Managing servers on many occasions can become a difficult task for engineers. Especially because it doesn’t necessarily have to be one but several. With this, multiple circumstances increase significantly. So, today, I will teach you how to install Foreman on Debian 10. This is an extraordinary application to help you with this task.
Foreman is a complete lifecycle management tool for physical and virtual servers. One of its most powerful features is to provide the opportunity to manage multiple servers from a single web interface. In addition, you can perform multiple tasks on several occasions. That is, task automation
Moreover, it is configurable through plugins and an extensive API development. So, let’s install Foreman.
Preparing the System for the installation
Before you start, there are a few things you should do to ensure that the installation runs as smoothly as possible.
So, first, update the system to get all the security patches and to prepare the system.
sudo apt update sudo apt upgrade
After this, you need to configure your hostname properly. To do this, use the hostnamectl command.
sudo hostnamectl set-hostname foreman.osradar.test
Replace the hostname value with your hostname. This will depend on whether or not to use a subdomain. Anyway, it depends on your needs.
The changes will be applied after you close the SSH session and reconnect.
Then, you have to enter these changes in the /etc/hosts file.
So, open it:
sudo nano /etc/hosts
And comment out all the IPv4 content and add the following:
x.x.x.x.x foreman.osradar.test foreman
Replace x.x.x.x.x for the IP address of your server and the hostname for yours. Save the changes and close the file.
Once this is done, you have to install some packages needed to perform the installation.
sudo apt install gpg ca-certificates wget
Now we are ready to install.
Install Foreman on Debian 10
Now we can start the installation of Foreman. First, add the Puppet repository which is a dependency of the program.
wget https://apt.puppet.com/puppet6-release-buster.deb --2021-01-22 21:44:08-- https://apt.puppet.com/puppet6-release-buster.deb Resolving apt.puppet.com (apt.puppet.com)… 2600:9000:2104:c400:1d:fc37:1cc0:93a1, 2600:9000:2104:f600:1d:fc37:1cc0:93a1, 2600:9000:2104:200:1d:fc37:1cc0:93a1, … Connecting to apt.puppet.com (apt.puppet.com)|2600:9000:2104:c400:1d:fc37:1cc0:93a1|:443… connected. HTTP request sent, awaiting response… 200 OK Length: 11736 (11K) [application/x-debian-package] Saving to: ‘puppet6-release-buster.deb’ puppet6-release-buster.deb 100%[=====================================================================================>] 11.46K --.-KB/s in 0s 2021-01-22 21:44:08 (120 MB/s) - ‘puppet6-release-buster.deb’ saved [11736/11736]
Next, install the downloaded package to add the repository to the system source list.
sudo apt install ./puppet6-release-buster.deb
This is enough. Now, it’s time to add the Foreman repository. To do this, run these two commands:
echo "deb http://deb.theforeman.org/ buster 2.0" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/foreman.list echo "deb http://deb.theforeman.org/ plugins 2.0" | sudo tee -a /etc/apt/sources.list.d/foreman.list
For the system to recognize them, the GPG key of the plugins must be added.
wget -q https://deb.theforeman.org/pubkey.gpg -O- | sudo apt-key add - OK
Next, refresh APT
sudo apt update
And finally, install the Foreman installer package:
sudo apt install foreman-installer Reading package lists… Done Building dependency tree Reading state information… Done The following additional packages will be installed: libgdbm-compat4 libruby2.5 puppet-agent rake ruby ruby-ansi ruby-clamp ruby-did-you-mean ruby-hashie ruby-highline ruby-kafo ruby-kafo-parsers ruby-kafo-wizards ruby-little-plugger ruby-logging ruby-minitest ruby-multi-json ruby-net-telnet ruby-power-assert ruby-powerbar ruby-test-unit ruby-xmlrpc ruby2.5 rubygems-integration Suggested packages: ri ruby-dev bundler Recommended packages: zip ruby-oj fonts-lato libjs-jquery The following NEW packages will be installed: foreman-installer libgdbm-compat4 libruby2.5 puppet-agent rake ruby ruby-ansi ruby-clamp ruby-did-you-mean ruby-hashie ruby-highline ruby-kafo ruby-kafo-parsers ruby-kafo-wizards ruby-little-plugger ruby-logging ruby-minitest ruby-multi-json ruby-net-telnet ruby-power-assert ruby-powerbar ruby-test-unit ruby-xmlrpc ruby2.5 rubygems-integration 0 upgraded, 25 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded. Need to get 27.5 MB of archives. After this operation, 159 MB of additional disk space will be used. Do you want to continue? [Y/n]
Once the package is installed, you need to perform the installation itself:
sudo foreman-installer
There are many installation options that you can consult on this link. It all depends on your needs.
If all goes well, you will see an output screen like this:
Preparing installation Done
Success!
* Foreman is running at https://foreman.osradar.test
Initial credentials are admin / hbGJfgqEG96CXKKe
* Foreman Proxy is running at https://foreman.osradar.test:8443
The full log is at /var/log/foreman-installer/foreman.log
And you will be able to use it.
Testing Foreman on Debian 10
Now we can open a web browser from a client computer and access https://domain which in this example is https://foreman.osradar.test and you will see the Login screen.
Now log in with your user name and password and you will be able to enjoy Foreman.
So, that is it.
Conclusion
Foreman is an application that assists in the administration of servers by facilitating complex processes from a graphical interface. In this post, you have noticed how it can be done without major problems in Debian 10.
