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Chapter 2. Managing Red Hat subscriptions

Red Hat Satellite can import content from the Red Hat Content Delivery Network (CDN). Satellite requires a Red Hat subscription manifest to find, access, and download content from the corresponding repositories. You must have a Red Hat subscription manifest containing a subscription allocation for each organization on Satellite Server. All subscription information is available in your Red Hat Customer Portal account.

Before you can complete the tasks in this chapter, you must create a Red Hat subscription manifest in the Customer Portal.

Note that the entitlement-based subscription model is deprecated and will be removed in a future release. Red Hat recommends that you use the access-based subscription model of Simple Content Access instead.

To create, manage, and export a Red Hat subscription manifest in the Customer Portal, see Creating and managing manifests for a connected Satellite Server in Subscription Central.

Use this chapter to import a Red Hat subscription manifest and manage the manifest within the Satellite web UI.

Subscription allocations and organizations

You can manage more than one organization if you have more than one subscription allocation. Satellite requires a single allocation for each organization configured in Satellite Server. The advantage of this is that each organization maintains separate subscriptions so that you can support multiple organizations, each with their own Red Hat accounts.

Future-dated subscriptions

You can use future-dated subscriptions in a subscription allocation. When you add future-dated subscriptions to content hosts before the expiry date of the existing subscriptions, you can have uninterrupted access to repositories.

Manually attach the future-dated subscriptions to your content hosts before the current subscriptions expire. Do not rely on the auto-attach method because this method is designed for a different purpose and might not work. For more information, see Section 2.6, “Attaching Red Hat subscriptions to content hosts”.

When a future-dated subscription becomes active, you must refresh the manifest to synchronize repository content. For more information, see Section 2.5, “Updating and refreshing Red Hat subscription manifests”.

Additional resources

2.1. Importing a Red Hat subscription manifest into Satellite Server

Use the following procedure to import a Red Hat subscription manifest into Satellite Server.

Note

Simple Content Access (SCA) is set on the organization, not the manifest. Importing a manifest does not change your organization’s Simple Content Access status.

Prerequisites

Procedure

  1. In the Satellite web UI, ensure the context is set to the organization you want to use.
  2. In the Satellite web UI, navigate to Content > Subscriptions and click Manage Manifest.
  3. In the Manage Manifest window, click Choose File.
  4. Navigate to the location that contains the Red Hat subscription manifest file, then click Open.

CLI procedure

  1. Copy the Red Hat subscription manifest file from your local machine to Satellite Server: 

    $ scp ~/manifest_file.zip root@satellite.example.com:~/.

  2. Log in to Satellite Server as the root user and import the Red Hat subscription manifest file: 

    # hammer subscription upload \
--file ~/manifest_file.zip \
--organization "My_Organization"

You can now enable repositories and import Red Hat content. For more information, see Importing Content in Managing content.

2.2. Locating a Red Hat subscription

When you import a Red Hat subscription manifest into Satellite Server, the subscriptions from your manifest are listed in the Subscriptions window. If you have a high volume of subscriptions, you can filter the results to find a specific subscription.

Prerequisites

Procedure

  1. In the Satellite web UI, ensure the context is set to the organization you want to use.
  2. In the Satellite web UI, navigate to Content > Subscriptions.
  3. In the Subscriptions window, click the Search field to view the list of search criteria for building your search query.
  4. Select search criteria to display further options.
  5. When you have built your search query, click the search icon.

For example, if you place your cursor in the Search field and select expires, then press the space bar, another list appears with the options of placing a >, <, or = character. If you select > and press the space bar, another list of automatic options appears. You can also enter your own criteria.

2.3. Adding Red Hat subscriptions to subscription allocations

Use the following procedure to add Red Hat subscriptions to a subscription allocation in the Satellite web UI.

Prerequisites

Procedure

  1. In the Satellite web UI, ensure the context is set to the organization you want to use.
  2. In the Satellite web UI, navigate to Content > Subscriptions.
  3. In the Subscriptions window, click Add Subscriptions.
  4. On the row of each subscription you want to add, enter the quantity in the Quantity to Allocate column.
  5. Click Submit

2.4. Removing Red Hat subscriptions from subscription allocations

Use the following procedure to remove Red Hat subscriptions from a subscription allocation in the Satellite web UI.

Note

Manifests must not be deleted. If you delete the manifest from the Red Hat Customer Portal or in the Satellite web UI, all of the entitlements for all of your content hosts will be removed.

Prerequisites

Procedure

  1. In the Satellite web UI, ensure the context is set to the organization you want to use.
  2. In the Satellite web UI, navigate to Content > Subscriptions.
  3. On the row of each subscription you want to remove, select the corresponding checkbox.
  4. Click Delete, and then confirm deletion.

2.5. Updating and refreshing Red Hat subscription manifests

Every time that you change a subscription allocation, you must refresh the manifest to reflect these changes. For example, you must refresh the manifest if you take any of the following actions:

  • Renewing a subscription
  • Adjusting subscription quantities
  • Purchasing additional subscriptions

You can refresh the manifest directly in the Satellite web UI. Alternatively, you can import an updated manifest that contains the changes.

