Spacewalk (software)

Spacewalk is open-source systems management software for system provisioning, patching and configuration licensed under the GNU GPLv2.

Spacewalk
Original author(s)Red Hat
Initial releaseJune 2008
Final release
2.10 / March 18, 2020 (2020-03-18)
Repositoryhttps://github.com/spacewalkproject/spacewalk
Written inJava, Perl and Python
Operating systemLinux
Available inEnglish, Francais, Bengali, Hindi, Japanese, Punjabi, Russian, Simplified Chinese, German, Spanish, Gujarati, Italian, Korean, Brazilian, Portuguese, Tamil, Traditional Chinese
TypeSystems management
LicenseGNU General Public License v2
Websitespacewalkproject.github.io

The project was discontinued on 31st May 2020 with 2.10 being the last official release.[1]

Overview

Features

Spacewalk encompasses the following functions:[2]

  • Systems Inventory (Hardware and Software)
  • System Software Installation and Updates[3]
  • Collation and Distribution of Custom Software Packages into Manageable Groups
  • System provisioning (via Kickstart)
  • Management and deployment of configuration files
  • Provision of virtual Guests
  • Start/Stop/Configuration of virtual guests
  • OpenSCAP Auditing of client systems[4]

Architecture

Spacewalk Server: Server represents managing System

  • It is possible to set up master and slave servers, and even a tree setup is possible[5]
  • There are options for geographically remote proxy servers[6]

Spacewalk Client: A system managed by a Spacewalk server

Spacewalk is controlled by the following Interfaces:

  • web interface, Used for most interactions
  • CLI (Command-line interface), Used for some specific operations
  • XML-RPC API,[7] programmatic interface for specialist/development use

Subscription Management:

  • Particular upstream and downstream versions may include integration to supported vendor subscription support network such as Red Hat Subscription Management (RHSM), ULN[8], and SUSE Enterprise Linux Server subscriptions.

Backend Database:

Upstream and downstream versions

A number of DownStream versions use upstream Spacewalk version as the basis of their System Provision, patch and errata management:

Support for particular client OSes, server OSes, system architectures, backend databases, and subscription services varies between versions and releases.

Oracle Spacewalk

Oracle introduced their own version of Spacewalk particularly to provide a familiar alternative for those switching from a different vendor while Oracle Enterprise Manager remains Oracle Corporation's preferred way of managing systems[10].

Spacewalk for Oracle® Linux is designed to be hosted on Oracle Linux (OL).

Oracle Spacewalk Release[11] Date Upstream Release Server Versions Client Versions Features
2.0 November 2013 2.0 OL 6 OL 5, OL 6 First Oracle Spacewalk Release
2.2 January 2015[12] 2.2 OL 6 OL 5, OL 6, OL 7[13] New features related to upstream Spacewalk 2.2
2.4 April 2016 2.4 OL 6, OL 7 OL 5, OL 6, OL 7 Oracle Linux 7 supported
2.6 May 2017[14] 2.6 OL 6, OL 7 OL 5, OL 6, OL 7 taskotop monitor utility and removal of system and software channel entitlements
2.7 April 2018[15] 2.7 OL 6, OL 7 OL 5, OL 6, OL 7 jabberd, deprecated jPackage libraries, and further enhancements
2.10 August 2020[16] 2.10 OL 7 OL 5, OL 6, OL 7, OL 8 Oracle Linux 8 supported

The about section of the release notes in Oracle Spacewalk 2.x Documentation indicate only minor branding changes and changes for GPG keys[17]

Red Hat Satellite 5
Further information: Satellite (software) § Red Hat Satellite 5

Red Hat Satellite 5 is a licensed downstream adaption of Spacewalk with added functionality to manage Red Hat Enterprise Linux Subscriptions. In the active years of the Red Hat Satellite 5 lifecycle Spacewalk was simply known as the upstream project for Satellite. The relationship between Spacewalk and Red Hat Satellite 5 was analogous to the relationship between Fedora and Red Hat Enterprise Linux. With the emergence of Red Hat Satellite 6 with based on a fundamentally different toolset, end of lifecycle phase of Red Hat Satellite 5 and the emergence of downstream spacewalk based offerings from Oracle and SUSE newer versions of Spacewalk may not have this close relationship.

SUSE Manager Server

In March 2011 Novell released SUSE Manager 1.2, based on Spacewalk 1.2 and supporting the management of both SUSE Linux Enterprise and Red Hat Enterprise Linux.[18]

As of February 2017 the current version of SUSE Manager is SUSE Manager 3.

SUSE Manager 3 is based upon Spacewalk 2.4.[19] SUSE Manager 3 extends Spacewalk and incorporates integrates other components.[20] Subscription Management Capabilities for Red Hat Enterprise Linux and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server are supported.

In May 2018, during the openSUSE conference in Prague, it was announced[21][22] that a fork of Spacewalk, called Uyuni, was being created. Named after the salt flat in Bolivia, Uyuni uses Salt for configuration management and React as the user interface framework. SUSE Manager 4 is based on Uyuni as its upstream project[23].

History and development

Development

Red Hat developed the Red Hat Network to manage subscriptions software management and created the Red Hat Satellite application as a central management point with the user network.

For Red Hat Satellite version 5 the Satellite Function was implemented by a toolset named Project Spacewalk.

Red Hat announced in June 2008 Project Spacewalk was to be made open source under the GPLv2 License[24]

Satellite 5.3 was the first version to be based on upstream Spacewalk code.[25]

Stewardship and governance

In the Spacewalk FAQ[26] issued in 2015 after the release of Red Hat Satellite 6 Red Hat.

