Chapter 7. Using Red Hat Subscription Manager

Red Hat Subscription Manager tracks and displays what subscriptions are available to the local system and what subscriptions have been consumed by the local system. It works as a conduit back to the subscription service to synchronize changes, such as available product quantities or subscription expiration dates.

The Subscription Manager includes the following components:

These tools allow authorized users to perform tasks directly related to managing subscriptions, such as registering a system to Red Hat and updating the certificates required for authentication. Some minor operations, such as updating system facts, are available to help show and track available subscriptions.

The Subscription Manager is part of the firstboot process for configuring content and updates, but you can register the system at any time through the Subscription Manager UI or CLI. New subscriptions, new products, and updates can be viewed and applied to a system through the Subscription Manager tools.

As the root user, you can enter the subscription-manager syspurpose command and the role, usage, service-level, or addons subcommand with the --list option to list available values for all system purpose attributes. Listing system purpose values for an unregistered system requires you to enter additional information on the command line.

The following examples show how to list the available system purposes values for the role attribute for registered and unregistered systems.

When the system is registered, enter the following command:

[root@localhost ~]# subscription-manager syspurpose role --list

When the system is unregistered, enter the following command with the --username, --password, --organization, and --token authentication options, as required:

[root@localhost ~]# subscription-manager syspurpose role --list --username=<username> --password=<password> --organization=<organization_ID> --token=<token>

where: The --username option specifies the name of a user with organization administrator authority in your Red Hat account. The --password option specifies the associated password. The --organization option specifies the organization ID number. The --token option specifies the token of the virt-who service account.

When you enter the command on a registered system or on an unregistered system with authentication options, the expected output is the list of available values for the role attribute:

+-------------------------------------------+
               Available role
+-------------------------------------------+
 - Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation
 - Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server
 - Red Hat Enterprise Linux Compute Node

System purpose addons are specific to your organization and do not appear in the list of available values. If you try to list available system purpose addons with the --list option, then subscription-manager displays a warning message. For example:

# subscription-manager syspurpose addons --list
There are no available values for the system purpose "addons" from the available subscriptions in this organization.

If the value you want to set is not included in the list of valid values for the account, you can enter a custom system purpose value with the --set option. To set a custom value, you must enter the command on a registered system or enter the command with authentication options on an unregistered system.

The following examples show how to set a custom value of “foo” for the system purpose role attribute on registered and unregistered systems.

When the system is registered, enter the following command:

[root@localhost ~]# subscription-manager syspurpose role --set=”foo”

When the system is unregistered, enter the following command with the --username, --password, --org, and --token authentication options, as required:

[root@localhost ~]# subscription-manager syspurpose role --set=”foo” --username=<username> --password=<password> --organization=<organization_ID> --token=<token>

where: The --username option specifies the name of a user with organization administrator authority in your Red Hat account. The --password option specifies the associated password. The --org option specifies the organization ID number. The --token option specifies the token of the virt-who service account.

When you set a custom value on a registered system or on an unregistered system with authentication options, the expected output displays a warning message because the custom value is considered invalid. However, the output also displays a confirmation message because subscription-manager sets the custom value despite the warning.

Warning: Provided value "foo" is not included in the list of valid values
 - Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation
 - Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server
 - Red Hat Enterprise Linux Compute Node
role set to "foo".

When you enable simple content access, you change the content access mode. You stop using the traditional mode, where you must attach a subscription to a system as a prerequisite of gaining access to content. You start using a new mode, where you can consume content regardless of the presence of an attached subscription.

After you complete these steps, simple content access is enabled for all current and newly registered systems. Current systems will download the required simple content access certification information the next time that they check in to the subscription management services.

Errata notifications are set as a preference for the user account, not for an individual system. When Red Hat Subscription Management checks for potential errata updates, it checks the entire inventory, not specific systems. An errata notification is sent if any registered system is affected, but the email does not list what systems are actually affected.

If you see applicable errata displayed in Red Hat Subscription Management but have no yum updates available, it can mean one of a couple of settings are not correct.

# rm -f /var/lib/rhsm/packages/packages.json
# service rhsmcertd stop
# rhsmcertd --now
# yum update