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Quick Registration for RHEL
Red Hat Subscription Management 1
quickly register and subscribe Red Hat Enterprise Linux systems
October 1, 2013
Abstract
This guide covers basic information to register a Red Hat Enterprise Linux system quickly and to attach and manage subscriptions effectively. Advanced Subscription Manager configuration is covered in Using and Configuring Red Hat Subscription Manager.
Effective asset management requires a mechanism to handle the software inventory — both the type of products and the number of systems that the software is installed on.
Red Hat Subscription Manager is installed on a local system and it tracks what products are installed, what subscriptions are available for the system, and what subscriptions are actually used by the system. It also tracks subscription expirations and automatically attaches new subscriptions based on the products and hardware.
Red Hat Subscription Manager works with content management tools (
yum) to help install and update content on the local system.
Most systems require simple registration. The default configuration registers the system with the main account for the company, hosted on the Red Hat Customer Portal. It is also possible to register a system with Subscription Asset Manager or with another subscription service, with some modification to the Subscription Manager configuration. More advanced Subscription Manager configuration and usage is covered in Using and Configuring Red Hat Subscription Manager in the subscription management documentation set.
1. Using Red Hat Subscription Manager Tools
Both registration and subscriptions are managed on the local system through UI and CLI tools called Red Hat Subscription Manager.
Note
The Red Hat Subscription Manager tools are always run as
root because of the nature of the changes to the system. However, Red Hat Subscription Manager connects to the subscription service as a user account for the subscription service.
1.1. Launching the Red Hat Subscription Manager UI
Red Hat Subscription Manager is listed as one of the administrative tools in the menu in the top management bar.
Figure 1. Red Hat Subscription Manager Menu Option
Alternatively, the Red Hat Subscription Manager UI can be opened from the command line with a single command:
[root@server1 ~]# subscription-manager-gui
1.2. Running the subscription-manager Command-Line Tool
Any of the operations that can be performed through the Red Hat Subscription Manager UI can also be performed by running the
subscription-manager tool. This tool has the following format:
[root@server1 ~]# subscription-manager command [options]
Each command has its own set of options that are used with it. The
subscription-manager help and manpage have more information.
Table 1. Common subscription-manager Commands
| Command | Description |
|---|---|
| register | Registers or identifies a new system to the subscription service. |
| unregister | Unregisters a machine, which strips its subscriptions and removes the machine from the subscription service. |
| attach | Attaches a specific subscription to the machine. |
| redeem | Auto-attaches a machine to a pre-specified subscription that was purchased from a vendor, based on its hardware and BIOS information. |
| remove | Removes a specific subscription or all subscriptions from the machine. |
| list | Lists all of the subscriptions that are compatible with a machine, either subscriptions that are actually attached to the machine or unused subscriptions that are available to the machine. |
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