Chapter 8. Understanding errata

Part of subscription management is tracking updates and new releases of software. Whenever an update is available - from a bug fix to a new release - a notification email can be sent to you. The notifications are only sent for registered systems which have subscriptions for that product associated with them.

8.1. Managing errata notification settings

Errata notifications are set as a preference for the user account, not for an individual system. When Red Hat Subscription Management checks for potential errata updates, it checks the entire inventory, not specific systems. An errata notification is sent if any registered system is affected, but the email does not list what systems are actually affected.

Procedure

  1. From the Overview page, click the account name.
  2. Click Account Settings.
  3. Click Errata Notifications.
  4. Select the types of errata you want to receive. Security errata relate to critical security issues. Bug fixes and enhancement notifications relate to incremental updates to the product.
  5. Select the notification frequency.
  6. Click Save.

8.2. Troubleshooting errata applicability

If you see applicable errata displayed in Red Hat Subscription Management but have no yum updates available, it can mean one of a couple of settings are not correct.

Procedure

  1. Verify that you have the proper permissions to install all available updates on the system. If you do not have the necessary permissions, contact your organization administrator.
  2. If you are running RHEL 5 or RHEL 6.4 or earlier, please consider upgrading your system so that you can have the most up-to-date errata and system updates.
  3. Force a check in and run yum update again.* If the system has not been checked in recently, you may see a discrepancy between what you see in the Customer Portal and what is actually installed on your system. 
# rm -f /var/lib/rhsm/packages/packages.json
# service rhsmcertd stop
# rhsmcertd --now
# yum update
Note

After forcing your system to check in again, please wait up to four hours for the errata data on Red Hat Subscription Management to update to their correct data.