication in Foreman, reset Keycloak support to the default value by using `foreman-installer --reset-foreman-keycloak`.

5.3.3. Configuring the Foreman client in Wildfly-based Keycloak

Configure the Foreman client in Wildfly-based Keycloak with valid redirect URIs and mappers.

Procedure

In the Keycloak web UI:

Go to the realm created for Foreman users. Navigate to Clients and click the Foreman client.
Configure access type:
- If you are configuring a client that will provide Foreman web UI authentication, select confidential from the Access Type list.
- If you are configuring a client that will provide Hammer CLI authentication, select public from the Access Type list.
Configure Valid redirect URI addresses:
- If you are configuring a client that will provide Foreman web UI authentication:
  - You will see a pre-defined URI: https://foreman.example.com/users/extlogin/redirect_uri. Do not change or remove this URI.
  - Add another URI below the pre-defined URI: https://foreman.example.com/users/extlogin
- If you are configuring a client that will provide Hammer CLI authentication:
  - You will see a pre-defined URI: https://foreman.example.com/users/extlogin/redirect_uri. Do not change or remove this URI.
  - Add another URI below the pre-defined URI: urn:ietf:wg:oauth:2.0:oob
Click Save.
On the Mappers tab, click Create to add an audience mapper.
1. From the Mapper Type list, select Audience.
2. From the Included Client Audience list, select the Foreman client.
Click Save.
On the Mappers tab, click Create to add a group mapper so that you can specify authorization in Foreman based on group membership.
1. From the Mapper Type list, select Group Membership.
2. In the Token Claim Name field, enter groups.
3. Set the Full group path setting to OFF.
Click Save.

Additional resources

For more information about configuring Wildfly-based Keycloak clients, see Red Hat Single Sign-On Server Administration Guide.

5.3.4. Configuring a Foreman client to provide Foreman web UI authentication with Keycloak

If you are configuring a client that will provide Foreman web UI authentication to your Foreman deployment, delegate authentication to the Keycloak server and add Keycloak as an external authentication source in Foreman.

Prerequisites

Ensure that the Access Type setting in the Foreman client in the Wildfly-based Keycloak web UI is set to confidential. For more information, see Configuring the Foreman client in Wildfly-based Keycloak.

Procedure

In the Foreman web UI:

Navigate to Administer > Settings.
On the Authentication tab, configure the following settings:
1. Authorize login delegation: Set to Yes.
2. Authorize login delegation auth source user autocreate: Set to External.
3. Login delegation logout URL: Set to https://foreman.example.com/users/extlogout.
4. OIDC Algorithm: For example, set to RS256.
5. OIDC Audience: Set to the client ID for Keycloak.
6. OIDC Issuer: Set to https://keycloak.example.com/auth/realms/Foreman_Realm.
7. OIDC JWKs URL: Set to https://keycloak.example.com/auth/realms/Foreman_Realm/protocol/openid-connect/certs.
Navigate to Administer > Authentication Sources.
1. From the External menu, select Edit.
2. On the Locations tab, add the locations that you want to be able to use the Keycloak authentication source.
3. On the Organizations tab, add the organizations that you want to be able to use the Keycloak authentication source.
4. Click Submit.

5.3.5. Configuring a Foreman client to provide Hammer CLI authentication with Keycloak

If you are configuring a client that will provide Hammer CLI authentication to your Foreman deployment, delegate authentication to the Keycloak server and add Keycloak as an external authentication source in Foreman.

Prerequisites

Ensure that the Access Type setting in the Foreman client in the Wildfly-based Keycloak web UI is set to public. For more information, see Configuring the Foreman client in Wildfly-based Keycloak.
Obtain the values to configure Foreman settings from the following URL: https://keycloak.example.com/auth/realms/Foreman_Realm/.well-known/openid-configuration. Replace Foreman_Realm with the name of the Keycloak realm created for your Foreman server.

Procedure

On the Foreman client registered to Keycloak:

Set the login delegation to true so that users can authenticate using the Open IDC protocol:
```
# hammer settings set --name authorize_login_delegation --value true
```

Set the login delegation logout URL:

# hammer settings set --name login_delegation_logout_url \
--value https://foreman.example.com/users/extlogout

Set the algorithm for encoding: For example, to use the RS256 algorithm:
```
# hammer settings set --name oidc_algorithm --value 'RS256'
```

Add the value for the Hammer client in the Open IDC audience:

# hammer settings set --name oidc_audience \
--value "['foreman.example.com-hammer-openidc']"

Note	If you register several Keycloak clients to Foreman, ensure that you append all audiences in the array. For example: # hammer settings set --name oidc_audience \ --value "['foreman.example.com-foreman-openidc', 'foreman.example.com-hammer-openidc']"

Set the value for the Open IDC issuer:

# hammer settings set --name oidc_issuer \
--value "https://keycloak.example.com/auth/realms/KEYCLOAK_REALM"

Set the value for Open IDC Java Web Token (JWT):

# hammer settings set --name oidc_jwks_url \
--value "https://keycloak.example.com/auth/realms/KEYCLOAK_REALM/protocol/openid-connect/certs"

Retrieve the ID of the Keycloak authentication source:
```
# hammer auth-source external list
```

Set the location and organization:

# hammer auth-source external update \
--id My_Authentication_Source_ID \
--location-ids My_Location_ID \
--organization-ids My_Organization_ID

5.3.6. Configuring Foreman with Keycloak for TOTP authentication

If you want users to authenticate with time-based one-time passwords (TOTP), configure an OTP policy for the Foreman realm in Keycloak.

Procedure

In the Keycloak web UI, navigate to the Foreman realm.
Navigate to Authentication.
On the Policies tab, click the OTP Policy tab. Ensure that the Supported Applications field includes FreeOTP or Google Authenticator.
Configure the OTP settings to suit your requirements.
On Required Actions tab, enable the Set as default action setting for the Configure OTP action.

Additional resources

For more information, see Red Hat Single Sign-On Server Administration Guide or Red Hat build of Keycloak Server Administration Guide.

5.3.7. Configuring Keycloak settings for authentication with PIV cards

If you want users to authenticate with PIV cards, configure Keycloak for authentication with PIV cards and configure the operating system for PIV cards on each user system.

Procedure

In the Keycloak web UI:

Navigate to the Authentication tab.
From the Flows list, select Browser.
1. Click Copy to copy this flow.
2. In the Copy Authentication Flow window, enter a new name for the flow and click OK.
3. In the copied flow, delete the Username Password Form and OTP Form entries.
4. Click Add execution.
5. From the Provider list, select X509/Validate Username Form.
6. Click Save.
In the X509/Validate Username Form row, select ALTERNATIVE. Click Actions > Config.
1. In the Alias field, enter a name for this configuration.
2. From the User Identity Source list, select Subject’s Common Name,
3. From the User mapping method list, select Username or Email.
4. Click Save.
Navigate to Authentication > Bindings.
From the Browser Flow list, select the created flow.

On each system from which you want users to log in to with PIV cards:

Install the opensc package:
- On Debian or Ubuntu:
  # apt install opensc
- On Enterprise Linux 8+:
  # dnf install opensc
- On Enterprise Linux 7:
  # yum install opensc
- On OpenSUSE and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server:
  # zypper install opensc
Make sure Mozilla Firefox is installed.
In Mozilla Firefox main menu, click Settings.
On the Privacy and Security tab, click Security Devices.
Click Load.
1. In the Load PKCS#11 Device Driver window, enter /usr/lib64/pkcs11/opensc-pkcs11.so in the Module filename field.
2. Click OK.
If the PIV card is connected to system, restart the pcscd service.

5.3.8. Optional: Configuring external group mapping for Keycloak authentication

To implement the role-based access control (RBAC), create a group in Foreman, assign a role to this group, and then map an Keycloak group to the Foreman group. As a result, anyone in the given group in Keycloak will log in under the corresponding Foreman group.

For example, you can configure users of the Foreman-admin user group defined in Active Directory to authenticate as users with administrator privileges on Foreman.

If you do not configure group mapping, every user will receive the Default role permissions.

