What is "subscription-manager clean" and why do I need it?
Why do we need a clean option in subscription-manager?
In some cases, if a file system has been corrupted, or the subscription data has been lost, `subscription-manager clean` can allow us to start fresh, without needed to register the system and assign entitlements again.
The clean command removes all of the subscription and identity data from the local system without affecting the system information in the subscription management service (Satellite or SAM). This ensures that the subscriptions are not available for other machines to utilize while the problem is corrected.
In the scenario above we would clean the local data and then re-register the machine using its existing identity, which can still be located in the subscription management service.
# subscription-manager clean
# subscription-manager register --consumerid=<EXISTING_ID>
If a system is removed from the subscription management service and for any reason was unable to communicate with the registered machine to remove the entitlements, then subscription-manager clean would allow us to remove the data on the local system and be aligned to the subscription management service.