Introduction

The admin client is used to remotely manage a Pulp server. This client is used to manage the operation of the server itself as well as trigger remote operations on registered consumers.

For more information on the client that runs on Pulp consumers, see the Consumer section of this guide.

The following sections describe some unique concepts that apply to the admin client.

Synchronous v. Asynchronous Commands

Commands run by the client execute in two different ways.

Many commands run synchronously. In these cases, the command is executed immediately on the server and the results are displayed before the client process exits. Examples of this behavior include logging in or displaying the list of repositories.

In certain cases, a request is sent to the server but the client does not wait for a response. There are several variations of this behavior:

• For long running operations, the request is sent to the server and the client immediately exits. The progress of the operation can be tracked using the commands in the tasks section of the client.
• Some operations cannot execute while a resource on the server is being used. If the resource is available, the operation will execute immediately and the result displayed in the client. If the operation is postponed because the resource is unavailable, the status of it can be tracked using the commands in the tasks section of the client.
• In certain circumstances, an operation may be outright rejected based on the state of a resource. For example, if a repository has a delete operation queued, any subsequent operation on the repository will be rejected.

For more information on the task commands, see the Tasks section of this guide.

Content Type Bundles

A portion of the admin client centers around standard Pulp functionality, such as user management or tasking related operations. However, Pulp’s pluggable nature presents a challenge when it comes to type-specific operations. For example, the steps for synchronizing a repository will differ based on the type of content being synchronized.

To facilitate this, the client provides an extension mechanism. Extensions added by a content type bundle will customize the client with commands related to the types being supported. Typically, these commands will focus around managing repositories of a particular type, however there is no restriction to what commands an extension may add.

Type-specific sections will branch at the root of the client. For example, the following is a trimmed output of the client structure. Type-agnostic repository commands, such as the list of all repositories and group commands, are found under the repo section. Commands for managing RPM repositories and consumers are found under the rpm section and provided by the RPM extensions. Similarly, the commands for managing Puppet repositories are found under the puppet command:

$ pulp-admin --map
rpm: manage RPM-related content and features
  consumer: register, bind, and interact with rpm consumers
    bind:       binds a consumer to a repository
    history:    displays the history of operations on a consumer
    list:       lists summary of consumers registered to the Pulp
    ...
 repo: repository lifecycle commands
   create: creates a new repository
   delete: deletes a repository
   list:   lists repositories on the Pulp server
   ...
puppet: manage Puppet-related content and features
  repo: repository lifecycle commands
    create:  creates a new repository
    delete:  deletes a repository
    list:    lists repositories on the Pulp server
    ...
repo: list repositories and manage repo groups
  list: lists repositories on the Pulp server
  group: repository group commands
  ...

As new types are supported, additional root-level sections will be provided in their content type bundles.

Troubleshooting with verbose flag

You can run Pulp commands in verbose mode to get additional information in case of a failure. Pulp CLI provide -v and -vv options for INFO and DEBUG level information respectively:

$ pulp-admin --help
Usage: pulp-admin [options]

Options:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  -u USERNAME, --username=USERNAME
                        username for the Pulp server; if used will bypass the
                        stored certificate and override a username specified
                        in ~/.pulp/admin.conf
  -p PASSWORD, --password=PASSWORD
                        password for the Pulp server; must be used with
                        --username. if used will bypass the stored certificate
                        and override a password specified in
                        ~/.pulp/admin.conf
  --config=CONFIG       absolute path to the configuration file
  --map                 prints a map of the CLI sections and commands
  -v                    enables verbose output; use twice for increased
                        verbosity with debug information

Here is an example of how verbose flag can be used one or more times:

$ pulp-admin rpm repo create --repo-id test
A resource with the ID "test" already exists.


$ pulp-admin -v rpm repo create --repo-id test
2015-03-05 14:10:28,931 - ERROR - Exception occurred:
       href:      /pulp/api/v2/repositories/
       method:    POST
       status:    409
       error:     Duplicate resource: test
       traceback: None
       data:      {u'resource_id': u'test', u'error': {u'code': u'PLP0018', u'data': {u'resource_id': u'test'}, u'description': u'Duplicate resource: test', u'sub_errors': []}}

A resource with the ID "test" already exists.


$ pulp-admin -vv rpm repo create --repo-id test
2015-03-05 14:12:22,014 - DEBUG - sending POST request to /pulp/api/v2/repositories/
2015-03-05 14:12:22,361 - INFO - POST request to /pulp/api/v2/repositories/ with parameters {"display_name": null, "description": null, "distributors": [{"distributor_id": "yum_distributor", "auto_publish": true, "distributor_config": {"http": false, "relative_url": "test", "https": true}, "distributor_type_id": "yum_distributor"}, {"distributor_id": "export_distributor", "auto_publish": false, "distributor_config": {"http": false, "https": true}, "distributor_type_id": "export_distributor"}], "notes": {"_repo-type": "rpm-repo"}, "importer_type_id": "yum_importer", "importer_config": {}, "id": "test"}
2015-03-05 14:12:22,362 - INFO - Response status : 409

2015-03-05 14:12:22,362 - INFO - Response body :
 {
  "exception": null,
  "traceback": null,
  "_href": "/pulp/api/v2/repositories/",
  "resource_id": "test",
  "error_message": "Duplicate resource: test",
  "http_request_method": "POST",
  "http_status": 409,
  "error": {
    "code": "PLP0018",
    "data": {
      "resource_id": "test"
    },
    "description": "Duplicate resource: test",
    "sub_errors": []
  }
}

2015-03-05 14:12:22,362 - ERROR - Exception occurred:
        href:      /pulp/api/v2/repositories/
        method:    POST
        status:    409
        error:     Duplicate resource: test
        traceback: None
        data:      {u'resource_id': u'test', u'error': {u'code': u'PLP0018', u'data': {u'resource_id': u'test'}, u'description': u'Duplicate resource: test', u'sub_errors': []}}

A resource with the ID "test" already exists.