Server Configuration

log_file

OPTIONAL This specifies the log file Current should attempt to use if the apache_log_file file is not writable. In versions prior to 1.3, was the only log file used by Current.

log_level

This tells the server what level of detail to log at; the default level is VERBOSE (1). This entry in the config file should be an integer between zero (0) and ten (10) inclusive.

server_secret

This entry contains a “secret” string which is used to generate system IDs for client machines. If this string is changed, all clients will have to re-register with the Current server before they will be recognized as authorized clients. This value must be changed, and should be kept confidential for your site.

server_id

This is a string that denotes the identity of the Current server; it is not necessarily related to the hostname of the machine or to anything else, but is simply a random string. It is used in determining if a given client is authorized to access this server, along with the server_secret entry.

privacy_statement

This is a message sent to the client when rhn_register is run on the client against the Current server. It is free-text, and can be multiple lines long. It should be enclosed in quotes to ensure proper parsing of the configuration file.

welcome_message

This is a free-form string which is a brief message sent to the clients when rhn_register is run on the client against the Current server. It can be multiple lines long.

valid_channels

DEPRECATED This is a list if channel labels for valid channels served by this instance of Current. Please note: this is not a list of channel section names; it is a list of the labels of each section, found within the channel section of the configuration file. As of versions after 1.5.0, Current no longer tracks channel information in the configuration file.

current_dir

This is the location where all the database files, RPM headers, and RPM symlinks will be kept. This directory tree needs to be readable by the user under which Apache normally runs.

apache_config_file

This is the file to create with the Apache configuration bits that enable the Current server. This file should be included in Apache's main configuration file with the line:

Include <filename>

access_type

This parameter determines if permissions should be checked on a user, group, or world basis. Permission checking will be added to later versions; this parameter is not yet used. Valid values are “user” “group”, and “world”.

access_arg

This parameter is used when access_type is either user or group; it specifies the name of the user / group to use for permission checking.

db_type

This designates the specific database backend that the server should use. As of recent 1.5.x releases and snapshots, the only valid value is "postgres". In future versions, we hope to allow a minimum of "postgres" and "sqlite" for PostgreSQL and SQLite backends respectively, and perhaps other contributed database backends.

db_user

This is the name of the database user that the server should connect to the backend with. This user must be created within the database, and does not necessarily have any relationship to system users.

db_pass

This is the password to use when initiating the database connection. The password (or pass phrase) cannot contain any escaped characters or whitespace characters. This is not due to restrictions by the databasse backends but to the way the options within the Current server are parsed. Yes, having this password in cleartext in a configuration file can be dangerous; hopefully we'll be able to cone up with a way to make it less dangerous. Suggestions welcome.

db_name

This is the database name to connect to. In the Oracle world, this is referred to a SID. This database must be created by the user; it will be populated with tables by the cinstall initdb command and with data by cadmin commands.

db_host

This is the hostname on which the database backend is running. We highly recommend that the server and database be running on the same host and that the value "localhost" be used here; we have not yes tested running the server and database on separate hosts.