Issued:
2011-12-06
Updated:
2011-12-06

RHBA-2011:1695 - subscription-manager bug fix and enhancement update

Synopsis

subscription-manager bug fix and enhancement update

Type/Severity

Bug Fix Advisory (none)

Topic

Updated subscription-manager packages that fix several bugs and adds an enhancement are now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.

Description

The Subscription Manager tool allows users to understand the specific products which have been installed on their machines, and the specific subscriptions which their machines are consuming.

This update fixes the following bugs:

  • Two variations were used in the ProductName parameter for the workstation subscription: "Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation" and "Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 Workstation". As a consequence, users running the "subscription-manager list --installed" command, while subscribed to the "Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation" subscription, got a misleading report. With this update, the ProductId parameter is used instead to compare subscriptions in the described scenario and the bug no longer occurs. (BZ#709412)

  • Previously, the NSS (Network Security Services) library used the "first" entitlement certificate to access all content. As a consequence, access to subsequent repositories was rejected because NSS was using the certificate from the first repository. This update allows all repositories to be controlled by unique entitlement certificates. (BZ#701425)

  • Previously, the "Start Date" and "End Date" fields in the Contract Selection dialog window of the subscription-manager-gui utility were not populated. With this update, the dates are displayed as expected. (BZ#703921)

  • When the subscription-manager utility had been upgraded, it put incorrect data to the sslclientkey repository parameter value. Consequently, when the yum utility was launched to install software, yum terminated with the "[Errno 14] problem with the local client certificate" error message. The bug in subscription-manager has been fixed and yum can now be run without any certificate errors. (BZ#711133)

  • Previously, running the firstboot utility with the "-r" option while the subscription-manager-firstboot utility was already installed caused the firstboot utility to terminate with a traceback; it also failed to display a message stating that the computer was already registered with Red Hat Network. This bug has been fixed, the firstboot utility now displays the warning message properly, and no tracebacks are returned in the described scenario. (BZ#693709)

  • When a machine was registered via the Red Hat Subscription Manager tool, an attempt to register it with Red Hat Network Classic or Red Hat Network Satellite caused the rhn_register utility to display a confusing warning message. This update rephrases this warning message for clarity. (BZ#730018)

  • Due to a bug, the code assumed it could access the /var/rhn/rhsm directory. Consequently, the background job, which warns the user that a machine is not covered by a subscription, terminated unexpectedly if the /var/rhn/rhsm directory did not exist. With this update, the error is properly logged and the crashes no longer occur in the described scenario. (BZ#725535)

  • The initial subscription-manager package did not provide a help function built into the user interface. Help was only available via manual pages and online documentation. This update adds a standard help button to the subscription-manager user interface. (BZ#580905)

  • Subscriptions are represented by numeric serial numbers. When a number longer than four bytes was used as a serial number, the subscription-manager utility terminated unexpectedly. This bug has been fixed and large numbers are now supported as serial numbers in subscription-manager. (BZ#701315)

This update adds the following enhancement:

  • Previously, in order to locate subscriptions for machines not covered by a subscription, a user had to log into each such machine and locate new subscriptions manually. This update allows a machine to automatically look for new subscriptions in the described scenario. (BZ#710172)

Users of subscription-manager are advised to upgrade to these updated packages, which fix these bugs.

Solution

Before applying this update, make sure all previously-released errata relevant to your system have been applied.

This update is available via the Red Hat Network. Details on how to use the Red Hat Network to apply this update are available at This content is not included.https://access.redhat.com/kb/docs/DOC-11259

Affected Products

ProductVersionArch
Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Scientific Computing6x86_64
Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, big endian6ppc64
Red Hat Enterprise Linux for IBM z Systems6s390x
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation6x86_64
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation6i386
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server6x86_64
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server6i386
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server from RHUI6x86_64
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server from RHUI6i386
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - Extended Life Cycle Support6x86_64
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - Extended Life Cycle Support6i386
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - Extended Life Cycle Support Extension6x86_64
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - Extended Life Cycle Support Extension6i386
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - Extended Life Cycle Support Extension (for IBM z Systems)6s390x
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - Extended Life Cycle Support (for IBM z Systems)6s390x
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop6x86_64
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop6i386

Updated Packages

  • subscription-manager-0.96.17-1.el6.s390x.rpm
  • subscription-manager-debuginfo-0.96.17-1.el6.ppc64.rpm
  • subscription-manager-debuginfo-0.96.17-1.el6.x86_64.rpm
  • subscription-manager-0.96.17-1.el6.ppc64.rpm
  • subscription-manager-0.96.17-1.el6.x86_64.rpm
  • subscription-manager-debuginfo-0.96.17-1.el6.s390x.rpm
  • subscription-manager-gnome-0.96.17-1.el6.ppc64.rpm
  • subscription-manager-gnome-0.96.17-1.el6.x86_64.rpm
  • subscription-manager-firstboot-0.96.17-1.el6.ppc64.rpm
  • subscription-manager-firstboot-0.96.17-1.el6.s390x.rpm
  • subscription-manager-debuginfo-0.96.17-1.el6.i686.rpm
  • subscription-manager-0.96.17-1.el6.i686.rpm
  • subscription-manager-gnome-0.96.17-1.el6.i686.rpm
  • subscription-manager-firstboot-0.96.17-1.el6.i686.rpm
  • subscription-manager-0.96.17-1.el6.src.rpm
  • subscription-manager-firstboot-0.96.17-1.el6.x86_64.rpm
  • subscription-manager-gnome-0.96.17-1.el6.s390x.rpm

Fixes

CVEs

(none)

References

(none)

Additional information