Newer version available

This quickstart guide is for Foreman 1.20, 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 9 (Stretch), amd64/aarch64
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7, x86_64
  • Ubuntu 16.04 (Xenial), amd64/aarch64
  • Ubuntu 18.04 (Bionic), amd64/aarch64

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 (4 or later required) 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

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First, enable the RHEL Optional repos:

sudo 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. To use Puppet 5.x with Puppet Agent and Puppet Server:

sudo yum -y install https://yum.puppetlabs.com/puppet5/puppet5-release-el-7.noarch.rpm

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

sudo yum -y install https://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/epel-release-latest-7.noarch.rpm
sudo yum -y install https://yum.theforeman.org/releases/1.20/el7/x86_64/foreman-release.rpm

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

sudo yum -y install http://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/epel-release-latest-7.noarch.rpm
sudo yum -y install https://yum.theforeman.org/releases/1.20/el7/x86_64/foreman-release.rpm

Using Puppet 5.x is recommended, which is available from the Puppet Labs repository. To use Puppet 5.x with Puppet Agent and Puppet Server:

sudo apt-get -y install ca-certificates
cd /tmp && wget https://apt.puppetlabs.com/puppet5-release-stretch.deb
sudo dpkg -i /tmp/puppet5-release-stretch.deb

Enable the Foreman repo:

echo "deb http://deb.theforeman.org/ stretch 1.20" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/foreman.list
echo "deb http://deb.theforeman.org/ plugins 1.20" | sudo tee -a /etc/apt/sources.list.d/foreman.list
sudo apt-get -y install ca-certificates
wget -q https://deb.theforeman.org/pubkey.gpg -O- | sudo apt-key add -

Using Puppet 5.x is recommended, which is available from the Puppet Labs repository. To use Puppet 5.x with Puppet Agent and Puppet Server:

sudo apt-get -y install ca-certificates
cd /tmp && wget https://apt.puppetlabs.com/puppet5-release-xenial.deb
sudo dpkg -i /tmp/puppet5-release-xenial.deb

Enable the Foreman repo:

echo "deb http://deb.theforeman.org/ xenial 1.20" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/foreman.list
echo "deb http://deb.theforeman.org/ plugins 1.20" | sudo tee -a /etc/apt/sources.list.d/foreman.list
sudo apt-get -y install ca-certificates
wget -q https://deb.theforeman.org/pubkey.gpg -O- | sudo apt-key add -

Using Puppet 5.x is recommended, which is available from the Puppet Labs repository. To use Puppet 5.x with Puppet Agent and Puppet Server:

sudo apt-get -y install ca-certificates
cd /tmp && wget https://apt.puppetlabs.com/puppet5-release-bionic.deb
sudo dpkg -i /tmp/puppet5-release-bionic.deb

Enable the Foreman repo:

echo "deb http://deb.theforeman.org/ bionic 1.20" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/foreman.list
echo "deb http://deb.theforeman.org/ plugins 1.20" | sudo tee -a /etc/apt/sources.list.d/foreman.list
sudo apt-get -y install ca-certificates
wget -q https://deb.theforeman.org/pubkey.gpg -O- | sudo apt-key add -

Enable the Ubuntu universe repo:

add-apt-repository universe

Downloading the installer

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

sudo 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

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