7.3. Entitlement Certificate Expiration

Red Hat Satellite certificates expire at 11:59:59 PM on the date listed in the certificate's expires field. The Satellite server's time zone is used. New certificates become active at 12:00:00 AM on their issued date.

A standard grace period of seven (7) days exists between the date of Red Hat Satellite's certificate expiration and when the Red Hat Satellite becomes inactive. This grace period is provided in order for customers to contact Red Hat Support and obtain a new certificate. During the grace period, the following things happen:

After this period ends, a restricted period of 24 days begins. This period provides a means for resolution of issues reported by rhn-satellite-activate. During this period, Satellite has limited functionality mainly for entitlement changes and operates in a read only mode.

After the restricted period, Red Hat Satellite disables user logins to the web interface. All client-side tools present an Expired Certificate message. Red Hat Satellite also send the Administrator a daily email alert regarding certificate expiration.