Tracking Activation Keys for Registered RHEL Systems

For security reasons, Red Hat does not store or expose the activation key used to register a system once registration is complete. Activation keys are considered sensitive credentials and cannot be retrieved from a registered host. This ensures protection of credentials and compliance with data privacy standards.

Organizations managing multiple systems often want to track which activation keys were used for registration. While the key itself cannot be retrieved, there are recommended methods to organize and tag systems in your inventory for tracking purposes.

Methods to Track System Registration

1. Satellite-managed Systems

If your RHEL systems are registered via Satellite and the Satellite instance is connected to Hybrid Cloud Console, the activation key used is recorded as a system tag in your inventory under:

satellite/activation_key

You can use these tags to organize, filter, and search systems by the activation key used for registration.

2. Custom Tracking Using Red Hat Lightspeed System Tags

For users who wish to manually track activation keys, Red Hat Lightspeed system tags allow metadata to be associated with each host.

Important: This is a manual workaround and should be treated as sensitive information. Activation keys stored in system tags are visible to users with access to the host metadata and should be handled carefully.

Steps:

1. During post-provisioning or registration, add a custom tag for the activation key in /etc/insights-client/tags.yaml. For example:

# Remove any existing activation_key entry and add a new one
sed -i '/^activation_key:/d' /etc/insights-client/tags.yaml 2>/dev/null
echo "activation_key: ACTIVATION_KEY_NAME" | sudo tee -a /etc/insights-client/tags.yaml

2. Run the insights-client to upload the metadata:

sudo insights-client --register

3. Once uploaded, the system tag will be available in your inventory under:

insights-client/activation_key

4. You can now organize and filter systems in your inventory based on this metadata.

For more information, see the Lightspeed documentation: Red Hat Lightspeed System Tagging

Key Takeaways

Activation keys cannot be retrieved from registered systems due to security concerns.
Satellite-managed systems can track activation keys via system tags.
Manual tagging with Red Hat Lightspeed is a workaround for organizations that want to track activation keys.
Avoid storing activation keys in unsecured locations. Treat them like any other secret credential.