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Chapter 6. Subscription Management

Migration from RHN Classic to certificate-based RHN

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.3 includes a new tool to migrate RHN Classic customers to the certificate-based RHN. For more information, refer to the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 Subscription Management Guide.

Subscription Manager gpgcheck behavior

Subscription Manager now disables gpgcheck for any repositories it manages which have an empty gpgkey. To re-enable the repository, upload the GPG keys, and ensure that the correct URL is added to your custom content definition.

Firstboot System Registration

In Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.3, during firstboot system registration, registering to Certificate-based Subscription Management is now the default option.

Server side deletes

System profiles are now unregistered when they are deleted from the Customer Portal so that they no longer check in with certificate-based RHN.

Preferred service levels

Subscription manager now allows users to associate a machine with a preferred Service Level which impacts the auto subscription and healing logic. For more information on service levels, refer to the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 Subscription Management Guide.

Limiting updates to a specific minor release

Subscription manager now allows a user to select a specific release (for example, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.2), which will lock a machine to that release. Prior to this update, there was no way to limit package updates in the event newer packages became available as part of a later minor release (for example, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.3).