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4.6. Redeeming Subscriptions on a Machine

Systems can be set up with pre-existing subscriptions already available to that system. For some systems which were purchased through third-party vendors, a subscription to Red Hat products is included with the purchase of the machine. Companies can allocate subscriptions to their own systems by creating activation keys which are used to claim those assigned subscriptions.
Red Hat Subscription Manager pulls information about the system hardware and the BIOS into the system facts to recognize the hardware vendor. If the vendor and BIOS information matches a certain configuration, then the subscription can be redeemed, which will allow the system to be automatically subscribed to the entitlements purchased with the machine.
This diverges from the normal subscription process by adding an extra step:
  1. The machine is registered first (Section 4.4, “Registering, Unregistering, and Reregistering a System”). This can be done as normal or the activation keys can be submitted with command-line registrations.
  2. The subscriptions are redeemed using the given activation keys.
  3. The system is then subscribed to its subscriptions (Section 4.5, “Handling Subscriptions”).

Note

Activation keys may be generated by a hardware vendor (external to your organization).

4.6.1. Redeeming Subscriptions through the GUI

The Activate Subscription Button

If the machine does not have any subscriptions to be redeemed, then the Activate Subscription button is not there.
  1. Launch the Red Hat Subscription Manager GUI. For example: 
    subscription-manager-gui
  2. At the top of the main window, click the Activate Subscription button.
  3. In the pop-up window, enter the email address to send the notification to when the redemption is complete.
  4. Click the Actiavte button.
It can take up to ten minutes for the confirmation email to arrive.