Planning for Foreman

Ansible is an agentless open-source automation engine. For hosts running Linux, Ansible uses SSH to connect to hosts. For hosts running Microsoft Windows, Ansible relies on WinRM. It uses playbooks and roles to describe and bundle tasks. Within Foreman, you can use Ansible to configure hosts and perform remote execution.

A configuration file that defines settings for an installation scenario. Answer files are defined in the YAML format and stored in the /etc/foreman-installer/scenarios.d/ directory. To see the default values for installation scenario parameters, use the foreman-installer --full-help command on your Foreman server.

Asset Reporting Format (ARF) reports are the result of OpenSCAP compliance scans on hosts which have a policy assigned. Summarizes the security compliance of hosts managed by Foreman. They list compliance criteria and whether the scanned host has passed or failed.

Provide a report on changes made by a specific user. Audits can be viewed in the Foreman web UI under Monitor > Audits.

Enables remote power management of bare-metal hosts. In Foreman, you can create a BMC interface to manage selected hosts.

An ISO image used for PXE-less provisioning. This ISO enables the host to connect to Foreman server, boot the installation media, and install the operating system. There are several kinds of boot disks: host image, full host image, generic image, and subnet image.

A document that describes the desired system state for one specific host managed by Puppet. It lists all of the resources that need to be managed, as well as any dependencies between those resources. Catalogs are compiled by a Puppet server from Puppet Manifests and data from Puppet agents.

Compliance policies refer to the application of SCAP content to hosts by using Foreman with its OpenSCAP plugin. You can create compliance policies by using the Foreman web UI, Hammer CLI, or API. A compliance policy requires the setting of a specific XCCDF profile from a SCAP content, optionally using a tailoring file. You can set up scheduled tasks on Foreman that check your hosts for compliance against SCAP content. When a compliance policy scan completes, the host sends an ARF report to Foreman.

Specifies default attributes for new virtual machines on a compute resource.

A compute resource is an external virtualization or cloud infrastructure that you can attach to Foreman. Foreman can provision, configure, and manage hosts within attached compute resources. Examples of compute resources include VMware or libvirt and cloud providers such as Microsoft Azure or Amazon EC2.

Configuration management describes the task of configuring and maintaining hosts. In Foreman, you can use Ansible, Puppet, and Salt to configure and maintain hosts with Foreman as a single source of infrastructure truth.

A bare-metal host detected on the provisioning network by the Discovery plugin.

Refers to the minimal operating system based on Enterprise Linux that is PXE-booted on hosts to acquire initial hardware information and to communicate with Foreman server before starting the provisioning process.

Enables automatic bare-metal discovery of unknown hosts on the provisioning network. The plugin consists of three components: services running on Foreman server and Smart Proxy server, and the Discovery image running on host.

A set of predefined provisioning rules which assigns a host group to discovered hosts and triggers provisioning automatically.

An umbrella term for the following Red Hat Enterprise Linux-like operating systems:

Embedded Ruby (ERB) is a template syntax used in provisioning and job templates.

A construct that provides additional data for a server to use when configuring hosts. When Puppet obtains information about nodes from an external source instead of its own database, the external source is called External node classifier. If the Puppet plugin is installed, Foreman can act as an External node classifier to Puppet servers in a Foreman deployment.

A program that provides information (facts) about the system on which it is run; for example, Facter can report total memory, operating system version, architecture, and more. Puppet modules enable specific configurations based on host data gathered by Facter.

Host parameters such as total memory, operating system version, or architecture. Facts are reported by Facter and used by Puppet.

Foreman is an open-source component to provision and manage hosts.

A boot disk used for PXE-less provisioning of a specific host. The full host image contains an embedded Linux kernel and init RAM disk of the associated operating system installer.

A boot disk for PXE-less provisioning that is not tied to a specific host. The generic image sends the host’s MAC address to Foreman server, which matches it against the host entry.

Hammer is a command-line interface tool for Foreman. You can execute Hammer commands from the command line or utilize it in scripts. You can use Hammer to automate certain recurring tasks as an alternative to Foreman Ansible collection or Foreman API.

A host is a physical, virtual, or cloud instance registered to Foreman.

A user defined group of one or more Hosts used for bulk actions such as errata installation.

A host group is a template to build hosts that holds shared parameters, such as subnet or lifecycle environment. It helps to unify configuration management in Ansible, Puppet, and Salt by grouping hosts. You can nest host groups to create a hierarchical structure. For more information, see Working with host groups in Managing hosts.

A boot disk used for PXE-less provisioning of a specific host. The host image only contains the boot files necessary to access the installation media on Foreman server.

The act of creating a new (minor) content view version in a lifecycle environment. Incremental upgrades provide a way to make in-place modification of an already published content view. Useful for rapid updates, for example when applying security errata.

A command executed remotely on a host from Foreman server. Every job is defined in a job template.

A collection of default settings that represent a physical place. Location is a tag mostly used for geographical separation of hosts within Foreman. Examples include different cities or different data centers.

The process of moving an existing Foreman installation to a new instance.

A project implementing security compliance auditing according to the Security Content Automation Protocol (SCAP). OpenSCAP is integrated in Foreman to provide compliance auditing for hosts.

