Chapter 15. Registering a System and Managing Subscriptions
Effective asset management requires a mechanism to handle the software inventory — both the type of products and the number of systems that the software is installed on. The subscription service provides that mechanism and gives transparency into both global allocations of subscriptions for an entire organization and the specific subscriptions assigned to a single system.
Red Hat Subscription Manager works with
yum to unite content delivery with subscription management. The Subscription Manager handles only the subscription-system associations. yum or other package management tools handle the actual content delivery. Chapter 14, YUM (Yellowdog Updater Modified) describes how to use yum.
15.1. Using Red Hat Subscription Manager Tools
Both registration and subscriptions are managed on the local system through GUI and CLI tools called Red Hat Subscription Manager.
Note
The Red Hat Subscription Manager tools are always run as
root because of the nature of the changes to the system. However, Red Hat Subscription Manager connects to the subscription service as a user account for the subscription service.
15.1.1. Launching the Red Hat Subscription Manager GUI
Red Hat Subscription Manager is listed as one of the administrative tools in the menu in the top management bar.
Figure 15.1. Red Hat Subscription Manager Menu Option
Alternatively, the Red Hat Subscription Manager GUI can be opened from the command line with a single command:
[root@server1 ~]# subscription-manager-gui
15.1.2. Running the subscription-manager Command-Line Tool
Any of the operations that can be performed through the Red Hat Subscription Manager UI can also be performed by running the
subscription-manager tool. This tool has the following format:
[root@server1 ~]# subscription-manager command [options]
Each command has its own set of options that are used with it. The
subscription-manager help and manpage have more information.
| Command | Description |
|---|---|
| register | Registers or identifies a new system to the subscription service. |
| unregister | Unregisters a machine, which strips its subscriptions and removes the machine from the subscription service. |
| subscribe | Attaches a specific subscription to the machine. |
| redeem | Auto-attaches a machine to a pre-specified subscription that was purchased from a vendor, based on its hardware and BIOS information. |
| unsubscribe | Removes a specific subscription or all subscriptions from the machine. |
| list | Lists all of the subscriptions that are compatible with a machine, either subscriptions that are actually attached to the machine or unused subscriptions that are available to the machine. |