Procedure

In the Foreman web UI, navigate to Administer > User Groups.
Click Create User Group.
1. In the Name field, enter a name for the user group. Enter a name that is different from the Active Directory user group name.
2. Do not add any users or user groups to the new group in Foreman web UI.
On the Roles tab, select Administer.
On the External Groups tab, click Add external user group.
1. In the Name field, enter the name of the Active Directory group.
2. From the Auth Source drop-down menu, select EXTERNAL.
Click Submit.

5.3.9. Logging in to Foreman configured with Keycloak as an authentication source

With Keycloak configured as an external authentication source for Foreman, users defined in a Keycloak realm can log in to Foreman server. The particular login methods available to users depend on how you configured integration between Keycloak and Foreman.

Procedure

To authenticate to the Foreman web UI:

In your browser, go to https://foreman.example.com and enter your credentials.

To authenticate to the Foreman web UI by using Keycloak TOTP:

In your browser, log in to Foreman. Foreman redirects you to the Keycloak login screen.
Enter your username and password, and click Log In.
On your first login attempt, Keycloak requests you to configure your client by scanning the bar code and entering your PIN. Once authenticated, your browser redirects you back to Foreman and logs you in.

To authenticate to the Foreman CLI with Hammer:

Ensure that Hammer is configured to enforce session usage in ~/.hammer/cli.modules.d/foreman.yml:
```
:foreman:
  :use_sessions: true
```

Initiate an authentication session with hammer auth login oauth:

# hammer auth login oauth \
--oidc-token-endpoint 'https://keycloak.example.com/auth/realms/Foreman_realm/protocol/openid-connect/token' \
--oidc-authorization-endpoint 'https://keycloak.example.com/auth' \
--oidc-client-id 'foreman.example.com-hammer-openidc' \
--oidc-redirect-uri urn:ietf:wg:oauth:2.0:oob

To authenticate to the Foreman CLI with Hammer by using Keycloak TOTP:

Ensure that Hammer is configured to enforce session usage in ~/.hammer/cli.modules.d/foreman.yml:
```
:foreman:
  :use_sessions: true
```

Initiate an authentication session by using --two-factor with hammer auth login oauth:

# hammer auth login oauth \
--two-factor \
--oidc-token-endpoint 'https://keycloak.example.com/auth/realms/Foreman_realm/protocol/openid-connect/token' \
--oidc-authorization-endpoint 'https://keycloak.example.com/auth' \
--oidc-client-id 'foreman.example.com-hammer-openidc' \
--oidc-redirect-uri urn:ietf:wg:oauth:2.0:oob

You will be prompted to enter a success code. To retrieve the success code, navigate to the URL that the command returns.
Enter the success code in CLI.

To log in to the Foreman web UI using the Keycloak PIV cards:

In Mozilla Firefox, log in to Foreman and enter your credentials.
When prompted, enter the PIN of the PIV card.
Choose the certificate for authentication. Browser verifies this certificate with Keycloak. Once authenticated, browser redirects you back to Foreman and logs you in.

5.4. Configuring single sign-on and two-factor authentication with Quarkus-based Keycloak in Foreman

Quarkus-based Keycloak is an open-source identity and access management solution that provides authentication features, such as single sign-on functionality, user federation, or centralized authentication management. With Quarkus-based Keycloak, you can integrate Foreman server with your existing Quarkus-based Keycloak server to delegate user authentication and authorization to Quarkus-based Keycloak. The following login methods are available:

User name and password in Foreman web UI and Hammer CLI
Time-based one-time password (TOTP)
PIV cards

For information about Keycloak, see Keycloak documentation.

5.4.1. Prerequisites for configuring Foreman with Quarkus-based Keycloak authentication

A Keycloak account with administrative privileges.

A Keycloak server that uses HTTPS instead of HTTP and has been initialized with the --http-relative-path=/auth context path. To access a Keycloak server initialized with --http-relative-path=/auth from its web UI, go to https://keycloak.example.com:8443/auth.

Note

To use a different context path, make manual adjustments after the initialisation with /auth or configure the foreman-openidc_oidc_keycloak_Foreman_Realm.conf file of the HTTPd service manually. For more information about configuring a different context path, see the Red Hat build of Keycloak Administration Guide.

If the certificates or the CA are self-signed, add them to the end-user certificate truststore.
A Keycloak realm created for Foreman user accounts, for example Foreman_Realm.
Users imported or added to Keycloak. For more information on importing or creating users, see the Red Hat build of Keycloak Administration Guide.

5.4.2. Registering Foreman as a client of Keycloak

Users defined in Keycloak can authenticate to Foreman by using one of the following methods:

The Foreman web UI
Hammer CLI

Choose one of these methods to enable in your Foreman deployment.

Procedure

On your Foreman server:

Install the packages required for registering a Keycloak client:

# dnf install mod_auth_openidc keycloak-httpd-client-install python3-lxml

Choose the authentication method you want Keycloak users to use when authenticating to Foreman:

If you want users to authenticate by using the Foreman web UI:

Create a client for Foreman. Use foreman-openidc as the application name.

# keycloak-httpd-client-install --app-name foreman-openidc \
--keycloak-server-url "https://keycloak.example.com" \
--keycloak-admin-username "admin" \
--keycloak-realm "Foreman_Realm" \
--keycloak-admin-realm master \
--keycloak-auth-role root-admin \
-t openidc -l /users/extlogin --force

Configure Foreman to use Keycloak as an authentication source for Foreman web UI:

# foreman-installer --foreman-keycloak true \
--foreman-keycloak-app-name "foreman-openidc" \
--foreman-keycloak-realm "Foreman_Realm"

If you want users to authenticate by using the Hammer CLI:

Create a client for Foreman. Use hammer-openidc as the application name.

# keycloak-httpd-client-install --app-name hammer-openidc \
--keycloak-server-url "https://keycloak.example.com" \
--keycloak-admin-username "admin" \
--keycloak-realm "Foreman_Realm" \
--keycloak-admin-realm master \
--keycloak-auth-role root-admin \
-t openidc -l /users/extlogin --force

Configure Foreman to use Keycloak as an authentication source for Hammer CLI:

# foreman-installer --foreman-keycloak true \
--foreman-keycloak-app-name "hammer-openidc" \
--foreman-keycloak-realm "Foreman_Realm"

Reset Keycloak support to the default value to ensure that users are not authenticated also in Foreman web UI:
```
# foreman-installer --reset-foreman-keycloak
```

Restart the httpd service:
```
# systemctl restart httpd
```

Note	To disable Keycloak authentication in Foreman, reset Keycloak support to the default value by using `foreman-installer --reset-foreman-keycloak`.

5.4.3. Configuring the Foreman client in Quarkus-based Keycloak

Configure the Foreman client in Quarkus-based Keycloak with valid redirect URIs and mappers.

Procedure

In the Quarkus-based Keycloak web UI:

Go to the realm created for Foreman users.
Navigate to Clients and click the Foreman client.
On the Settings tab for the Foreman client, configure the access type and redirect addresses:
- If you are configuring a client that will provide Foreman web UI authentication:
  1. Enable Client authentication.
  2. You will see a pre-defined URI: https://foreman.example.com/users/extlogin/redirect_uri. Do not change or remove this URI.
  3. Add another URI below the pre-defined URI: https://foreman.example.com/users/extlogin
- If you are configuring a client that will provide Hammer CLI authentication:
  1. Ensure Client authentication is disabled.
  2. You will see a pre-defined URI: https://foreman.example.com/users/extlogin/redirect_uri. Do not change or remove this URI.
  3. Add another URI below the pre-defined URI: urn:ietf:wg:oauth:2.0:oob
On the Client Scopes tab for the Foreman client, locate the client scope dedicated to the Foreman client named client-name-dedicated. Start editing the client scope.
1. On the Mappers tab for client-name-dedicated, add a new mapper by configuration. Select the Audience mapper type.
  1. From the Included Client Audience list, select the Foreman client.
  2. Enable Add to ID token.
  3. Click Save.
2. Add another mapper by configuration. Select the Group Membership mapper type. This adds a group mapper so that you can specify authorization in Foreman based on group membership.
  1. In the Token Claim Name field, enter groups.
  2. Disable Full group path.
  3. Click Save.

