Chapter 6. Registering the System and Managing Subscriptions

The subscription service provides a mechanism to handle Red Hat software inventory and allows you to install additional software or update already installed programs to newer versions using the yum or PackageKit package managers. In Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 the recommended way to register your system and attach subscriptions is to use Red Hat Subscription Management.

Note

It is also possible to register the system and attach subscriptions after installation during the firstboot process. For detailed information about firstboot see the Firstboot chapter in the Installation Guide for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6. Note that firstboot is only available on systems after a graphical installation or after a kickstart installation where a desktop and the X window system were installed and graphical login was enabled.

6.1. Registering the System and Attaching Subscriptions

Complete the following steps to register your system and attach one or more subscriptions using Red Hat Subscription Management. Note that all subscription-manager commands are supposed to be run as root.
  1. Run the following command to register your system. You will be prompted to enter your user name and password. Note that the user name and password are the same as your login credentials for Red Hat Customer Portal. 
    subscription-manager register
  2. Determine the pool ID of a subscription that you require. To do so, type the following at a shell prompt to display a list of all subscriptions that are available for your system: 
    subscription-manager list --available
    For each available subscription, this command displays its name, unique identifier, expiration date, and other details related to your subscription. To list subscriptions for all architectures, add the --all option. The pool ID is listed on a line beginning with Pool ID.
  3. Attach the appropriate subscription to your system by entering a command as follows: 
    subscription-manager attach --pool=pool_id
    Replace pool_id with the pool ID you determined in the previous step.
    To verify the list of subscriptions your system has currently attached, at any time, run: 
    subscription-manager list --consumed

Note

If you use a firewall or a proxy, you may need additional configuration to allow yum and subscription-manager to work correctly. Refer to the "Setting Firewall Access for Content Delivery" section of the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 Subscription Management guide if you use a firewall and to the "Using an HTTP Proxy" section if you use a proxy.
For more details on how to register your system using Red Hat Subscription Management and associate it with subscriptions, see the designated solution article. For comprehensive information about subscriptions, see the Red Hat Subscription Management collection of guides.