  • Red Hat formally released Spacewalk as open source(GPLv2) in June 2008
  • Red Hat continues to sponsor and support Spacewalk as the upstream Red Hat Satellite 5. However that participation is anticipated to diminish as Red Hat Satellite 5 enters the final phases of its lifecycle. Spacewalk is not and can never be upstream for Red Hat Satellite 6 released in September 2014[27][28] due to it being a ground up rebuild with a different toolset.
  • The Spacewalk project can continue to grow and flourish provided that the community continues to find it a useful tool and is willing to support it.

Satellite 5 went end-of-life on 31st May 2020[29], the Spacewalk project was discontinued at the same time.

Builds

Upstream build

Releases
Release Release Date Server Version[lower-alpha 1] Selected features and notes
Old version, no longer maintained: 2.10 March 18, 2020 30, 31 [30] Installable on Fedora 30 and 31, bugfix release - Last official release
Old version, no longer maintained: 2.9 January 14, 2019 27, 28, 29 [31] Installable on Fedora 29 and can distribute RHEL 8 Beta
Old version, no longer maintained: 2.8 April 19, 2018 26, 27, 28 [32] Support PostgresSQL 10
Old version, no longer maintained: 2.7 September 26, 2017 24, 25, 26 [33] Taskomatic daemon monitor
Old version, no longer maintained: 2.6 November 29, 2016 23, 24 [34] Can sync to Debian/Ubuntu apt repositories
Old version, no longer maintained: 2.5 June 8, 2016 22, 23 [35] System entitlements and Software Channels entitlements removed
Old version, no longer maintained: 2.4 October 7, 2015 21, 22 [36] More Standardization on PatternFly User Interface
Old version, no longer maintained: 2.3 April 14, 2015 20, 21 [37] Solaris support removed
Old version, no longer maintained: 2.2 July 16, 2014 19, 20 [38] RHEL7 and CentOS 7 clients supported
Old version, no longer maintained: 2.1 March 4, 2014 19, 20 [39] Final Release installable to RHEL 5. Improved OpenSCAP integration.
Old version, no longer maintained: 2.0 July 19, 2013 18, 19 [40] Support for external PostgreSQL database
Old version, no longer maintained: 1.9 March 5, 2013 17, 18 [41] New reports
Old version, no longer maintained: 1.8 November 1, 2012 16, 17 [42] Integration with SUSE Studio
Old version, no longer maintained: 1.7 March 7, 2012 15, 16 [43] OpenSCAP integration
Old version, no longer maintained: 1.6 December 22, 2011 15, 16 [44] Support for Kickstart Proxy via a CNAME
Old version, no longer maintained: 1.5 July 21, 2011 14, 15 [45] AutoYaST Support
Old version, no longer maintained: 1.4 April 26, 2011 13, 14 [46] apt-get plug-in support
Old version, no longer maintained: 1.3 February 4, 2011 13, 14 [47]
Old version, no longer maintained: 1.2 November 19, 2010 12, 13, 14 [48]
Old version, no longer maintained: 1.1 August 13, 2010 12, 13 [49]
Old version, no longer maintained: 1.0 April 29, 2010 11, 12 [50] Script for re-configuring server
Old version, no longer maintained: 0.8 February 16, 2010 11, 12 [51] Support for packages using checksums other than MD5
Old version, no longer maintained: 0.7 December 4, 2009 11, 12 [52]
Old version, no longer maintained: 0.6 August 7, 2009 10, 11 [53] Yum repo can be imported into a channel
Old version, no longer maintained: 0.5 March 31, 2009 10 [54]
Old version, no longer maintained: 0.4 January 15, 2009 [55] Integration with Cobbler and Koan
Old version, no longer maintained: 0.3 November 7, 2008 [56]
Old version, no longer maintained: 0.2 September 16, 2008 [57] Release Announcement
Old version, no longer maintained: first June 17, 2008 [58] Initial Release Announcement
Legend:
Old version
Older version, still maintained
Latest version
Latest preview version
Future release

Criticisms

In a 2019 paper considering Linux open-source patching tools Spacewalk was commended for having a software inventory and community support but limited support for distributions noteabably Ubuntu was an issue.[59]

Miscellaneous

Note
  1. Fedora server version, see release note for other Linux distributions
gollark: If I did that, wouldn't it incorrectly try and free a node if it had just been added to a tree?
gollark: A node is only going to need to be the root of a document tree somewhere (needs freeing once all operations on it are done), part of a tree owned somewhere else (will be freed when the root is), or something which is going to be appended to a tree soon™.
gollark: Can I just `GC_unref` it when adding it to a tree, or something like that? Does that work for `--gc:orc`?
gollark: I don't think so?
gollark: I don't see why it would, it's a markdown parser.

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  5. "Configuring Inter-Server Synchronization". docs.oracle.com. Retrieved 2017-02-02.
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Resources
Resource Notes
Project GitHub Home Github Root
GitHub Wiki Forced move from Fedorahosted.org TRAC from late 2016[1][2][3] and as of February 2017 may have some link discrepancies remaining
Official Project Home Domain Registered by Red Hat but not updated since 2015 (accessed January 2017)
User Documentation User Documentation
FAQ Upstream FAQ
Deprecated FedoraHosted Wiki Deprecated
  1. "Fedorahosted Sunset". 2016-10-16. Archived from the original on 2017-02-03. Retrieved 2017-02-02.
  2. "Migration from Fedorahosted Trac". 2016-11-16. Archived from the original on 2017-02-02. Retrieved 2017-02-02.
  3. "Spacewalk wiki has a new home!". spacewalk-devel. 2017-01-13. Archived from the original on 2017-02-02. Retrieved 2017-02-02.
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