Additional resources

For more information about configuring Quarkus-based Keycloak clients, see Red Hat build of Keycloak Server Administration Guide.

5.4.4. Configuring a Foreman client to provide Foreman web UI authentication with Keycloak

Prerequisites

Ensure that the Client authentication setting in the Foreman client in the Quarkus-based Keycloak web UI is enabled. For more information, see Configuring the Foreman client in Quarkus-based Keycloak.

Procedure

In the Foreman web UI:

Navigate to Administer > Settings.
On the Authentication tab, configure the following settings:
1. Authorize login delegation: Set to Yes.
2. Authorize login delegation auth source user autocreate: Set to External.
3. Login delegation logout URL: Set to https://foreman.example.com/users/extlogout.
4. OIDC Algorithm: For example, set to RS256.
5. OIDC Audience: Set to the client ID for Keycloak.
6. OIDC Issuer: Set to https://keycloak.example.com:8443/auth/realms/Foreman_Realm.
7. OIDC JWKs URL: Set to https://keycloak.example.com:8443/auth/realms/Foreman_Realm/protocol/openid-connect/certs.
Navigate to Administer > Authentication Sources.
1. From the External menu, select Edit.
2. On the Locations tab, add the locations that you want to be able to use the Keycloak authentication source.
3. On the Organizations tab, add the organizations that you want to be able to use the Keycloak authentication source.
4. Click Submit.

5.4.5. Configuring a Foreman client to provide Hammer CLI authentication with Keycloak

Prerequisites

Ensure that the Client authentication setting in the Foreman client in the Quarkus-based Keycloak web UI is disabled. For more information, see Configuring the Foreman client in Quarkus-based Keycloak.
Obtain the values to configure Foreman settings from the following URL: https://keycloak.example.com/auth/realms/Foreman_Realm/.well-known/openid-configuration. Replace Foreman_Realm with the name of the Keycloak realm created for your Foreman server.

Procedure

On the Foreman client registered to Keycloak:

Set the login delegation to true so that users can authenticate using the Open IDC protocol:
```
# hammer settings set --name authorize_login_delegation --value true
```

Set the login delegation logout URL:

# hammer settings set --name login_delegation_logout_url \
--value https://foreman.example.com/users/extlogout

Set the algorithm for encoding: For example, to use the RS256 algorithm:
```
# hammer settings set --name oidc_algorithm --value 'RS256'
```

Add the value for the Hammer client in the Open IDC audience:

# hammer settings set --name oidc_audience \
--value "['foreman.example.com-hammer-openidc']"

Note	If you register several Keycloak clients to Foreman, ensure that you append all audiences in the array. For example: # hammer settings set --name oidc_audience \ --value "['foreman.example.com-foreman-openidc', 'foreman.example.com-hammer-openidc']"

Set the value for the Open IDC issuer:

# hammer settings set --name oidc_issuer \
--value "https://keycloak.example.com/auth/realms/KEYCLOAK_REALM"

Set the value for Open IDC Java Web Token (JWT):

# hammer settings set --name oidc_jwks_url \
--value "https://keycloak.example.com/auth/realms/KEYCLOAK_REALM/protocol/openid-connect/certs"

Retrieve the ID of the Keycloak authentication source:
```
# hammer auth-source external list
```

Set the location and organization:

# hammer auth-source external update \
--id My_Authentication_Source_ID \
--location-ids My_Location_ID \
--organization-ids My_Organization_ID

5.4.6. Configuring Foreman with Keycloak for TOTP authentication

If you want users to authenticate with time-based one-time passwords (TOTP), configure an OTP policy for the Foreman realm in Keycloak.

Procedure

In the Keycloak web UI, navigate to the Foreman realm.
Navigate to Authentication.
On the Policies tab, click the OTP Policy tab. Ensure that the Supported Applications field includes FreeOTP or Google Authenticator.
Configure the OTP settings to suit your requirements.
On Required Actions tab, enable the Set as default action setting for the Configure OTP action.

Additional resources

For more information, see Red Hat Single Sign-On Server Administration Guide or Red Hat build of Keycloak Server Administration Guide.

5.4.7. Configuring Keycloak settings for authentication with PIV cards

If you want users to authenticate with PIV cards, configure Keycloak for authentication with PIV cards and configure the operating system for PIV cards on each user system.

Procedure

In the Keycloak web UI:

Navigate to the Authentication tab.
From the Flows list, select Browser.
1. Click Copy to copy this flow.
2. In the Copy Authentication Flow window, enter a new name for the flow and click OK.
3. In the copied flow, delete the Username Password Form and OTP Form entries.
4. Click Add execution.
5. From the Provider list, select X509/Validate Username Form.
6. Click Save.
In the X509/Validate Username Form row, select ALTERNATIVE. Click Actions > Config.
1. In the Alias field, enter a name for this configuration.
2. From the User Identity Source list, select Subject’s Common Name,
3. From the User mapping method list, select Username or Email.
4. Click Save.
Navigate to Authentication > Bindings.
From the Browser Flow list, select the created flow.

On each system from which you want users to log in to with PIV cards:

Install the opensc package:
- On Debian or Ubuntu:
  # apt install opensc
- On Enterprise Linux 8+:
  # dnf install opensc
- On Enterprise Linux 7:
  # yum install opensc
- On OpenSUSE and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server:
  # zypper install opensc
Make sure Mozilla Firefox is installed.
In Mozilla Firefox main menu, click Settings.
On the Privacy and Security tab, click Security Devices.
Click Load.
1. In the Load PKCS#11 Device Driver window, enter /usr/lib64/pkcs11/opensc-pkcs11.so in the Module filename field.
2. Click OK.
If the PIV card is connected to system, restart the pcscd service.

5.4.8. Optional: Configuring external group mapping for Keycloak authentication

For example, you can configure users of the Foreman-admin user group defined in Active Directory to authenticate as users with administrator privileges on Foreman.

If you do not configure group mapping, every user will receive the Default role permissions.

Procedure

In the Foreman web UI, navigate to Administer > User Groups.
Click Create User Group.
1. In the Name field, enter a name for the user group. Enter a name that is different from the Active Directory user group name.
2. Do not add any users or user groups to the new group in Foreman web UI.
On the Roles tab, select Administer.
On the External Groups tab, click Add external user group.
1. In the Name field, enter the name of the Active Directory group.
2. From the Auth Source drop-down menu, select EXTERNAL.
Click Submit.

5.4.9. Logging in to Foreman configured with Keycloak as an authentication source

Procedure

To authenticate to the Foreman web UI:

In your browser, go to https://foreman.example.com and enter your credentials.

To authenticate to the Foreman web UI by using Keycloak TOTP:

In your browser, log in to Foreman. Foreman redirects you to the Keycloak login screen.
Enter your username and password, and click Log In.
On your first login attempt, Keycloak requests you to configure your client by scanning the bar code and entering your PIN. Once authenticated, your browser redirects you back to Foreman and logs you in.

To authenticate to the Foreman CLI with Hammer:

Ensure that Hammer is configured to enforce session usage in ~/.hammer/cli.modules.d/foreman.yml:
```
:foreman:
  :use_sessions: true
```

Initiate an authentication session with hammer auth login oauth:

# hammer auth login oauth \
--oidc-token-endpoint 'https://keycloak.example.com/auth/realms/Foreman_realm/protocol/openid-connect/token' \
--oidc-authorization-endpoint 'https://keycloak.example.com/auth' \
--oidc-client-id 'foreman.example.com-hammer-openidc' \
--oidc-redirect-uri urn:ietf:wg:oauth:2.0:oob

To authenticate to the Foreman CLI with Hammer by using Keycloak TOTP:

Ensure that Hammer is configured to enforce session usage in ~/.hammer/cli.modules.d/foreman.yml:
```
:foreman:
  :use_sessions: true
```

Initiate an authentication session by using --two-factor with hammer auth login oauth:

# hammer auth login oauth \
--two-factor \
--oidc-token-endpoint 'https://keycloak.example.com/auth/realms/Foreman_realm/protocol/openid-connect/token' \
--oidc-authorization-endpoint 'https://keycloak.example.com/auth' \
--oidc-client-id 'foreman.example.com-hammer-openidc' \
--oidc-redirect-uri urn:ietf:wg:oauth:2.0:oob

You will be prompted to enter a success code. To retrieve the success code, navigate to the URL that the command returns.
Enter the success code in CLI.

