Inactive system policy for Red Hat Subscription Management (RHSM)

Updated -

What’s changing and why?

Systems which are registered to Red Hat Subscription Management (via subscription.rhsm.redhat.com) historically have been dependent on users explicitly unregistering them in order to remove their data from Red Hat systems.
We’ve found that these systems are generally unwanted, and lead to sub-optimal user experiences.
Users frequently need to create their own scripts/processes to delete inactive systems.
Reporting functions (such as errata reports or other user-generated reports) are often inaccurate as they include older systems that are no longer active.
System registration performance is impacted negatively.
To better deliver a customer experience which accurately reflects actively managed systems, Red Hat will institute an inactive system policy for Red Hat Subscription Management.
As of 01-May-2022, Red Hat will introduce automation within Red Hat Subscription Management to delete systems which meet the following criteria:

  • In organizations with Simple Content Access enabled
  • Systems which have not checked in greater than 13 months (397 days).
  • In organizations with Simple Content Access disabled
  • Systems which have not checked in greater than 13 months (397 days). AND which do not have entitlements attached
  • This will be an ongoing policy, run monthly on the 15th

How do I?

Q: Identify the last time my system has checked in?
A: Vist https://access.redhat.com/management/systems to view the list of systems that are connected to your account. This list can be sorted by Last Check In and exported as a CSV

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Q: Connect a Red Hat Enterprise Linux system which has not been active in the past 395 days
A: Are you using Simple Content Access? If not, consider enabling the new Red Hat Subscription Experience.

Registering a system to Red Hat With Simple Content Access

After installation and logging as a root user, run the following

subscription-manager register

Or if you are using activation keys

 subscription-manager register --activationkey

Without Simple Content Access

subscription-manager register 
subscription-manager attach –pool $POOLID

Lastly, attach some repositories

FAQ

Q: Are Satellite manifests affected?
A: No.