Procedure

  1. In the Satellite web UI, ensure the context is set to the organization you want to use.
  2. In the Satellite web UI, navigate to Content > Subscriptions.
  3. In the Subscriptions window, click Manage Manifest.
  4. In the Manage Manifest window, click Refresh.

2.6. Attaching Red Hat subscriptions to content hosts

Using activation keys is the main method to attach subscriptions to content hosts during the provisioning process. However, an activation key cannot update an existing host. If you need to attach new or additional subscriptions, such as future-dated subscriptions, to one host, use the following procedure.

Important

This procedure is only valid if you have Simple Content Access (SCA) disabled on your Satellite. With SCA enabled, you do not need to have subscriptions attached to your hosts. Note that SCA is enabled by default for newly created organizations. To learn more about SCA, see Simple Content Access.

For more information about updating multiple hosts, see Section 2.7, “Updating Red Hat subscriptions on multiple hosts”.

For more information about activation keys, see Chapter 9, Managing activation keys.

Satellite subscriptions

In Satellite, you must maintain a Red Hat Enterprise Linux Satellite subscription, formerly known as Red Hat Enterprise Linux Smart Management, for every Red Hat Enterprise Linux host that you want to manage.

However, you are not required to attach Satellite subscriptions to each content host. Satellite subscriptions cannot attach automatically to content hosts in Satellite because they are not associated with any product certificates. Adding a Satellite subscription to a content host does not provide any content or repository access. If you want, you can add a Satellite subscription to a manifest for your own recording or tracking purposes.

Prerequisites

Procedure

  1. In the Satellite web UI, ensure the context is set to the organization you want to use.
  2. In the Satellite web UI, navigate to Hosts > Content Hosts.
  3. On the row of each content host whose subscription you want to change, select the corresponding checkbox.
  4. From the Select Action list, select Manage Subscriptions.
  5. Optionally, enter a key and value in the Search field to filter the subscriptions displayed.
  6. Select the checkbox to the left of the subscriptions that you want to add or remove and click Add Selected or Remove Selected as required.
  7. Click Done to save the changes.

CLI procedure

  1. On your Satellite Server, list all available subscriptions: 

    # hammer subscription list \
--organization-id My_Organization_ID

  2. Attach a subscription to your host: 

    # hammer host subscription attach \
--host My_Host_Name \
--subscription-id My_Subscription_ID

2.7. Updating Red Hat subscriptions on multiple hosts

Use this procedure for post-installation changes to multiple content hosts at the same time.

Important

This procedure is only valid if you have Simple Content Access (SCA) disabled on your Satellite. With SCA enabled, you do not need to have subscriptions attached to your hosts. Note that SCA is enabled by default for newly created organizations. To learn more about SCA, see Simple Content Access.

Procedure

  1. In the Satellite web UI, ensure the context is set to the organization you want to use.
  2. In the Satellite web UI, navigate to Hosts > Content Hosts.
  3. On the row of each content host whose subscription you want to change, select the corresponding checkbox.
  4. From the Select Action list, select Manage Subscriptions.
  5. Optionally, enter a key and value in the Search field to filter the subscriptions displayed.
  6. Select the checkbox to the left of the subscriptions to be added or removed and click Add Selected or Remove Selected as required.
  7. Click Done to save the changes.

2.8. Content Delivery Network structure

Red Hat Content Delivery Network (CDN), located at cdn.redhat.com, is a geographically distributed series of static webservers which include content and errata designed to be used by systems. This content can be accessed directly through a system registered using Subscription Manager or through the Satellite web UI. The accessible subset of the CDN is configured through subscriptions attached to a system using Red Hat Subscription Management or using Satellite Server.

Red Hat Content Delivery network is protected by X.509 certificate authentication to ensure that only valid users can access it.

Directory structure of the CDN

$ tree -d -L 11
└── content  1
    ├── beta  2
    │   └── rhel  3
    │       └── server  4
    │           └── 7 5
    │               └── x86_64  6
    │                   └── sat-tools  7
    └── dist
        └── rhel
            └── server
                └── 7
                ├── 7.2
                │   └── x86_64
                │       └── kickstart
                └── 7Server
                    └── x86_64
                        └── os

1
The content directory.
2
Directory responsible for the lifecycle of the content. Common directories include beta (for Beta code), dist (for Production) and eus (For Extended Update Support) directories.
3
Directory responsible for the Product name. Usually rhel for Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
4
Directory responsible for the type of the Product. For Red Hat Enterprise Linux this might include server, workstation, and computenode directories.
5
Directory responsible for the release version, such as 7, 7.2 or 7Server.
6
Directory responsible for the base architecture, such as i386 or x86_64.
7
Directory responsible for the repository name, such as sat-tools, kickstart, rhscl. Some components have additional subdirectories which might vary.

This directory structure is also used in the Red Hat Subscription Manifest.

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