To log in to the Foreman web UI using the Keycloak PIV cards:

In Mozilla Firefox, log in to Foreman and enter your credentials.
When prompted, enter the PIN of the PIV card.
Choose the certificate for authentication. Browser verifies this certificate with Keycloak. Once authenticated, browser redirects you back to Foreman and logs you in.

5.5. Configuring Active Directory as an external identity provider for Foreman

If the base system of your Foreman server is connected directly to Active Directory (AD), you can configure AD as an external authentication source for Foreman. Direct AD integration means that a Linux system is joined directly to the AD domain where the identity is stored. The following login methods are available for AD users:

Username and password
Kerberos single sign-on

Note

You can also connect your Foreman deployment to AD in the following ways:

By using indirect AD integration. With indirect integration, your Foreman server is connected to a FreeIPA server which is then connected to AD. For more information, see Configuring Kerberos single sign-on with FreeIPA in Foreman.
By attaching the LDAP server of the AD domain as an external authentication source with no single sign-on support. For more information, see Configuring an LDAP server as an external identity provider for Foreman. For an example configuration, see How to configure Active Directory authentication with TLS on Foreman.

5.5.1. Configuring the Active Directory authentication source on Foreman server

Enable Active Directory (AD) users to access Foreman by configuring the corresponding authentication provider on your Foreman server.

Prerequisites

The base system of your Foreman server must be joined to an Active Directory (AD) domain. To enable AD users to sign in with Kerberos single sign-on, use the System Security Services Daemon (SSSD) and Samba services to join the base system to the AD domain:

Install the following packages on Foreman server:
```
# dnf install adcli krb5-workstation oddjob-mkhomedir oddjob realmd samba-winbind-clients samba-winbind samba-common-tools samba-winbind-krb5-locator sssd
```
Specify the required software when joining the AD domain:
```
# realm join AD.EXAMPLE.COM --membership-software=samba --client-software=sssd
```
For more information on direct AD integration, see Connecting RHEL systems directly to AD using Samba Winbind.

Procedure

Define AD realm configuration in a location where foreman-installer expects it:
1. Create a directory named /etc/ipa/:
  # mkdir /etc/ipa/
2. Create the /etc/ipa/default.conf file with the following contents to configure the Kerberos realm for the AD domain:
  [global] realm = AD.EXAMPLE.COM
Configure the Apache keytab for Kerberos connections:
1. Update the /etc/samba/smb.conf file with the following settings to configure how Samba interacts with AD:
  [global] workgroup = AD.EXAMPLE realm = AD.EXAMPLE.COM kerberos method = system keytab security = ads
2. Add the Kerberos service principal to the keytab file at /etc/httpd/conf/http.keytab:
  # KRB5_KTNAME=FILE:/etc/httpd/conf/http.keytab net ads keytab add HTTP -U Administrator -s /etc/samba/smb.conf
Configure the System Security Services Daemon (SSSD) to use the AD access control provider to evaluate and enforce Group Policy Object (GPO) access control rules for the foreman PAM service:
1. In the [domain/ad.example.com] section of your /etc/sssd/sssd.conf file, configure the ad_gpo_access_control and ad_gpo_map_service options as follows:
  [domain/ad.example.com] ad_gpo_access_control = enforcing ad_gpo_map_service = +foreman
  For more information on GPOs, see the following documents:
  - How SSSD interprets GPO access control rules in Integrating RHEL systems directly with Windows Active Directory (RHEL 9)
  - How SSSD interprets GPO access control rules in Integrating RHEL systems directly with Windows Active Directory (RHEL 8)
2. Restart SSSD:
  # systemctl restart sssd

Enable the authentication source:

# foreman-installer --foreman-ipa-authentication=true

Verification

To verify that AD users can log in to Foreman by entering their credentials, log in to Foreman web UI at https://foreman.example.com. Enter the user name in the user principal name (UPN) format, for example: ad_user@AD.EXAMPLE.COM.

To verify that AD users can authenticate by using Kerberos single sign-on:

Obtain a Kerberos ticket-granting ticket (TGT) on behalf of an AD user:
```
$ kinit ad_user@AD.EXAMPLE.COM
```

Verify user authentication by using your TGT:

$ curl -k -u : --negotiate https://foreman.example.com/users/extlogin

<html><body>You are being <a href="foreman.example.com/hosts">redirected</a>.</body></html>

Additional resources

sssd-ad(5) man page on your system
For information about configuring Mozilla Firefox for Kerberos, see Configuring Firefox to use Kerberos for single sign-on in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 Configuring authentication and authorization in RHEL.

5.6. Configuring Foreman to manage the lifecycle of a host registered to a FreeIPA realm

As well as providing access to Foreman server, hosts provisioned with Foreman can also be integrated with FreeIPA realms. Foreman has a realm feature that automatically manages the lifecycle of any system registered to a realm or domain provider.

Use this section to configure Foreman server or Smart Proxy server for FreeIPA realm support, then add hosts to the FreeIPA realm group.

Prerequisites

Foreman server that is registered to the Content Delivery Network or an external Smart Proxy server that is registered to Foreman server.
A deployed realm or domain provider such as FreeIPA.

To install and configure FreeIPA packages on Foreman server or Smart Proxy server:

To use FreeIPA for provisioned hosts, complete the following steps to install and configure FreeIPA packages on Foreman server or Smart Proxy server:

Install the ipa-client package on Foreman server or Smart Proxy server:
```
# dnf install ipa-client
```
Configure the server as a FreeIPA client:
```
# ipa-client-install
```
Create a realm proxy user, realm-smart-proxy, and the relevant roles in FreeIPA:
```
# foreman-prepare-realm admin realm-smart-proxy
```
Note the principal name that returns and your FreeIPA server configuration details because you require them for the following procedure.

To configure Foreman server or Smart Proxy server for FreeIPA realm support:

Complete the following procedure on Foreman and every Smart Proxy that you want to use:

Copy the /root/freeipa.keytab file to any Smart Proxy server that you want to include in the same principal and realm:
```
# scp /root/freeipa.keytab root@smartproxy.example.com:/etc/foreman-proxy/freeipa.keytab
```
Move the /root/freeipa.keytab file to the /etc/foreman-proxy directory and set the ownership settings to the foreman-proxy user:
```
# mv /root/freeipa.keytab /etc/foreman-proxy
# chown foreman-proxy:foreman-proxy /etc/foreman-proxy/freeipa.keytab
```
Enter the following command on all Smart Proxies that you want to include in the realm. If you use the integrated Smart Proxy on Foreman, enter this command on Foreman server:
```
# foreman-installer --foreman-proxy-realm true \
--foreman-proxy-realm-keytab /etc/foreman-proxy/freeipa.keytab \
--foreman-proxy-realm-principal realm-smart-proxy@EXAMPLE.COM \
--foreman-proxy-realm-provider freeipa
```
You can also use these options when you first configure the Foreman server.
Ensure that the most updated versions of the ca-certificates package is installed and trust the FreeIPA Certificate Authority:
```
# cp /etc/ipa/ca.crt /etc/pki/ca-trust/source/anchors/ipa.crt
# update-ca-trust enable
# update-ca-trust
```
Optional: If you configure FreeIPA on an existing Foreman server or Smart Proxy server, complete the following steps to ensure that the configuration changes take effect:
1. Restart the foreman-proxy service:
  # systemctl restart foreman-proxy
2. In the Foreman web UI, navigate to Infrastructure > Smart Proxies.
3. Locate the Smart Proxy you have configured for FreeIPA and from the list in the Actions column, select Refresh.

To create a realm for the FreeIPA-enabled Smart Proxy

After you configure your integrated or external Smart Proxy with FreeIPA, you must create a realm and add the FreeIPA-configured Smart Proxy to the realm.

Procedure

In the Foreman web UI, navigate to Infrastructure > Realms and click Create Realm.
In the Name field, enter a name for the realm.
From the Realm Type list, select the type of realm.
From the Realm Smart Proxy list, select Smart Proxy server where you have configured FreeIPA.
Click the Locations tab and from the Locations list, select the location where you want to add the new realm.
Click the Organizations tab and from the Organizations list, select the organization where you want to add the new realm.
Click Submit.

