Release Notes

orcharhino 6.8.0 is here!

Tech Update Video

A short overview of the new features introduced in orcharhino 6.8

Highlights

Simple Content Access (SCA)

  • Simple Content Access is supported and simplifies content management in orcharhino.
    • With SCA enabled, you no longer have to assign product subscriptions to hosts. Instead, the available content for hosts is defined by your content view and activation key.
    • orcharhino 6.8 changes the default for SCA from “off” to “enabled”.
    • In future versions, SCA will be the only available and supported form of content management.
    • For more information: https://orcharhino.com/simple-content-access.

Performance Improvements

  • Content View API/UI performance is improved by reducing the amount of necessary API calls.
  • Debian content synchronization is now skipped if the repository metadata has not changed when using the default sync options.
    • Previously this only worked when using „Mirroring Policy: Additive“.
    • This will significantly reduce the number of parallel tasks required when synchronizing deb type content to orcharhino Proxy.

orcharhino Clients

  • Additional PPC64LE clients for orcharhino is available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP5.

Core Component Updates

  • orcharhino 6.8 is based on Foreman 3.9, Katello 4.11, and Pulp 3.39.
  • orcharhino 6.8 can receive facts and reports from external Puppet Server 8.

Activation Keys Page with SCA enabled.

Manage Organizations with and without SCA enabled.

Changelog Features

  • Added support for VMware hardware versions 20 (ESXi 8.0) and 21 (ESXi 8.0 U2).
  • Updated the VMware GuestOS mappings to reflect current Enterprise Linux systems.
  • For Red Hat Enterprise Linux, to ensure compliance you can utilize the rh-cloud and virt-who plugins for subscription tracking.
  • Enabled MQTT port for Pull Provider communication in firewalld configurations on orcharhino Server and orcharhino Proxies.
  • Implemented bookmark functionality on the „Repositories“ tab within the „Content View“ page in the orcharhino management UI.
  • Extended or_smart_proxy_content ansible role to support Simple Content Access.
  • Extended examples added to the usage-output of the pulp_api.sh script.
  • Enabled orcharhino offline installations without OCC access by introducing a “–skip-packages-update” flag to orcharhino-installer.sh.
  • Debian public GPG key location moved to “/etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/” directory, replacing the deprecated “apt-key add” method.
  • Integrated search examples into the orcharhino management UI. For a detailed guide, visit https://docs.orcharhino.com/or/docs/sources/guides/administering_orcharhino.html#Query_Values_admin.
  • Enhanced API documentation for operatingsystem/:id/bootfiles endpoint.
  • For Debian, improved katello_apt_repo_signing role to retain the signing keys by default, even after changing the hostname.
  • orcharhino 6.8 switched to Redis as the default cache type. This improves performance and avoids issues like file locking and cache misses.
  • Added a new report template for „New Host – Installed Products“ which works for organizations using SCA. It includes information on installed products and system purpose fields without subscription consumption data.
  • Implemented incremental content exports with a syncable format. This feature is exclusively available for RPM repositories.
  • Enabling hosts to register with multiple Content Views and environments using subscription-manager version 1.29.28 or later in EL8.
  • Enhanced the „Host – Applied Errata“ report template to include support for Erratum release date.
  • Implemented Content View Publish recommendations in orcharhino, signaling whether a publish is unnecessary due to changes in repositories and filters.
    • Introduced new UI icons to signify if publishing a new version is required for updates.
  • Content View Versions with applied filters now feature a new flag in the UI. Additionally, filters applied to previous Content View Versions are accessible via the API and Hammer CLI.
  • Added Alternate Content Sources bulk refresh option. Now „hammer alternate-content-source refresh“ command includes the „–all“ flag.

Changelog Bugfixes

  • Fixed a bug that prevented „Organization admins“ to select from all available job listings.
  • Fixed a bug that prevented Salt from being installed in some circumstances.
  • Resolved an apt issue on Ubuntu causing unintended removal of Linux kernel packages during orcharhino client installation due to missing dependencies.
  • Resolved a problem with VSphere host failing to detach ISO during bootdisk-based deployment.
  • Resolved an issue where packages of module stream repositories from different Enterprise Linux Distributions (e.g., RHEL and Oracle) were missing when they were synchronized at the same time.
  • The katello:delete_orphaned_content rake task now successfully handles orphaned content referenced by non-orphaned content, preventing failures.
  • Repository synchronization for Debian content no longer triggers warnings about „python3-apt“ not being installed.
  • Repository links now correctly redirect from the SUSE Subscriptions page to the corresponding Katello repository page.
  • Corrected the date selection in the orcharhino management UI for the errata filter.
  • Visibility of the Content Packages Tab is no longer dependent on predefined OS descriptions; now accessible independently.
  • Proxmox users can now successfully create hosts using the API or Hammer CLI.
  • Fixed a bug that prevented image-based deployments on Proxmox via cloud-init.
  • Corrected installation procedure for the pull provider service during host provisioning on Debian/Ubuntu systems.
  • Increased download timeout during orcharhino installations to accommodate slower internet connections.
  • orcharhino OVA now ships with an updated AlmaLinux 8 version, addressing issues arising from the recent GPG key change (https://almalinux.org/blog/2023-12-20-almalinux-8-key-update).
  • orcharhino OVA’s configuration profiles now meet the minimal requirements specified for orcharhino-installer’s tuning profiles.
  • Python content synchronization is now supported when the orcharhino Server is behind an HTTP proxy.
  • Corrected misnamed ansible roles used for automating orcharhino, resolving UI error messages.
  • Cloned hostgroups now correctly retain the content source and lifecycle environment settings.
  • Moved the orcharhino subscription key file to the subscription key directory at a later stage, enabling easier re-run of the installer in case of previous failures.
  • You can now utilize the SSH User specified in the advanced field of job invocation as the ‚ansible_user‘.
  • Transitioned to utilizing the „dnf needs-restarting“ command to determine tracer information on EL8/EL9 hosts.

Deprecations

  • You can no longer create Content Views with “Import Only” enabled.
  • You can no longer use Puppet 6 to configure hosts.
  • The katello-agent has been removed and is no longer available via web UI, API, or CLI.
  • Simple Content Access will be the only subscription management available in a future orcharhino release.

Changelog Documentation