How to use "virt-who" to register Esxi hosts with "Virtual Datacenter" entitlements ?

Environment

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6(All versions)
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7(All versions)
• virt-who
• VMware vCenter Server
• VMware Esxi host

Issue

• How to use VDC entitlements in VMware environment ?

Resolution

• Install a new RHEL 6 or 7 VM in VMware ESXi host, this VM is used to gather information of the underlying ESXi host and then communicate to Red Hat Network, so we call it 'Liaison VM'.

• Register the Liaison VM without subscribe

      # subscription-manager register --username=<username> --password=<password>
      # subscription-manager identity
      system identity: f414206d-7ab5-4d6d-811a-ba0d6fe30e2e
      name: satellite.example.com
      org name: 5847285
      org ID: 5847285
  

• Install virt-who on Liaison VM.
  Since this VM is not subscribed , so we can't use yum directly to install it. We need to configure local yum source with system ISO, here is How to create local repository distributed through apache of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5/6/7 using DVD iso for update or installation ?
  After configuring of local yum source ,install virt-who.

      # yum install virt-who
  

• Configure virt-who on Liaison VM.

      # vim /etc/sysconfig/virt-who
      VIRTWHO_ESX=1
      VIRTWHO_ESX_OWNER=5847285                   (This number is from the previous command `subscription-manager identity`)
      VIRTWHO_ESX_ENV=5847285
      VIRTWHO_ESX_SERVER=10.0.0.1       （IP address of ESXi host）
      VIRTWHO_ESX_USERNAME=root                    （username of ESXi host, not the 'root' user of the VM）
      VIRTWHO_ESX_PASSWORD=password    （password of ESXi host）
      # /etc/init.d/virt-who start
      # chkconfig virt-who on
  

• How to verify the ESXi host is registered ? After start virt-who ,we could check /var/log/rhsm/rhsm.log of Liaison VM.

      # tail -f /var/log/rhsm/rhsm.log
      2015-10-28 17:59:23,011 [INFO]  @subscriptionmanager.py:119 - Sending update in hosts-to-guests mapping:  {30323636-3238-4e43-3733-333030315956: [42018faf-c862-de4b-2088-3e49869c0552, 564df70d-6542-b691-8cfb-c6fde6910510, 564d9965-7b13-67a7-7dea-601cf4fc8efd]}
      2015-10-28 17:59:28,896 [INFO]  @virtwho.py:164 - Created host: 50c0f587-f96d-4f5f-8f84-e1a06df8cb14 with guests: [42018faf-c862-de4b-2088-3e49869c0552, 564df70d-6542-b691-8cfb-c6fde6910510, 564d9965-7b13-67a7-7dea-601cf4fc8efd]
      If you find `Sending update in hosts-to-guests mapping` and `Created host:` information in the log ,then the ESXi host is registered.
  

• Here is how to find out which ESXi host is the one that we just registered and attach entitlement into it .

  • In this page we can find hardware info of the ESXi host : https://esxi-ip/mob/?moid=ha-host&doPath=hardware.systemInfo , please replace esxi-ip with ESXi host's IP address , in the section of uuid string is the ESXi host's UUID:
    
  • Enter This content is not included.Subscription Management page ,and search with "30323636-3238-4e43-3733-333030315956".
    
  • Attach entitlement into the ESXi host.
    

• Subscribe newly installed VMs.

  • Login to a guest system on the hypervisor.

  • Subscribe the VMs:

          # subscription-manager register --username=username --password=password
          # subscription-manager subscribe --auto
          or
          # subscription-manager attach --auto
    

• (OPTIONAL) Subscribe the Liaison VM

  • Login to the Liaison VM.

  • Subscribe the VM:

          # subscription-manager subscribe --auto 
         or
          # subscription-manager attach --auto
    

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

Diagnostic Steps

• Here is an issue we might face :
  How to deal with "Cannot complete login due to an incorrect user name or password" error of virt-who ?

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