Updating host groups with realm information

You must update any host groups that you want to use with the new realm information.

In the Foreman web UI, navigate to Configure > Host Groups, select the host group that you want to update, and click the Network tab.
From the Realm list, select the realm you create as part of this procedure, and then click Submit.

Adding hosts to a FreeIPA host group

FreeIPA supports the ability to set up automatic membership rules based on a system’s attributes. Foreman’s realm feature provides administrators with the ability to map the Foreman host groups to the FreeIPA parameter userclass which allow administrators to configure automembership.

When nested host groups are used, they are sent to the FreeIPA server as they are displayed in the Foreman User Interface. For example, "Parent/Child/Child".

Foreman server or Smart Proxy server sends updates to the FreeIPA server, however automembership rules are only applied at initial registration.

To add hosts to a FreeIPA host group:

On the FreeIPA server, create a host group:

# ipa hostgroup-add hostgroup_name --desc=hostgroup_description

Create an automembership rule:
```
# ipa automember-add --type=hostgroup hostgroup_name automember_rule
```
Where you can use the following options:
- automember-add flags the group as an automember group.
- --type=hostgroup identifies that the target group is a host group, not a user group.
- automember_rule adds the name you want to identify the automember rule by.
Define an automembership condition based on the userclass attribute:
```
# ipa automember-add-condition --key=userclass --type=hostgroup --inclusive-regex=^webserver hostgroup_name
----------------------------------
Added condition(s) to "hostgroup_name"
----------------------------------
Automember Rule: automember_rule
Inclusive Regex: userclass=^webserver
----------------------------
Number of conditions added 1
----------------------------
```
Where you can use the following options:
- automember-add-condition adds regular expression conditions to identify group members.
- --key=userclass specifies the key attribute as userclass.
- --type=hostgroup identifies that the target group is a host group, not a user group.
- --inclusive-regex= ^webserver identifies matching values with a regular expression pattern.
- hostgroup_name – identifies the target host group’s name.

When a system is added to Foreman server’s hostgroup_name host group, it is added automatically to the FreeIPA server’s "hostgroup_name" host group. FreeIPA host groups allow for Host-Based Access Controls (HBAC), sudo policies and other FreeIPA functions.

5.7. Important user and group account information for Active Directory accounts

All user and group accounts must be local accounts. This is to ensure that there are no authentication conflicts between local accounts on your Foreman server and accounts in your Active Directory domain.

Your system is not affected by this conflict if your user and group accounts exist in both /etc/passwd and /etc/group files. For example, to check if entries for puppet, apache, foreman and foreman-proxy groups exist in both /etc/passwd and /etc/group files, enter the following commands:

# grep 'puppet\|apache\|foreman\|foreman-proxy' /etc/passwd /etc/group

5.8. Configuring external user groups

Foreman does not associate external users with their user group automatically. You must create a user group with the same name as in the external source on Foreman. Members of the external user group then automatically become members of the Foreman user group and receive the associated permissions.

The configuration of external user groups depends on the type of external authentication.

To assign additional permissions to an external user, add this user to an internal user group that has no external mapping specified. Then assign the required roles to this group.

Prerequisites

If you use an LDAP server, configure Foreman to use LDAP authentication. For more information, see Configuring an LDAP server as an external identity provider for Foreman.

When using external user groups from an LDAP source, you cannot use the $login variable as a substitute for the account user name. You must use either an anonymous or dedicated service user.
If you use a FreeIPA or AD server, configure Foreman to use FreeIPA or AD authentication. For more information, see Configuring External Authentication in Installing Foreman Server with Katello 4.13 plugin on Enterprise Linux.
Ensure that at least one external user authenticates for the first time.
Retain a copy of the external group names you want to use. To find the group membership of external users, enter the following command:
```
# id username
```

Procedure

In the Foreman web UI, navigate to Administer > User Groups, and click Create User Group.
Specify the name of the new user group. Do not select any users to avoid adding users automatically when you refresh the external user group.
Click the Roles tab and select the roles you want to assign to the user group. Alternatively, select the Administrator checkbox to assign all available permissions.
Click the External groups tab, then click Add external user group, and select an authentication source from the Auth source drop-down menu.

Specify the exact name of the external group in the Name field.
Click Submit.

5.9. Refreshing external user groups for LDAP

To set the LDAP source to synchronize user group membership automatically on user login, in the Auth Source page, select the Usergroup Sync option. If this option is not selected, LDAP user groups are refreshed automatically through a scheduled cron job synchronizing the LDAP Authentication source every 30 minutes by default.

If the user groups in the LDAP Authentication source change in the lapse of time between scheduled tasks, the user can be assigned to incorrect external user groups. This is corrected automatically when the scheduled task runs.

Use this procedure to refresh the LDAP source manually.

Procedure

In the Foreman web UI, navigate to Administer > Usergroups and select a user group.
On the External Groups tab, click Refresh to the right of the required user group.

CLI procedure

Enter the following command:
```
# foreman-rake ldap:refresh_usergroups
```

5.10. Refreshing external user groups for FreeIPA or AD

External user groups based on FreeIPA or AD are refreshed only when a group member logs in to Foreman. It is not possible to alter user membership of external user groups in the Foreman web UI, such changes are overwritten on the next group refresh.

6. Configuring Foreman server with external services

If you do not want to configure the DNS, DHCP, and TFTP services on Foreman server, use this section to configure your Foreman server to work with external DNS, DHCP, and TFTP services.

6.1. Configuring Foreman server with external DNS

You can configure Foreman server with external DNS. Foreman server uses the nsupdate utility to update DNS records on the remote server.

To make any changes persistent, you must enter the foreman-installer command with the options appropriate for your environment.

Prerequisites

You must have a configured external DNS server.
This guide assumes you have an existing installation.

Procedure

Copy the /etc/rndc.key file from the external DNS server to Foreman server:
```
# scp root@dns.example.com:/etc/rndc.key /etc/foreman-proxy/rndc.key
```

Configure the ownership, permissions, and SELinux context:

# restorecon -v /etc/foreman-proxy/rndc.key
# chown -v root:foreman-proxy /etc/foreman-proxy/rndc.key
# chmod -v 640 /etc/foreman-proxy/rndc.key

To test the nsupdate utility, add a host remotely:

# echo -e "server DNS_IP_Address\n \
update add aaa.example.com 3600 IN A Host_IP_Address\n \
send\n" | nsupdate -k /etc/foreman-proxy/rndc.key
# nslookup aaa.example.com DNS_IP_Address
# echo -e "server DNS_IP_Address\n \
update delete aaa.example.com 3600 IN A Host_IP_Address\n \
send\n" | nsupdate -k /etc/foreman-proxy/rndc.key

Enter the foreman-installer command to make the following persistent changes to the /etc/foreman-proxy/settings.d/dns.yml file:

# foreman-installer --foreman-proxy-dns=true \
--foreman-proxy-dns-managed=false \
--foreman-proxy-dns-provider=nsupdate \
--foreman-proxy-dns-server="DNS_IP_Address" \
--foreman-proxy-keyfile=/etc/foreman-proxy/rndc.key

In the Foreman web UI, navigate to Infrastructure > Smart Proxies.
Locate the Foreman server and select Refresh from the list in the Actions column.
Associate the DNS service with the appropriate subnets and domain.

6.2. Configuring Foreman server with external DHCP

To configure Foreman server with external DHCP, you must complete the following procedures:

Configuring an external DHCP server to use with Foreman server
Configuring Foreman server with an external DHCP server

6.2.1. Configuring an external DHCP server to use with Foreman server

To configure an external DHCP server running Enterprise Linux to use with Foreman server, you must install the ISC DHCP Service and Berkeley Internet Name Domain (BIND) utilities packages. You must also share the DHCP configuration and lease files with Foreman server. The example in this procedure uses the distributed Network File System (NFS) protocol to share the DHCP configuration and lease files.

