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3.11. Legacy: Migration from RHN Classic
Certificate-based, or system-based, subscriptions were launched in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.1 and 5.7, and after those releases both system-based and channel-based subscription registration was supported. Older Red Hat Enterprise Linux systems exclusively used channel-based subscriptions.
A system's registration can be moved completely, with its subscriptions intact, from the channel-based RHN Classic to a system-based subscription service such as Customer Portal Subscription Management or Subscription Asset Manager.
Important
These migration scripts are intended to migrate systems which are registered with RHN Classic hosted services. They are not intended to migrate systems registered with an on-premise Satellite server.
3.11.1. The Environment: Small Businesses with Older Red Hat Enterprise Linux Systems
The migration scripts migrate registrations from the channel-based RHN Classic, which is a hosted subscription service. This migration can go to the newer hosted service, Customer Portal Subscription Management, or to an on-premise Subscription Asset Manager system.
For convenience and general performance, hosted services are usually used by small and medium-sized businesses because they have a relatively small number of servers.
Large environments, particularly environments with more than 1000 systems, use Satellite, which is not supported by the migration scripts.
3.11.2. Workflow
The migration process itself has only a single step for administrators: running the migration script.
Figure 13. Migration Process
There are two migration scripts available because there are two different ways that a system can be identified by the RHN Classic system: by its system ID or by an installation number. The migration script to use depends on which identifier is used for the system in RHN Classic:
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 and 6. Migrating a system's registration and subscriptions from RHN Classic to Customer Portal Subscription Management (both hosted services).This uses the
rhn-migrate-classic-to-rhsmmigration script. - Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 only. Migrating the local system configuration using RHN Classic-style channels to using Customer Portal Subscription Management certificates for installed products. This migration is based on the installation number for the system. Using the installation number as the basis for migrating information is particularly useful for a disconnected (offline) system, which has no way to connect to RHN Classic.This uses the
install-num-migrate-to-rhsmmigration script.
3.11.3. Options and Details
After migrating, the local clients can be reconfigured to use Subscription Asset Manager or Satellite 6 to add more management options, such as the ability to define multiple sub-organizations and system groups to attach subscriptions based on local system rules.
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