Newer version available

This quickstart guide is for Foreman 1.15, but the latest version is 3.12.

Quickstart Guide

The Foreman installer is a collection of Puppet modules that installs everything required for a full working Foreman setup. It uses native OS packaging (e.g. RPM and .deb packages) and adds necessary configuration for the complete installation.

Components include the Foreman web UI, Smart Proxy, Passenger, a Puppet master (either Puppet Server or under Passenger), and optionally TFTP, DNS and DHCP servers. It is configurable and the Puppet modules can be read or run in “no-op” mode to see what changes it will make.

Supported platforms

  • CentOS, Scientific Linux or Oracle Linux 7, x86_64
  • Debian 8 (Jessie), i386/amd64/armhf
  • Fedora 24, x86_64
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7, x86_64
  • Ubuntu 16.04 (Xenial), i386/amd64/armhf/aarch64
  • Ubuntu 14.04 (Trusty), i386/amd64

Other operating systems will need to use alternative installation methods (see the manual).

The installation will require 4GB of memory, see System Requirements for more information.

Installation

The Foreman installer uses Puppet to install Foreman. This guide assumes that you have a newly installed operating system, on which the installer will setup Foreman, a Puppet master, and the Smart Proxy by default. It’s not advisable to follow the steps below on an existing system, since the installer will affect the configuration of several components.

Select operating system

To provide specific installation instructions, please select your operating system:

Repositories

No operating system selected.

First, enable the RHEL Optional repos:

yum-config-manager --enable rhel-7-server-optional-rpms

Check the repository is enabled with yum repolist after running the above command, as it can silently fail when subscription does not provide it.

If you're using RH Satellite 5, you should instead sync and enable the channel there.

Using a recent version of Puppet is recommended, which is available from the Puppet Labs repository. You may skip this and use the older version from EPEL without a problem, however it has reduced community support. To use Puppet 4.x with Puppet Agent and Puppet Server:

yum -y install https://yum.puppetlabs.com/puppetlabs-release-pc1-el-7.noarch.rpm

Or to use Puppet 3.x from Puppet Labs:

yum -y install https://yum.puppetlabs.com/puppetlabs-release-el-7.noarch.rpm

Enable the EPEL (Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux) and the Foreman repos:

yum -y install https://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/epel-release-latest-7.noarch.rpm
yum -y install https://yum.theforeman.org/releases/1.15/el7/x86_64/foreman-release.rpm

Enable the EPEL (Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux) and the Foreman repos:

yum -y install http://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/epel-release-latest-7.noarch.rpm
yum -y install https://yum.theforeman.org/releases/1.15/el7/x86_64/foreman-release.rpm

Enable the Foreman repo:

dnf -y install https://yum.theforeman.org/releases/1.15/f24/x86_64/foreman-release.rpm

Using Puppet 4.x is recommended, which is available from the Puppet Labs repository. You may skip this and use Puppet 3.x from Debian without a problem, however it has reduced community support. To use Puppet 4.x with Puppet Agent and Puppet Server:

apt-get -y install ca-certificates
wget https://apt.puppetlabs.com/puppetlabs-release-pc1-jessie.deb
dpkg -i puppetlabs-release-pc1-jessie.deb

Enable the Foreman repo:

echo "deb http://deb.theforeman.org/ jessie 1.15" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/foreman.list
echo "deb http://deb.theforeman.org/ plugins 1.15" >> /etc/apt/sources.list.d/foreman.list
apt-get -y install ca-certificates
wget -q https://deb.theforeman.org/pubkey.gpg -O- | apt-key add -

Using Puppet 3.x or 4.x is required, which is available from the Puppet Labs repositories. The version in Ubuntu 14.04 (3.4.3) is not supported. To use Puppet 4.x with Puppet Agent and Puppet Server:

apt-get -y install ca-certificates
wget https://apt.puppetlabs.com/puppetlabs-release-pc1-trusty.deb
dpkg -i puppetlabs-release-pc1-trusty.deb

Or to use Puppet 3.x:

apt-get -y install ca-certificates
wget https://apt.puppetlabs.com/puppetlabs-release-trusty.deb
dpkg -i puppetlabs-release-trusty.deb

Enable the Foreman repo:

echo "deb http://deb.theforeman.org/ trusty 1.15" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/foreman.list
echo "deb http://deb.theforeman.org/ plugins 1.15" >> /etc/apt/sources.list.d/foreman.list
apt-get -y install ca-certificates
wget -q https://deb.theforeman.org/pubkey.gpg -O- | apt-key add -

Using Puppet 4.x is recommended, which is available from the Puppet Labs repository. You may skip this and use Puppet 3.x from Ubuntu without a problem, however it has reduced community support. To use Puppet 4.x with Puppet Agent and Puppet Server:

apt-get -y install ca-certificates
wget https://apt.puppetlabs.com/puppetlabs-release-pc1-xenial.deb
dpkg -i puppetlabs-release-pc1-xenial.deb

Enable the Foreman repo:

echo "deb http://deb.theforeman.org/ xenial 1.15" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/foreman.list
echo "deb http://deb.theforeman.org/ plugins 1.15" >> /etc/apt/sources.list.d/foreman.list
apt-get -y install ca-certificates
wget -q https://deb.theforeman.org/pubkey.gpg -O- | apt-key add -

Downloading the installer

No operating system selected.
dnf -y install foreman-installer
yum -y install foreman-installer
apt-get update && apt-get -y install foreman-installer

Running the installer

Ensure that ping $(hostname -f) shows the real IP address, not 127.0.1.1. Change or remove this entry from /etc/hosts if present.

The installation run is non-interactive, but the configuration can be customized by supplying any of the options listed in foreman-installer --help, or by running foreman-installer -i for interactive mode. More examples are given in the Installation Options section. Adding -v will disable the progress bar and display all changes. To run the installer, execute:

foreman-installer

After it completes, the installer will print some details about where to find Foreman and the Smart Proxy and Puppet master if they were installed along Foreman. Output should be similar to this:

  * Foreman is running at https://theforeman.example.com
      Initial credentials are admin / 3ekw5xtyXCoXxS29
  * Foreman Proxy is running at https://theforeman.example.com:8443
  * Puppetmaster is running at port 8140
  The full log is at /var/log/foreman-installer/foreman-installer.log

If you use Puppet 4.x and notice that no reports are received, check the troubleshooting area.

More quickstart resources…

Continue reading the quickstart guide in the manual:

Or view the quickstart screencasts:

Additional reading…

Foreman 3.12.0 has been released! Follow the quick start to install it.

Foreman 3.11.2 has been released! Follow the quick start to install it.