Note

If you use dnsmasq as an external DHCP server, enable the dhcp-no-override setting. This is required because Foreman creates configuration files on the TFTP server under the grub2/ subdirectory. If the dhcp-no-override setting is disabled, hosts fetch the bootloader and its configuration from the root directory, which might cause an error.

If you do not use firewall-cmd to configure the Linux firewall, implement using the command of your choice.

Procedure

On your Enterprise Linux host, install the ISC DHCP Service and Berkeley Internet Name Domain (BIND) utilities packages:
```
# dnf install dhcp-server bind-utils
```
Generate a security token:
```
# tsig-keygen -a hmac-md5 omapi_key
```

Edit the dhcpd configuration file for all subnets and add the key generated by tsig-keygen. The following is an example:

# cat /etc/dhcp/dhcpd.conf
default-lease-time 604800;
max-lease-time 2592000;
log-facility local7;

subnet 192.168.38.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 {
	range 192.168.38.10 192.168.38.100;
	option routers 192.168.38.1;
	option subnet-mask 255.255.255.0;
	option domain-search "virtual.lan";
	option domain-name "virtual.lan";
	option domain-name-servers 8.8.8.8;
}

omapi-port 7911;
key omapi_key {
	algorithm hmac-md5;
	secret "My_Secret";
};
omapi-key omapi_key;

Note that the option routers value is the IP address of your Foreman server or Smart Proxy server that you want to use with an external DHCP service.

On Foreman server, define each subnet. Do not set DHCP Smart Proxy for the defined Subnet yet.

To prevent conflicts, set up the lease and reservation ranges separately. For example, if the lease range is 192.168.38.10 to 192.168.38.100, in the Foreman web UI define the reservation range as 192.168.38.101 to 192.168.38.250.
Configure the firewall for external access to the DHCP server:
```
# firewall-cmd --add-service dhcp
```
Make the changes persistent:
```
# firewall-cmd --runtime-to-permanent
```
On Foreman server, determine the UID and GID of the foreman user:
```
# id -u foreman
993
# id -g foreman
990
```
On the DHCP server, create the foreman user and group with the same IDs as determined in a previous step:
```
# groupadd -g 990 foreman
# useradd -u 993 -g 990 -s /sbin/nologin foreman
```

To ensure that the configuration files are accessible, restore the read and execute flags:

# chmod o+rx /etc/dhcp/
# chmod o+r /etc/dhcp/dhcpd.conf
# chattr +i /etc/dhcp/ /etc/dhcp/dhcpd.conf

Enable and start the DHCP service:
```
# systemctl enable --now dhcpd
```

Export the DHCP configuration and lease files using NFS:

# dnf install nfs-utils
# systemctl enable --now nfs-server

Create directories for the DHCP configuration and lease files that you want to export using NFS:
```
# mkdir -p /exports/var/lib/dhcpd /exports/etc/dhcp
```

To create mount points for the created directories, add the following line to the /etc/fstab file:

/var/lib/dhcpd /exports/var/lib/dhcpd none bind,auto 0 0
/etc/dhcp /exports/etc/dhcp none bind,auto 0 0

Mount the file systems in /etc/fstab:
```
# mount -a
```

Ensure the following lines are present in /etc/exports:

/exports 192.168.38.1(rw,async,no_root_squash,fsid=0,no_subtree_check)

/exports/etc/dhcp 192.168.38.1(ro,async,no_root_squash,no_subtree_check,nohide)

/exports/var/lib/dhcpd 192.168.38.1(ro,async,no_root_squash,no_subtree_check,nohide)

Note that the IP address that you enter is the Foreman or Smart Proxy IP address that you want to use with an external DHCP service.

Reload the NFS server:
```
# exportfs -rva
```
Configure the firewall for DHCP omapi port 7911:
```
# firewall-cmd --add-port=7911/tcp
```

Optional: Configure the firewall for external access to NFS. Clients are configured using NFSv3.

# firewall-cmd \
--add-service mountd \
--add-service nfs \
--add-service rpc-bind \
--zone public

Make the changes persistent:
```
# firewall-cmd --runtime-to-permanent
```

6.2.2. Configuring Foreman server with an external DHCP server

You can configure Foreman server with an external DHCP server.

Prerequisites

Ensure that you have configured an external DHCP server and that you have shared the DHCP configuration and lease files with Foreman server. For more information, see Configuring an external DHCP server to use with Foreman server.

Procedure

Install the nfs-utils package:
```
# dnf install nfs-utils
```

Create the DHCP directories for NFS:

# mkdir -p /mnt/nfs/etc/dhcp /mnt/nfs/var/lib/dhcpd

Change the file owner:
```
# chown -R foreman-proxy /mnt/nfs
```
Verify communication with the NFS server and the Remote Procedure Call (RPC) communication paths:
```
# showmount -e DHCP_Server_FQDN
# rpcinfo -p DHCP_Server_FQDN
```

Add the following lines to the /etc/fstab file:

DHCP_Server_FQDN:/exports/etc/dhcp /mnt/nfs/etc/dhcp nfs
ro,vers=3,auto,nosharecache,context="system_u:object_r:dhcp_etc_t:s0" 0 0

DHCP_Server_FQDN:/exports/var/lib/dhcpd /mnt/nfs/var/lib/dhcpd nfs
ro,vers=3,auto,nosharecache,context="system_u:object_r:dhcpd_state_t:s0" 0 0

Mount the file systems on /etc/fstab:
```
# mount -a
```
To verify that the foreman-proxy user can access the files that are shared over the network, display the DHCP configuration and lease files:
```
# su foreman-proxy -s /bin/bash
$ cat /mnt/nfs/etc/dhcp/dhcpd.conf
$ cat /mnt/nfs/var/lib/dhcpd/dhcpd.leases
$ exit
```

Enter the foreman-installer command to make the following persistent changes to the /etc/foreman-proxy/settings.d/dhcp.yml file:

# foreman-installer \
--enable-foreman-proxy-plugin-dhcp-remote-isc \
--foreman-proxy-dhcp-provider=remote_isc \
--foreman-proxy-dhcp-server=My_DHCP_Server_FQDN \
--foreman-proxy-dhcp=true \
--foreman-proxy-plugin-dhcp-remote-isc-dhcp-config /mnt/nfs/etc/dhcp/dhcpd.conf \
--foreman-proxy-plugin-dhcp-remote-isc-dhcp-leases /mnt/nfs/var/lib/dhcpd/dhcpd.leases \
--foreman-proxy-plugin-dhcp-remote-isc-key-name=omapi_key \
--foreman-proxy-plugin-dhcp-remote-isc-key-secret=My_Secret \
--foreman-proxy-plugin-dhcp-remote-isc-omapi-port=7911

Associate the DHCP service with the appropriate subnets and domain.

6.3. Configuring Foreman server with external TFTP

You can configure Foreman server with external TFTP services.

Procedure

Create the TFTP directory for NFS:
```
# mkdir -p /mnt/nfs/var/lib/tftpboot
```

In the /etc/fstab file, add the following line:

TFTP_Server_IP_Address:/exports/var/lib/tftpboot /mnt/nfs/var/lib/tftpboot nfs rw,vers=3,auto,nosharecache,context="system_u:object_r:tftpdir_rw_t:s0" 0 0

Mount the file systems in /etc/fstab:
```
# mount -a
```
Enter the foreman-installer command to make the following persistent changes to the /etc/foreman-proxy/settings.d/tftp.yml file:
```
# foreman-installer \
--foreman-proxy-tftp-root /mnt/nfs/var/lib/tftpboot \
--foreman-proxy-tftp=true
```
If the TFTP service is running on a different server than the DHCP service, update the tftp_servername setting with the FQDN or IP address of the server that the TFTP service is running on:
```
# foreman-installer --foreman-proxy-tftp-servername=TFTP_Server_FQDN
```
In the Foreman web UI, navigate to Infrastructure > Smart Proxies.
Locate the Foreman server and select Refresh from the list in the Actions column.
Associate the TFTP service with the appropriate subnets and domain.

6.4. Configuring Foreman server with external IdM DNS

When Foreman server adds a DNS record for a host, it first determines which Smart Proxy is providing DNS for that domain. It then communicates with the Smart Proxy that is configured to provide DNS service for your deployment and adds the record. The hosts are not involved in this process. Therefore, you must install and configure the IdM client on the Foreman or Smart Proxy that is currently configured to provide a DNS service for the domain you want to manage using the IdM server.

