A package profile is the list of installed packages on a system (regardless of its subscription status). Red Hat Subscription Manager maintains a local list of installed packages to track the subscription status of the system. The package profile contains some general information about each package in the list:

This package manifest is always visible locally in the My Installed Software tab of the UI or by using the list --installed command with the command-line tools.

The Subscription Manager daemon, rhsmcertd, checks the system periodically — once when it is first registered and then when it runs a refresh operation every four hours — to get the most current list of installed products. When the system is registered and then whenever there is a change to the package list, Subscription Manager sends an updated package profile to the subscription service.

The package profile is stored in a cache file in /var/lib/rhsm/packages/.

Having an updated package profile for a system helps the subscription service identify compatible subscriptions.