Chapter 6. Registering virtual machines to use a host-based subscription
Use an auto-attach activation key to register virtual machines so that they inherit a subscription from their hypervisor.
This procedure is only valid if you have Simple Content Access (SCA) disabled on Satellite. You are not required to attach subscriptions to Activation Keys if you have SCA enabled. Instead, follow the Registering Hosts procedure in Managing hosts to register virtual machines. Note that SCA is enabled by default for newly created organizations. To learn more about SCA, see Simple Content Access.
For more information about activation keys, see Managing Activation Keys in Managing Content.
Prerequisites
- Create an activation key with auto-attach enabled and no subscriptions attached.
- Attach a host-based subscription to the virtual machine’s hypervisor.
- Create and deploy a virt-who configuration that queries the virtual machine’s hypervisor.
Procedure
Configure the virtual machine to register with Satellite Server:
# yum install http://satellite.example.com/pub/katello-ca-consumer-latest.noarch.rpmRegister the virtual machine using the auto-attach activation key:
# subscription-manager register --org=organization_label \ --activationkey=activation_key_name
The virtual machine receives a temporary subscription while Satellite Server waits for virt-who to provide information about which hypervisor the virtual machine is running on. After virt-who provides this information, Satellite Server attaches a permanent subscription to the virtual machine.
If the virtual machine migrates to another hypervisor that reports to virt-who and has a host-based subscription attached, the virtual machine inherits a subscription from that hypervisor. If the hypervisor does not have a host-based subscription attached, Satellite Server automatically attaches a host-based subscription to the hypervisor, and the virtual machine inherits that subscription.
If the virtual machine migrates to another hypervisor that does not report to virt-who, or there are insufficient subscriptions available to attach to the hypervisor, the virtual machine cannot inherit a subscription. To avoid this, either ensure that all hypervisors the virtual machine can migrate to have host-based subscriptions attached and report to virt-who, or limit the virtual machine’s migration to specific hypervisors.