Foreman server can be configured to use a Red Hat Identity Management (IdM) server to provide DNS service.

To configure Foreman server to use a Red Hat Identity Management (IdM) server to provide DNS service, use one of the following procedures:

Configuring dynamic DNS update with GSS-TSIG authentication
Configuring dynamic DNS update with TSIG authentication

To revert to internal DNS service, use the following procedure:

Reverting to internal DNS service

Note

You are not required to use Foreman server to manage DNS. When you are using the realm enrollment feature of Foreman, where provisioned hosts are enrolled automatically to IdM, the ipa-client-install script creates DNS records for the client. Configuring Foreman server with external IdM DNS and realm enrollment are mutually exclusive. For more information about configuring realm enrollment, see Configuring Foreman to manage the lifecycle of a host registered to a FreeIPA realm.

6.4.1. Configuring dynamic DNS update with GSS-TSIG authentication

You can configure the IdM server to use the generic security service algorithm for secret key transaction (GSS-TSIG) technology defined in RFC3645. To configure the IdM server to use the GSS-TSIG technology, you must install the IdM client on the Foreman server base operating system.

Prerequisites

You must ensure the IdM server is deployed and the host-based firewall is configured correctly.
You must contact the IdM server administrator to ensure that you obtain an account on the IdM server with permissions to create zones on the IdM server.
You should create a backup of the answer file. You can use the backup to restore the answer file to its original state if it becomes corrupted. For more information, see Configuring Foreman server.

Procedure

To configure dynamic DNS update with GSS-TSIG authentication, complete the following steps:

Creating a Kerberos principal on the IdM server

Obtain a Kerberos ticket for the account obtained from the IdM administrator:
```
# kinit idm_user
```
Create a new Kerberos principal for Foreman server to use to authenticate on the IdM server:
```
# ipa service-add smartproxy/foreman.example.com
```

Installing and configuring the idM client

On the base operating system of either the Foreman or Smart Proxy that is managing the DNS service for your deployment, install the ipa-client package:
```
# dnf install ipa-client
```
Configure the IdM client by running the installation script and following the on-screen prompts:
```
# ipa-client-install
```
Obtain a Kerberos ticket:
```
# kinit admin
```
Remove any preexisting keytab:
```
# rm /etc/foreman-proxy/dns.keytab
```

Obtain the keytab for this system:

# ipa-getkeytab -p smartproxy/foreman.example.com@EXAMPLE.COM \
-s idm1.example.com -k /etc/foreman-proxy/dns.keytab

Note	When adding a keytab to a standby system with the same host name as the original system in service, add the `r` option to prevent generating new credentials and rendering the credentials on the original system invalid.

For the dns.keytab file, set the group and owner to foreman-proxy:

# chown foreman-proxy:foreman-proxy /etc/foreman-proxy/dns.keytab

Optional: To verify that the keytab file is valid, enter the following command:

# kinit -kt /etc/foreman-proxy/dns.keytab \
smartproxy/foreman.example.com@EXAMPLE.COM

Configuring DNS zones in the IdM web UI

Create and configure the zone that you want to manage:
1. Navigate to Network Services > DNS > DNS Zones.
2. Select Add and enter the zone name. For example, example.com.
3. Click Add and Edit.
4. Click the Settings tab and in the BIND update policy box, add the following to the semi-colon separated list:
  grant smartproxy\047foreman.example.com@EXAMPLE.COM wildcard * ANY;
5. Set Dynamic update to True.
6. Enable Allow PTR sync.
7. Click Save to save the changes.
Create and configure the reverse zone:
1. Navigate to Network Services > DNS > DNS Zones.
2. Click Add.
3. Select Reverse zone IP network and add the network address in CIDR format to enable reverse lookups.
4. Click Add and Edit.
5. Click the Settings tab and in the BIND update policy box, add the following to the semi-colon separated list:
  grant smartproxy\047foreman.example.com@EXAMPLE.COM wildcard * ANY;
6. Set Dynamic update to True.
7. Click Save to save the changes.

Configuring the Foreman or Smart Proxy server that manages the DNS service for the domain

Configure your Foreman server or Smart Proxy server to connect to your DNS service:

# foreman-installer \
--foreman-proxy-dns-managed=false \
--foreman-proxy-dns-provider=nsupdate_gss \
--foreman-proxy-dns-server="idm1.example.com" \
--foreman-proxy-dns-tsig-keytab=/etc/foreman-proxy/dns.keytab \
--foreman-proxy-dns-tsig-principal="smartproxy/foreman.example.com@EXAMPLE.COM" \
--foreman-proxy-dns=true

For each affected Smart Proxy, update the configuration of that Smart Proxy in the Foreman web UI:
1. In the Foreman web UI, navigate to Infrastructure > Smart Proxies, locate the Foreman server, and from the list in the Actions column, select Refresh.
2. Configure the domain:
  1. In the Foreman web UI, navigate to Infrastructure > Domains and select the domain name.
  2. In the Domain tab, ensure DNS Smart Proxy is set to the Smart Proxy where the subnet is connected.
3. Configure the subnet:
  1. In the Foreman web UI, navigate to Infrastructure > Subnets and select the subnet name.
  2. In the Subnet tab, set IPAM to None.
  3. In the Domains tab, select the domain that you want to manage using the IdM server.
  4. In the Smart Proxies tab, ensure Reverse DNS Smart Proxy is set to the Smart Proxy where the subnet is connected.
  5. Click Submit to save the changes.

6.4.2. Configuring dynamic DNS update with TSIG authentication

You can configure an IdM server to use the secret key transaction authentication for DNS (TSIG) technology that uses the rndc.key key file for authentication. The TSIG protocol is defined in RFC2845.

Prerequisites

You must ensure the IdM server is deployed and the host-based firewall is configured correctly.
You must obtain root user access on the IdM server.
You must confirm whether Foreman server or Smart Proxy server is configured to provide DNS service for your deployment.
You must configure DNS, DHCP and TFTP services on the base operating system of either the Foreman or Smart Proxy that is managing the DNS service for your deployment.
You must create a backup of the answer file. You can use the backup to restore the answer file to its original state if it becomes corrupted. For more information, see Configuring Foreman server.

Procedure

To configure dynamic DNS update with TSIG authentication, complete the following steps:

Enabling external updates to the DNS zone in the IdM server

On the IdM Server, add the following to the top of the /etc/named.conf file:

########################################################################

include "/etc/rndc.key";
controls  {
inet _IdM_Server_IP_Address_ port 953 allow { _Foreman_IP_Address_; } keys { "rndc-key"; };
};
########################################################################

Reload the named service to make the changes take effect:
```
# systemctl reload named
```
In the IdM web UI, navigate to Network Services > DNS > DNS Zones and click the name of the zone. In the Settings tab, apply the following changes:
1. Add the following in the BIND update policy box:
  grant "rndc-key" zonesub ANY;
2. Set Dynamic update to True.
3. Click Update to save the changes.
Copy the /etc/rndc.key file from the IdM server to the base operating system of your Foreman server. Enter the following command:
```
# scp /etc/rndc.key root@foreman.example.com:/etc/rndc.key
```
To set the correct ownership, permissions, and SELinux context for the rndc.key file, enter the following command:
```
# restorecon -v /etc/rndc.key
# chown -v root:named /etc/rndc.key
# chmod -v 640 /etc/rndc.key
```
Assign the foreman-proxy user to the named group manually. Normally, foreman-installer ensures that the foreman-proxy user belongs to the named UNIX group, however, in this scenario Foreman does not manage users and groups, therefore you need to assign the foreman-proxy user to the named group manually.
```
# usermod -a -G named foreman-proxy
```

On Foreman server, enter the following foreman-installer command to configure Foreman to use the external DNS server:

# foreman-installer \
--foreman-proxy-dns-managed=false \
--foreman-proxy-dns-provider=nsupdate \
--foreman-proxy-dns-server="IdM_Server_IP_Address" \
--foreman-proxy-dns-ttl=86400 \
--foreman-proxy-dns=true \
--foreman-proxy-keyfile=/etc/rndc.key

Testing external updates to the DNS zone in the IdM server

Ensure that the key in the /etc/rndc.key file on Foreman server is the same key file that is used on the IdM server:
```
key "rndc-key" {
        algorithm hmac-md5;
        secret "secret-key==";
};
```
On Foreman server, create a test DNS entry for a host. For example, host test.example.com with an A record of 192.168.25.20 on the IdM server at 192.168.25.1.
```
# echo -e "server 192.168.25.1\n \
update add test.example.com 3600 IN A 192.168.25.20\n \
send\n" | nsupdate -k /etc/rndc.key
```

On Foreman server, test the DNS entry:

# nslookup test.example.com 192.168.25.1

Example output:

Server:		192.168.25.1
Address:	192.168.25.1#53

Name:	test.example.com
Address: 192.168.25.20

To view the entry in the IdM web UI, navigate to Network Services > DNS > DNS Zones. Click the name of the zone and search for the host by name.

