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Chapter 13. Configuring System Purpose using the subscription-manager command-line tool

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System purpose is a feature of the Red Hat Enterprise Linux installation to help RHEL customers get the benefit of our subscription experience and services offered in the Red Hat Hybrid Cloud Console, a dashboard-based, Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) application that enables you to view subscription usage in your Red Hat account.

You can configure system purpose attributes either on the activation keys or by using the subscription manager tool. While it is recommended to configure system purpose on the activation key, you can also configure it by using the subscription-manager syspurpose command-line tool after installation to set the required attributes.

Prerequisites

  • You have installed and registered your Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 system, but system purpose is not configured.

  • You are logged in as a root user.

    Note

    In the entitlement mode, if your system is registered but has subscriptions that do not satisfy the required purpose, you can run the subscription-manager remove --all command to remove attached subscriptions. You can then use the command-line subscription-manager syspurpose {role, usage, service-level} tools to set the required purpose attributes, and lastly run subscription-manager attach --auto to re-entitle the system with considerations for the updated attributes. Whereas, in the SCA enabled account, you can directly update the system purpose details post registration without making an update to the subscriptions in the system.

Procedure

  1. From a terminal window, run the following command to set the intended role of the system: 

    # subscription-manager syspurpose role --set "VALUE"

    Replace VALUE with the role that you want to assign:

    • Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server
    • Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation
    • Red Hat Enterprise Linux Compute Node

    For example: 

    # subscription-manager syspurpose role --set "Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server"

    1. Optional: Before setting a value, see the available roles supported by the subscriptions for your organization: 

      # subscription-manager syspurpose role --list

    2. Optional: Run the following command to unset the role: 

      # subscription-manager syspurpose role --unset

  2. Run the following command to set the intended Service Level Agreement (SLA) of the system: 

    # subscription-manager syspurpose service-level --set "VALUE"

    Replace VALUE with the SLA that you want to assign:

    • Premium
    • Standard
    • Self-Support

    For example: 

    # subscription-manager syspurpose service-level --set "Standard"

    1. Optional: Before setting a value, see the available service-levels supported by the subscriptions for your organization: 

      # subscription-manager syspurpose service-level --list

    2. Optional: Run the following command to unset the SLA: 

      # subscription-manager syspurpose service-level --unset

  3. Run the following command to set the intended usage of the system: 

    # subscription-manager syspurpose usage --set "VALUE"

    Replace VALUE with the usage that you want to assign:

    • Production
    • Disaster Recovery
    • Development/Test

    For example: 

    # subscription-manager syspurpose usage --set "Production"

    1. Optional: Before setting a value, see the available usages supported by the subscriptions for your organization: 

      # subscription-manager syspurpose usage --list

    2. Optional: Run the following command to unset the usage: 

      # subscription-manager syspurpose usage --unset

  4. Run the following command to show the current system purpose properties: 

    # subscription-manager syspurpose --show

    1. Optional: For more detailed syntax information run the following command to access the subscription-manager man page and browse to the SYSPURPOSE OPTIONS: 

      # man subscription-manager

Verification

  • To verify the system’s subscription status in a system registered with an account having entitlement mode enabled: 

    # subscription-manager status
+-------------------------------------------+
   System Status Details
+-------------------------------------------+
Overall Status: Current

System Purpose Status: Matched
    • An overall status Current means that all of the installed products are covered by the subscription(s) attached and entitlements to access their content set repositories has been granted.
    • A system purpose status Matched means that all of the system purpose attributes (role, usage, service-level) that were set on the system are satisfied by the subscription(s) attached.
    • When the status information is not ideal, additional information is displayed to help the system administrator decide what corrections to make to the attached subscriptions to cover the installed products and intended system purpose.

  • To verify the system’s subscription status in a system registered with an account having SCA mode enabled: 

    # subscription-manager status
+-------------------------------------------+
   System Status Details
+-------------------------------------------+
Overall Status: Disabled
Content Access Mode is set to Simple Content Access. This host has access to content, regardless of subscription status.
System Purpose Status: Disabled
    • In SCA mode, ​​subscriptions are no longer required to be attached to individual systems. Hence, both the overall status and system purpose status are displayed as Disabled . However, the technical, business, and operational use cases supplied by system purpose attributes are important to the subscriptions service. Without these attributes, the subscriptions service data is less accurate.

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