Issue with VMware Hypervisor and RHEL for Virtual Datacenter license

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Hello,

I've a problem with setting up my VMware Hypervisor with "Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Virtual Datacenters, Standard" license.
VMware ESXi 5.5 host is named desktop1. I want to run 5 virtual machines on it (vm1-4). License said, that I can run unlimited virtual machines (http://www.redhat.com/about/news/archive/2013/10/red-hat-streamlines-physical-virtual-and-cloud-deployment-with-new-subscriptions-for-red-hat-enterprise-linux) on supported hypervisors (MS Hyper-V, VMware ESX, Xen etc) and I've discovered documentation: https://access.redhat.com/site/documentation/en-US/Red_Hat_Subscription_Management/1/html/Using_Subscription_Asset_Manager/sam-virt-vmware.html
In step 1 there is written, that I should install virt-who on VMware Hypervisor. Could you help me with that? VMware Hypervisor doesn't understand rpm files, so I can't download rpm file with the newest virt-who and just simple install it. I've tried to install virt-who on one virtual machine vm1 and configure:
VIRTWHO_ESX=1
VIRTWHO_ESX_OWNER=CompanyName
VIRTWHO_ESX_ENV=Library
VIRTWHO_ESX_SERVER=desktop1.mydomain.local
VIRTWHO_ESX_USERNAME=root
VIRTWHO_ESX_PASSWORD=PasswordForRootToVMwareESXiHypervisor5.5

Is there any other way to attach this license to my hypervisor to provide me to be able to run my virtual machines on it with valid subscriptions? Thank you in advance.

Best regards,
Marek

Responses

Are you using SAM currently in your environment? If you are not, you do not have to worry about following those directions. The virtual machines on VMWare will know to pull down the correct Flex Guest entitlements. This is because the registration tool knows the guests are running on a supported hypervisor and they will consume the correct entitlement for updates.

If you are using SAM, I suggest opening up a support case to have an engineer walk you through the process.

license he has is a Hypervisor license VMs will not be able to use this license.

No, I'm not using SAM. virt-what on VM returns "vmware" string. Starting virt-who on virtual machine with parameters as I specified earlier is successfull, VM is registered to the subscription list, but subscription is not assigned to it. I've assigned my "Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Virtual Datacenters, Standard" to my server desktop1

You should be able to register using RHN classic via the rhn_register command. That's what I've done to work around this issue with Redhat. I have the same problem. My VMware hypervisors register successfully in RHN but none of the VM's get correctly associated, nor do they qualify for updates in that broken state.

I have opened a ticket with Redhat but its been a month now. The last status was that its been submitted to development.

Hi Marek,

I have just done this myself. I have a pretty isolated environment and only 1 VM will have access to internet. Rest are isolated for security reasons. I have had to use SAM

Here are couple of pointers.
1: you need 2 VMS, one to run Subscription Manager and another one that will run virt-who both are Linux boxes
2: your need to register the VMs to the SAM VM not to Redhat Customer Portal
3: Not sure if you have a virtual center or not but you can use that instead of the ESX hosts
4: Once you have Subscript manager (1.3 or higher) installed you need to go to the REdhat Customer portal and in Subscription Management Applications you need to create an organization. To this organization you add ALL your subscriptions for your Hypervisors. Once you have this download the Manifest.
5: In your SAM VM you need to upload the manifest. Pretty straight forward you can do it from the GUI
6: you then need to register the virt-who vm to it. Here is Link that explains how to do this https://fedorahosted.org/katello/wiki/GuideSystemRegistrationClient Note you are NOT yet adding subscriptions yet.. in fact you can't
7: Once your virt-who vm is registered you can start the virt-who service. This will get the UUIDs of your ESX servers and present them to your SAM under systems. Now you can register your Hypervisors.
8: once your hypervisors are registered and have a subscription you can then register VMS to them and assign them subscriptions.

couple issues:
1: the license you have does not provide you with product information so if you want to set up a reposerver its messy
2: if you move your VMs to different licensed server virt-who does not update SAM you need to restart the virt-who service
3: redhat tell you you need Administrative rights if you want to get the UUIDS of your ESX hosts through Vcenter, you don't

hope this helps
good luck

I had the same issue, you forgot the line below [vmware]

Once I added that to my config my systems showed up in my account.

Unix Administration,

What config file gets the word vmware added? The virt-who config has options:

type= ; insert one of libvirt/esx/hyperv/rhevm/vdsm/fake
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