If resolved successfully, remove the test DNS entry:

# echo -e "server 192.168.25.1\n \
update delete test.example.com 3600 IN A 192.168.25.20\n \
send\n" | nsupdate -k /etc/rndc.key

Confirm that the DNS entry was removed:
```
# nslookup test.example.com 192.168.25.1
```
The above nslookup command fails and returns the SERVFAIL error message if the record was successfully deleted.

6.4.3. Reverting to internal DNS service

You can revert to using Foreman server and Smart Proxy server as your DNS providers. You can use a backup of the answer file that was created before configuring external DNS, or you can create a backup of the answer file. For more information about answer files, see Configuring Foreman server.

Procedure

On the Foreman or Smart Proxy server that you want to configure to manage DNS service for the domain, complete the following steps:

Configuring Foreman or Smart Proxy as a DNS server

If you have created a backup of the answer file before configuring external DNS, restore the answer file and then enter the foreman-installer command:
```
# foreman-installer
```
If you do not have a suitable backup of the answer file, create a backup of the answer file now. To configure Foreman or Smart Proxy as DNS server without using an answer file, enter the following foreman-installer command on Foreman or Smart Proxy:
```
# foreman-installer \
--foreman-proxy-dns-managed=true \
--foreman-proxy-dns-provider=nsupdate \
--foreman-proxy-dns-server="127.0.0.1" \
--foreman-proxy-dns=true
```
For more information, see Configuring DNS, DHCP, and TFTP on Smart Proxy server.

After you run the foreman-installer command to make any changes to your Smart Proxy configuration, you must update the configuration of each affected Smart Proxy in the Foreman web UI.

Updating the configuration in the Foreman web UI

In the Foreman web UI, navigate to Infrastructure > Smart Proxies.
For each Smart Proxy that you want to update, from the Actions list, select Refresh.
Configure the domain:
1. In the Foreman web UI, navigate to Infrastructure > Domains and click the domain name that you want to configure.
2. In the Domain tab, set DNS Smart Proxy to the Smart Proxy where the subnet is connected.
Configure the subnet:
1. In the Foreman web UI, navigate to Infrastructure > Subnets and select the subnet name.
2. In the Subnet tab, set IPAM to DHCP or Internal DB.
3. In the Domains tab, select the domain that you want to manage using Foreman or Smart Proxy.
4. In the Smart Proxies tab, set Reverse DNS Smart Proxy to the Smart Proxy where the subnet is connected.
5. Click Submit to save the changes.

Appendix A: Troubleshooting DNF modules

If DNF modules fails to enable, it can mean an incorrect module is enabled. In that case, you have to resolve dependencies manually as follows. List the enabled modules:

# dnf module list --enabled

Ruby

If Ruby module fails to enable, it can mean an incorrect module is enabled. In that case, you have to resolve dependencies manually as follows:

List the enabled modules:

# dnf module list --enabled

If the Ruby 2.5 module has already been enabled, perform a module reset:

# dnf module reset ruby

PostgreSQL

If PostgreSQL module fails to enable, it can mean an incorrect module is enabled. In that case, you have to resolve dependencies manually as follows:

List the enabled modules:

# dnf module list --enabled

If the PostgreSQL 10 module has already been enabled, perform a module reset:

# dnf module reset postgresql

If a database was previously created using PostgreSQL 10, perform an upgrade:

Enable the DNF modules:
```
# dnf module enable katello:el8
```
Install the PostgreSQL upgrade package:
```
# dnf install postgresql-upgrade
```
Perform the upgrade:
```
# postgresql-setup --upgrade
```

Appendix B: Troubleshooting sync errors

"[Errno 1] Operation not permitted: …" during repository syncing

# chown --recursive pulp.pulp /var/lib/pulp/media/

"{"policy":[""" is not a valid choice."]}" during Debian repository syncing

# foreman-rake katello:migrate_deb_content_attributes_to_pulp3

500 API error during syncing with "cryptography.fernet.InvalidToken" in /var/log/messages traceback

Run this on the Katello server and every smart proxy.

# sudo -u pulp PULP_SETTINGS='/etc/pulp/settings.py' pulpcore-manager datarepair-2327 --dry-run

If you see values greater than 0 returned from the dry-run:

# sudo -u pulp PULP_SETTINGS='/etc/pulp/settings.py' pulpcore-manager datarepair-2327

Appendix C: Applying custom configuration to Foreman

When you install and configure Foreman for the first time using foreman-installer, you can specify that the DNS and DHCP configuration files are not to be managed by Puppet using the installer flags --foreman-proxy-dns-managed=false and --foreman-proxy-dhcp-managed=false. If these flags are not specified during the initial installer run, rerunning of the installer overwrites all manual changes, for example, rerun for upgrade purposes. If changes are overwritten, you must run the restore procedure to restore the manual changes. For more information, see Restoring Manual Changes Overwritten by a Puppet Run.

To view all installer flags available for custom configuration, run foreman-installer --scenario katello --full-help. Some Puppet classes are not exposed to the Foreman installer. To manage them manually and prevent the installer from overwriting their values, specify the configuration values by adding entries to configuration file /etc/foreman-installer/custom-hiera.yaml. This configuration file is in YAML format, consisting of one entry per line in the format of <puppet class>::<parameter name>: <value>. Configuration values specified in this file persist across installer reruns.

Common examples include:

For Apache, to set the ServerTokens directive to return only the product name:
```
apache::server_tokens: Prod
```
To turn off the Apache server signature entirely:
```
apache::server_signature: Off
```

The Puppet modules for the Foreman installer are stored under /usr/share/foreman-installer/modules. Check the .pp files (for example: moduleName/manifests/example.pp) to look up the classes, parameters, and values. Alternatively, use the grep command to do keyword searches.

Setting some values may have unintended consequences that affect the performance or functionality of Foreman. Consider the impact of the changes before you apply them, and test the changes in a non-production environment first. If you do not have a non-production Foreman environment, run the Foreman installer with the --noop and --verbose options. If your changes cause problems, remove the offending lines from custom-hiera.yaml and rerun the Foreman installer. If you have any specific questions about whether a particular value is safe to alter, contact Red Hat support.

Appendix D: Restoring manual changes overwritten by a Puppet run

If your manual configuration has been overwritten by a Puppet run, you can restore the files to the previous state. The following example shows you how to restore a DHCP configuration file overwritten by a Puppet run.

Procedure

Copy the file you intend to restore. This allows you to compare the files to check for any mandatory changes required by the upgrade. This is not common for DNS or DHCP services.
```
# cp /etc/dhcp/dhcpd.conf /etc/dhcp/dhcpd.backup
```

Check the log files to note down the md5sum of the overwritten file. For example:

# journalctl -xe
...
/Stage[main]/Dhcp/File[/etc/dhcp/dhcpd.conf]: Filebucketed /etc/dhcp/dhcpd.conf to puppet with sum 622d9820b8e764ab124367c68f5fa3a1
...

Restore the overwritten file:

# puppet filebucket restore --local --bucket \
/var/lib/puppet/clientbucket /etc/dhcp/dhcpd.conf \ 622d9820b8e764ab124367c68f5fa3a1

Compare the backup file and the restored file, and edit the restored file to include any mandatory changes required by the upgrade.