Determining which subscription number corresponds to which system in Red Hat Subscription Management

Solution Verified - Updated -

Environment

  • Red Hat Satellite
  • Red Hat Subscription Management
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.6 and below
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.0

Issue

  • I don't understand how subscriptions work in RHSM. How do I know which of my subscriptions corresponds to which system registered in RHSM?
  • If a server registered on RHSM will be replaced, how can we switch the subscription to the new server ?
  • Why did a system registered with RHSM suddenly get unentitled?
  • What is the rule for unentitling a system if there are not enough entitlements available?

Resolution

  • The subscription numbers (sometimes referred to as installation or registration numbers) associated with a purchase are not tied to specific systems in RHSM. Instead, the subscription numbers correspond to the number of entitlements in the account, regardless of which system is using those entitlements.1

  • Your Red Hat account will support as many systems as you have active entitlements for. If a contract is not renewed and an entitlement lapses, a system will be dropped. This is done on a first-in, last-out basis. In other words, the last system registered in Red Hat will lose its base entitlement first if an entitlement expires.

  • For example, if you have three server subscriptions and two desktop subscriptions, and one server subscription expires, then the last server system that has been registered would lose its base channel.

  • Note: The scenario of a system losing its entitlement is applicable only when there are no available entitlements of that type under the account. For example, if you have three server subscriptions but you have registered only two systems, then you have an available entitlement slot. If one of the subscriptions were to lapse then the previously registered two systems would not be affected, as there would still be one available slot.

What do I do if a system in Red Hat loses its entitlement?

  • If a system loses its entitlement in Red Hat, you have two options in order to continue using Red Hat services with that system:

    1. Contact Red Hat sales and renew the expired entitlement
    2. Delete a system in Red Hat that has an active entitlement, and then re-register the system that has lost its base channel or entitlement

  • Because an entitlement is not applied to a specific system, but rather to an account, you have flexibility in managing which systems are currently using your active RHSM entitlements.

  • For more information, please contact the Red Hat Inc. Customer Service Team.

Note

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.7 beta and later releases
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.1 beta and later releases

  1. These releases can use our new model, called  Red Hat Subscription Management, which keeps track of specific subscriptions assigned to specific computers using x.509 certificates.
    More information can be found here: Overview of Subscription Management ↩︎

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