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4.188. subscription-manager

Updated subscription-manager packages that fix three bugs are now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.
The subscription-manager package provides programs and libraries to allow users to manage subscriptions and yum repositories from the Red Hat Entitlement platform.

Bug Fix

BZ#788661
On Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5, subscription management does not support software channels for 64-bit PowerPC architectures. Therefore, the "install-num-migrate-to-rhsm" utility did not work on these architectures, and users were not able to migrate their systems to Certificate-based Red Hat Network (RHN). With this update, the "install-num-migrate-to-rhsm" utility has been modified to use the supported PowerPC product certificates instead. Systems installed on 64-bit PowerPC architectures can now be migrated properly from Classic RHN to Certificate-based RHN.
BZ#788665
Previously, the "rhn-migrate-classic-to-rhsm" utility did not handle correctly when an Red Hat Network (RHN) software channel supported more than one product. Consequently, the utility installed superfluous product certificates when client systems were subscribed to particular RHN channels. This update corrects "rhn-migrate-classic-to-rhsm" so that only the proper product certificate is now installed under these circumstances.
BZ#790437
Previously, the "install-num-migrate-to-rhsm" utility did not work correctly for certain products. Consequently, the utility installed also a superfluous Desktop product certificate when the system was provided with an installation number for a Workstation product and vice versa. With this update, "install-num-migrate-to-rhsm" has been fixed and only the correct product certificate is now installed under these circumstances.
All users of subscription-manager are advised to upgrade to these updated packages, which fix these bugs.
Updated subscription-manager packages that fix multiple bugs and add various enhancements are now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.
The Subscription Manager tool allows users to understand the specific products which have been installed on their machines, and the specific subscriptions which their machines are consuming.

Bug Fixes

BZ#772921
When executing the subscription-manager-gui tool, an icon in the notification area displayed the following message if the entitlement certificate had expired:
Invalid or Missing Entitlement certificates
If the user clicked on the icon, the window of subscription-manager-gui was closed and the application terminated unexpectedly. This was because a new instance of the application was started by clicking on the icon. The second instance considered the first instance to be running, sent it a DBus message to raise the window to the foreground and so caused the crash. With this update, a second instance of subscription-manager-gui is not started in the aforementioned scenario, which prevents the utility from crashing.
BZ#782549
When executing the subscription-manager-gui tool on systems with an expired entitlement certificate, the tool, in certain cases, failed to start and a traceback error occurred. With this update, subscription-manager-gui starts successfully with an expired entitlement certificate. The certificate can be viewed on the My Installed Software tab.
BZ#719548
The subscription-manager-gui utility did not specify explicit dependency on the dbus-x11 package. As a consequence, subscription-manager-gui failed to start when attempting to start subscription-manager-gui remotely on a 64-bit Itanium system by using the Xvnc application. The dbus-x11 package has been included as a prerequisite for the subscription-manager-gnome package in the spec file, and is be installed along with the subscription-manager packages. The subscription-manager-gui application now runs as expected in the described scenario.
BZ#738517
Previously, the yum utility issued an HTTPS GET request instead of an HTTPS CONNECT request. As a consequence, retrieving content from the content delivery network (CDN) by using an HTTP proxy failed. With this update, if the user uses https:// instead of http:// for the proxy URL, an HTTPS CONNECT request is made to the proxy instead of an invalid HTTPS GET request. Users are now able to register properly and retrieve the content.
BZ#732509
Previously, users were not able to import a certificate by using the command line interface (CLI). This update adds the new CLI import option, and the root user can now successfully import a certificate.

Enhancements

BZ#766895
This update introduces the hypervisorCheckIn() call that allows sending mapping of the host or guest IDs for creating or updating an account.
BZ#734480
This update adds configuration that allows Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization Hypervisor to register with Subscription Asset Manager (SAM).
BZ#726407
This update adds a new tool to migrate Red Hat Network Classic users to the certificate-based Red Hat Network.
BZ#726409, 741974
This update adds support for stacking of entitlements. This allows users to combine a set of subscriptions on a single machine in order to become compliant. For example, 2-socket (socket pair) subscriptions can now be combined to cover a four-socket machine, and 4-guest subscriptions can be combined in order to allow eight guests on a machine.
BZ#726411
Previously, if a subscription had expired, users had to log into each machine and attempt to locate new subscriptions. This update adds support for certificate healing, which allows machines (if required) to automatically look for new subscriptions after the previous subscription has expired.
BZ#643973
This update adds support of activation keys with encrypted credentials. The keys are used by a script when the user makes use of the subscription-manager utility to register with Subscription Asset Manager. This prevents from disclosing secure information.
All users of subscription-manager are advised to upgrade to these updated packages, which fix these bugs and add these enhancements.