An isolated collection of systems, content, and other functionality within Foreman. Organization is a tag used for organizational separation of hosts within Foreman. Examples include different teams or business units.

Defines the behavior of Foreman components during provisioning. Depending on the parameter scope, we distinguish between global, domain, host group, and host parameters. Depending on the parameter complexity, we distinguish between simple parameters (key-value pair) and smart parameters (conditional arguments, validation, overrides).

A parameter created by importing a class from Puppet server.

Defines an action related to a selected part of Foreman infrastructure (resource type). Each resource type is associated with a set of permissions, for example the Architecture resource type has the following permissions: view_architectures, create_architectures, edit_architectures, and destroy_architectures. You can group permissions into roles and associate them with users or user groups.

The provisioning of a host is the deployment of the base operating system on the host and registration of the host to Foreman. Optionally, the process continues with the supply of content and configuration. This process is ideally automated. Provisioned hosts run on compute resources or bare metal, never Foreman server or Smart Proxy servers.

Provisioning templates are templates that automate deployment of an operating system on hosts. Foreman contains provisioning templates for all supported host operating system families:

Puppet is a configuration management tool utilizing a declarative language in a server-client architecture. For more information about using Puppet to configure hosts, see Configuring hosts by using Puppet.

A service running on a host that applies configuration changes to that host.

An isolated set of Puppet agent nodes that can be associated with a specific set of Puppet Modules.

Refers to Puppet scripts, which are files with the .pp extension. The files contain code to define a set of necessary resources, such as packages, services, files, users and groups, and so on, using a set of key-value pairs for their attributes.

A Smart Proxy server component that provides a Puppet catalog to hosts for execution by the Puppet agent.

A self-contained bundle of code (Puppet Manifests) and data (facts) that you can use to manage resources such as users, files, and services.

PXE stands for preboot execution environment and is used to boot operating systems received from the network rather than a local disk. It requires a compatible network interface card (NIC) and relies on DHCP and TFTP.

A job executed automatically according to a schedule. In the Foreman web UI, you can view those jobs under Monitor > Recurring logics.

Remote execution is the process of using Foreman to run commands on registered hosts.

Refers to a part of Foreman infrastructure, for example host, Smart Proxy, or architecture. Used in permission filtering.

Specifies a collection of permissions that are applied to a set of resources, such as hosts. Roles can be assigned to users and user groups. Foreman provides a number of predefined roles.

Salt is a configuration management tool used to maintain hosts in certain defined states, for example have packages installed or services running. It is designed to be idempotent. For more information about using Salt to configure hosts, see Configuring hosts by using Salt.

SCAP stands for Security Content Automation Protocol and refers to .xml files containing the configuration and security baseline against which hosts are checked. Foreman uses SCAP content in compliance policies.

Smart Proxy servers can provide DHCP, DNS, and TFTP services and act as an Ansible control node, Puppet server, or Salt Master in separate networks. They interact with Foreman server in a client-server model.

A type of generic image for PXE-less provisioning that communicates through Smart Proxy server.

Subscription Manager is a client application to register hosts to Foreman.

Tailoring files specify a set of modifications to existing SCAP content. They adapt SCAP content to your particular needs without changing the original SCAP content itself.

A background process executed on the Foreman or Smart Proxy server, such as repository synchronization or content view publishing. You can monitor the task status in the Foreman web UI under Monitor > Foreman Tasks > Tasks.

A means of tracking changes in specific parts of Foreman infrastructure. Configure trends in Foreman web UI under Monitor > Trends. Requires foreman_statistics plugin on your Foreman server.

The process of advancing your Foreman server and Smart Proxy server installations from one patch release to the next, for example Foreman 3.13.0 to Foreman 3.13.1.

The process of advancing your Foreman server and Smart Proxy server installations from one minor release to the next, for example Foreman 3.12 to Foreman 3.13.

A collection of roles which can be assigned to a collection of users.

Anyone registered to use Foreman. Authentication and authorization is possible through built-in logic, through external resources (LDAP, Identity Management, or Active Directory), or with Kerberos.

Virtualization describes the process of running multiple operating systems with various applications on a single hardware host using hypervisors like VMware, Proxmox, or libvirt. It facilitates scalability and cost savings. You can attach virtualization infrastructure as compute resources to Foreman. Enable appropriate plugins to access this feature.

An agent for retrieving IDs of virtual machines from the hypervisor. When used with Foreman, virt-who reports those IDs to Foreman server so that it can provide subscriptions for hosts provisioned on virtual machines.

Extensible configuration checklist description format (XCCDF) profiles are a component of SCAP content. XCCDF is a language to write security checklists and benchmarks. An XCCDF file contains security configuration rules for lists of hosts.

A set of services that Foreman server and Smart Proxy servers use for operation. You can use the foreman-maintain tool to manage these services. To see the full list of services, enter the foreman-maintain service list command on the machine where Foreman or Smart Proxy server is installed. For more information, run foreman-maintain --help on your Foreman server or Smart Proxy server.

You can extend Foreman by installing plugins. For more information, run foreman-installer --full-help on your Foreman server or Smart Proxy server.

You can manage Foreman on the command line using hammer. For more information on using Hammer CLI, see Using the Hammer CLI tool or run hammer --help on your Foreman server or Smart Proxy server.