Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Documentation

Creating a Management Station

Create a management station in OS Management Hub to mirror and distribute content to instances on premises. The management station also acts as network proxy for instances to communicate with OS Management Hub.

Note

If this is the first management station that you're creating and registering with OS Management Hub, ensure that you have completed the getting started tasks for the service and reviewed Understanding Management Stations.
Minimum System Requirements

Before creating a management station, ensure that the system you will use for the station meets minimum requirements.

  • A x86_64 bare metal server or virtual machine in the customer data center running Oracle Linux 8 (8.7, 8.8, 8.9, or 8.10).
  • Network connectivity from the management station to the OS Management Hub service in Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) on port tcp/443.
  • Enough storage allocated and mounted for Oracle Linux content mirrors. Storage requirements are relative to the scope and size of the Oracle Linux software sources needed by instances using the management station. Several hundred gigabytes (GB) to a few terabytes (TB) is commonly required.
  • Enough storage in /var/cache/dnf for repository metadata. Storage requirements are relative to the Oracle Linux software sources needed by instances using the management station. Large software sources can require 100 MB to 200 MB of storage per repository.
Gather Configuration Information

When creating a management station, you need the following information for the configuration:

  • Hostname or IP address (on the local network) of the system that will act as a management station.
  • Proxy information including:
    • Permitted addresses
    • Listening port
    • Forward HTTP proxy (optional)
  • Mirror information
    • Mount point
    • Listening ports (HTTP and HTTPS)
Note

You can configure multiple management stations in a highly-available configuration.

  • To create the management station, follow these steps:

    1. Open the navigation menu and click Observability & Management. Under OS Management Hub, click Management stations.
    2. Click Create.
    3. Under Basic details, enter the following values:
      • Name: Name for the management station. The name doesn't need to be unique, because an Oracle Cloud Identifier (OCID) uniquely identifies the station. Avoid entering confidential information.
      • Description: (Optional) Description for the management station. Avoid entering confidential information.
      • Hostname: The hostname or IP address associated with your on-premises or third-party cloud instance. Or, if configuring high availability, the hostname or IP address of the load balancer. The hostname must be resolvable by other instances in your network.
    4. Under Proxy configuration, enter the following values:

      • Permitted address ranges: A comma-separated list of address ranges in your network that are permitted to use this management station as a proxy to the OS Management Hub service. For example, 192.168.0.0/16 would allow all instances in your data center with a 192.168.x.x IP address to use the management station as a proxy, and 0.0.0.0/0 would allow all IP addresses to use the management station as a proxy.

        Valid values include:

        • IPv4 or IPv6 addresses
        • Single IP addresses
        • CIDR ranges
        • * (wildcard)
      • Listening port: An available TCP port for the management station to receive proxy requests. For example, port 16080. The management station listens on this port for incoming connections from instances in the data center.
      • Proxy host: (Optional) The URL, hostname, or IP address of the external-facing forward HTTP proxy or firewall. The management station uses this proxy host to connect through the internet to OCI.
    5. Under Mirror configuration, enter the following values:
      • Storage path: Full directory path to the data volume on the management station where the software source mirrors are stored. Such as /mnt/mirror.
      • Mirror listening port (http): An available TCP port for the management station to receive HTTP yum requests. For example, port 17080. The management station listens on this port for connections from on-premises or third-party cloud instances.
      • Mirror listening port (https): An available TCP port for the management station to receive HTTPS yum requests. For example, port 17443. The management station listens on this port for connections from on-premises or third-party cloud instances.
      • SSL certificate path: (Optional) The full path to your SSL certificate, if you want to use your own certificate. If left blank, OS Management Hub uses a self-signed certificate.
    6. Show advanced options: Click to add tags to this resource.

      If you have permissions to create a resource, then you also have permissions to apply free-form tags to that resource. To apply a defined tag, you must have permissions to use the tag namespace. For more information about tagging, see Resource Tags. If you're not sure whether to apply tags, ask an administrator or skip this option. You can apply tags later.

    7. Click Create.

      The management station and the profile used to register the management station are created. You can use the profile to register a single management.

    Proceed to registering a management station as an instance with OS Management Hub.

  • Use the oci os-management-hub management-station create command and required parameters to create a management station.

    oci os-management-hub management-station create --compartment-id ocid --display-name station-name --hostname name --mirror mirror.json --station-proxy station-proxy.json [OPTIONS]

    For a complete list of flags and variable options for CLI commands, see the Command Line Reference.

  • Run the CreateManagementStation operation to create a management station in the root compartment.