Chapter 2. System Registration

2.1. Registering a System with the User Interface

Software delivery, support, and other services for Red Hat products are managed through a subscription service. A subscription service tracks systems and the subscriptions attached to those systems.
A system is recognized to the subscription service by being registered with the service. A subscription is associated or attached to a system.
Systems can be registered with a subscription service during the firstboot process or as part of the kickstart setup (both described in the Installation Guide). Systems can also be registered after they have been configured or removed from the subscription service inventory (unregistered) if they will no longer be managed within that subscription system.

Table 2.1. Frequently-Used subscription-manager Commands

Command Description
Operational Commands
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 Assigns a specific subscription to the machine.
remove Removes a specific subscription or all subscriptions from the machine.
redeem Autosubscribes a machine to a pre-specified subscription that was purchased from a vendor, based on its hardware and BIOS information.
import Manually installs a subscription certificate, rather than contacting the subscription service with a request and then receiving the certificate.
list Lists all of the subscriptions that are compatible with a machine, either subscriptions that are actually consumed by the machine or unused subscriptions that are available to the machine.
Configuration Commands
config Modifies a specified configuration parameter in the configuration file, /etc/rhsm/rhsm.conf. The parameters are passed in the form configuration_area.parameter="value".
service-level Sets the service-level preference for the system to use when selecting subscriptions in autoattach operations.
release Sets the operating system release version preference for the system to use when selecting subscriptions in autoattach operations.
refresh Pulls the latest subscription data from the server. Normally, the system polls the subscription server at a set interval (4 hours by default) to check for any changes in the available subscriptions. The refresh command checks with the subscription server immediately, outside the normal interval.
clean Removes all of the subscription and identity data from the local system, without affecting the consumer information in the subscription service. Any of the subscriptions consumed by the system are still consumed and are not available for other systems to use. The clean command is useful in cases where the local subscription information is corrupted or lost somehow, and the system will be reregistered using the register --consumerid=EXISTING_ID command.
Informative Commands
version Returns the version of the local client, the name of the subscription service the system is registered with, and the version of the subscription service.
identity Handles the identity certificate and registration ID for a system. This command can be used to return the current UUID or generate a new identity certificate.
facts Lists the system information, like the release version, number of CPUs, and other architecture information.
orgs, repos, environments Lists all of the configured organizations, environments, and content repositories that are available to the given user account or system. These commands are used to view information in a multi-org infrastructure. They are not used to configure the local machine or multi-org infrastructure.