Red Hat Lightspeed advisor in Satellite

In the first several modules of this lab you have done Red Hat Lightspeed exercises while your system is connected to the Hybrid Cloud Console. However Red Hat is aware that this connectivity can be challenging for some industries or geographies due to company or even governmental policies that restrict the sharing of data.

The Red Hat Lightspeed advisor in Satellite feature that we are releasing in tech preview does not have all of the features and capabilities that Red Hat Lightspeed on the Hybrid Cloud Console has. In its tech preview status the Red Hat Lightspeed advisor in Satellite feature only offers the advisor capability that is already available in the Satellite UI, much like what you saw in module 4.
Please refer to this support document for more information about Technology Preview Features - Scope of Support.

However once Red Hat Lightspeed advisor in Satellite is enabled the Satellite will no longer be able to send any data to Red Hat. This will remove some of the UI elements of the Satellite UI as they are no longer needed. It should also be noted that since we are no longer connecting to Red Hat Lightspeed, this means capabilities like the subscription service in the Hybrid Cloud Console will stop working. This is an all or nothing change.

Red Hat Lightspeed advisor in Satellite is only enabled through the use of Red Hat Satellite and it is delivered as a podman container that runs on the Satellite.
In this lab, Satellite is already pre-installed for you.

Installing the container

Since this is delivered as a container, the installation is very simple.

  1. Go to your terminal window.

  2. ssh into the bastion host using your lab credentials

  3. ssh into your satellite server:

ssh lab-user@satellite.example.com

  1. Run the following command:

sudo satellite-installer --foreman-plugin-rh-cloud-enable-iop-advisor-engine true
This will take about 2-5 minutes to complete.

The 'satellite-installer' command only adds the advisor engine and reconfigures the Satellite server to use it.
Once completed your Satellite is running in the Red Hat Lightspeed advisor in Satellite mode and the analytics are performed locally.

  1. To exit the Satellite terminal, type exit to log out of the Satellite ssh session.

exit

Performing an analysis

While in self-hosted mode, you can manually perform a system analysis by running the insights-client command on the host.
This should already be scheduled to be done automatically, but for the purposes of the lab we will go ahead and log into the second RHEL host and manually run this command.

Skipping this step will cause a failure in a later exercise.
Though the name of Insights changed to Red Hat Lightspeed, packages, command lines, and APIs still refer to 'insights'. As such, the 'insights-client' command is still the correct one to use.

  1. From your showroom environment, ssh into node-{guid}-2.example.com:

ssh lab-user@node-{guid}-2.example.com

  1. Run the following command:

sudo insights-client

Running the insights-client command will collect and upload data to Satellite which will run the advisor analysis locally.

self managed insights client output
Due to the tech preview status of this feature, the insights-client will still include output information as if it is connected to console.redhat.com. No information is actually sent to the Hybrid Cloud Console.

Viewing the results

Now that you have performed the analysis on the host, you can see the results in the Satellite user environment.
To validate that no data was sent, let’s first go to the Hybrid Cloud Console and check the timestamp of the last data packet transmission.

  1. Switch to the Hybrid Cloud Console.

  2. On the left-hand navigation bar, click Inventory → Systems.

  3. Look through the list of systems and locate yours: node-{guid}-2.example.com
    To the right of the name there is a Last seen time. The last seen time should be from much earlier in the day, when the environment was first instantiated.
    The timestamp did not update when you ran the insights-client command since the system is no longer connected to console.redhat.com.

It may be helpful to use the search capability to quickly find your system. Enter your system name in the Filter by name box to quickly search the inventory.

  1. Return to the Satellite UI in your browser.
    If you’ve been following along you should still be in the Insights → Recommendations menu.
    Previously The Insights menu contained both Inventory Upload and Recommendations sub menus. This might still be visible in your browser.

  2. Refresh your browser.
    You should notice that the Inventory Upload sub menu is now gone from the UI. With Red Hat Lightspeed advisor in Satellite configured there is no information being sent to the Hybrid Cloud Console, so this menu is no longer needed.

Fixing the issue

While you are here, go ahead and fix this PostgreSQL issue.

  1. While in the Recommendations section, locate the postgresql issue that remains from the other host.

  2. Select the checkbox to the left of the issue.
    Notice that the Remediate button at the top turns blue once a Recommendation is selected.

  3. Click the Remediate button.
    This will open a window that will summarize the recommendation, the resolution, and will let you know if a reboot of the system is needed.
    In this case the resolution is to install the tuned package and set the proper tuned profile which does not require a reboot.

  4. Click Remediate.
    This will redirect you to Monitor → Jobs where you can see the job running that you just initiated. This job may take 2-5 minutes to complete. Wait for the results to show success.

Red Hat Lightspeed will perform its daily analysis of a system just like it does in the hosted model.
If you wish to perform a manual analysis, you would need to manually run insights-client on the host.

  1. Let’s return to the list of Red Hat Lightspeed recommendations.
    In the left hand navigation bar, click Insights → Recommendations.
    You should notice that the The postgresql database performance decreases when the tuned best practices are not applied recommendation no longer appears.
    No synchronization is required since this was processed locally.

Updates to the list of Recommendations

In Red Hat Lightspeed, at the Hybrid Cloud Console, new recommendations are added weekly or more frequently if needed. With Red Hat Lightspeed advisor in Satellite, new recommendations are delivered with container updates. When you upgrade your Satellite server to the latest release you will need to update the container image to get the latest recommendations and any updates to the advisor engine itself.

Changing back to the connected experience

This section is informational only. These are not steps for you to take in the lab, but this is a commonly asked question that we wanted to include.

If you decide that you want to switch back to the connected experience, this is very simple to do. Log into the Satellite terminal and run the command: satellite-installer --foreman-plugin-rh-cloud-enable-iop-advisor-engine false

This will disable the Red Hat Lightspeed advisor in Satellite functionality and enable the Satellite to send data to Red Hat and the Hybrid Cloud Console. To have your systems report to Red Hat Lightspeed on the Hybrid Cloud Console, on each host you will need to register those systems by running the command: insights-client --register

Satellite also contains a built-in playbook for insights-client if you have imported it.
This is the RedHatInsights.insights-client ansible role that you can run on the hosts.

This module is complete.