Subscription-manager command fails with error '%' must be followed by '%' or '(', found: '%password'

Environment

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.7 (and onwards)
• Red Hat Subscription Management (RHSM)

Issue

• In /etc/rhsm/rhsm.conf file the proxy password is not parsed properly.
• If password of http proxy contains a special character '%' then subscription manager fails to run:

# subscription-manager refresh

• Subscription manager commands fail if http proxy password contains special character % .

Resolution

• Use %% instead of % and it should work fine.
• For an example, if password for http proxy server is %abcd then enter % in front of % which will now become %%abcd.

Root Cause

• The percent symbol has a special function when used in strings in Python, so it should be escaped.

Diagnostic Steps

• Check if the value of proxy_password parameter in RHSM configuration file contains special character %.

# cat /etc/rhsm/rhsm.conf  | grep "proxy_password"
proxy_password = "%%abcd"

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