VMware RHEL virtual guest loses subscription during migration / fail-over to another VMware Hypervisor

Environment

• Red Hat Subscription Management
• Red Hat Satellite 6
• Subscription Asset Manager (SAM)
• VMware Hypervisor

Issue

• RHEL VMware virtual guest loses its Virtual Datacenter subscription during migration or fail-over to another hypervisor in the vCenter. Fail-over mechanism (DRS/vapp/vmotion/vCenter Site Recovery Manager (SRM) is in place.
• The same issue happens to RHEL virtual guest subscribed to hypervisor that has RHEL Server (Unlimited) subscription in Satellite6

Resolution

• Each hypervisor that the virtual guest will fail over or migrate to must be subscribed with a host-specific subscription, such as RHEL Virtual Datacenter or RHEL unlimited guest. NOTE: Not having each hypervisor subscribed may result in a guest not getting subscription access if it migrates to that hypervisor.
• To avoid this issue going forward:
  Case 1: If all hypervisors are subscribed with Virtual Datacenter or RHEL Server (Unlimited):
• The guest can be re-subscribed immediately by running the commands:

# subscription-manager attach --auto
# subscription-manager refresh

• Alternatively, wait until the virtual guest is re-subscribed automatically (default time interval is 24 hours). To change the default time interval, edit /etc/rhsm/rhsm.conf, and change the value of the autoAttachInterval setting:

  # Interval to run auto-attach (in minutes):
     autoAttachInterval = 1440

• Then restart the rhsmcertd service:

# service rhsmcertd restart

Case 2: More hypervisors are mapped/listed than the number of available RHEL Virtual Datacenter / RHEL Server (Unlimited) guest subscriptions.

• A new feature to blacklist Hypervisor UUID in virt-who configuration is now available with in RHEL7. Please refer to the KBase link;
  virt-who Host Filtering in RHEL7
  Another Option:

• Create a (vCenter/Vsphere/vapp/vmotion) admin local account and confirm it can only view the hypervisors that can be attached with RHEL
  Virtual Datacenter or Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server (Unlimited guests) subscription. (For example, if x number of RHEL Virtual
  Datacenter/Unlimites guest subscription then x number of Hypervisors can only be attached.)
• Stop the virt-who service on the guest and update the admin account credentials in /etc/sysconfig/virt-who.
• Un-register the guest running virt-who:

  # subscription-manager unregister

• Remove all Hypervisors and Guests in the Subscription Management, SAM, or Satellite 6 web UI
• Re-register the guest running virt-who service (do not attached subscription yet):

  # subscription-manager register

• Start the virt-who service on the guest, tail the rhsm.log to confirm the HyperVisors are syncing with RHEL (and only those Hypervisors that the local admin can view are synced)
• Confirm the Hypervisor UUID's are mapped/listed and subscribed in the Subscription Management, SAM, or Satellite 6 web UI
• Auto-attach the subscription on the guest running virt-who

# subscription-manager attach --auto

• Start registering and auto-attaching subscriptions for the other virtual guests

# subscription-manager register --username xxx --password yyy --auto-attach --force
# subscription-manager status

For more KB articles/solutions related to Virt-who and Virtual Datacenter (VDC) Subscriptions Issues, please refer to the Consolidated Troubleshooting Article for Virt-who and Virtual Datacenter (VDC) Subscriptions Issues

Root Cause

• RHEL virtual guest migrates / fails over to a VMware hypervisor that has no subscription (RHEL VIrtual Datacenter for Subscription Manager, RHEL Server (Unlimited), etc.)

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