6.3. Your RHN
After logging into the website of Red Hat Network, the first page to appear is Your RHN. This page contains important information about your systems, including summaries of system status, actions, and Errata Alerts.
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If you are new to the RHN website, it is recommended that you read Section 6.1 Navigation to become familiar with the layout and symbols used throughout the website. |
This page is broken into functional areas, with the most critical areas displayed first. Users can control which of the following areas are displayed by making selections on the Your RHN ⇒ Your Preferences page. Refer to Section 6.3.2 Your Preferences for more information.
The Tasks area lists the most common tasks that an administrator performs via the web. Click on any of the links to be taken to the page within RHN that allows you to accomplish that task.
To the right is the Inactive System listing. If any systems have not been checking in to RHN, they are listed here. Highlighting them in this way allows an administrator quickly select those systems for troubleshooting.
— Customers with Monitoring
enabled on their Satellite can also choose to include a list
of all probes in the Warning state.
- — Customers with Monitoring
enabled on their Satellite can also choose to include a list
of all probes in the Critical state.
The section below lists the most critical systems within your organization. It provides a link to quickly view those systems, and displays a summary of the errata updates that have yet to be applied to those systems. Click on the name of the system to be taken to the System Details page of that system and apply the errata updates. Below the list is a link to the Out of Date systems page.
Next is the Recently Scheduled Actions section. Any action that is less than thirty days old is considered to be recent. This section allows you to see all actions and their status, whether they have failed, completed, or are still pending. Click on the label of any given actions to view the details page for that action. Below the list is a link to the Pending Actions page, which lists all actions that have not yet been picked up by your client systems.
The following section lists the Security Errata that are available and have yet to be applied to some or all of your client systems. It is critical that you apply these security errata to keep your systems secure. Below this section are links to all errata and to those errata that apply to your systems.
The final section lists your System Groups and indicates whether the systems in those groups are fully updated. Click on the link below this section to be taken to the System Groups page, from which you can chose System Groups to use with the System Set Manager.
You can return to this page by clicking Your RHN on the left navigation bar.
6.3.1. Your Account
The Your Account page allows you to modify your personal information, such as name, password, and title. To modify any of this information, make the changes in the appropriate text fields and click the Update button in the bottom right-hand corner.
Remember, if you change your Red Hat Network password (the one used to log into RHN and redhat.com), you will not see your new one as you type it for security reasons. Also for security, your password is represented by 12 asterisks no matter how many characters it actually contains. Replace the asterisks in the Password and Password Confirmation text fields with your new password.
6.3.1.1. Addresses
The Addresses page allows you to manage your mailing, billing and shipping addresses, as well as the associated phone numbers. Just click Edit this address below the address to be modified, make the changes, and click Update Address.
6.3.1.2. Change Email
The email address listed in the Your Account page is the address to which Red Hat Network sends email notifications if you select to receive Errata Alerts or daily summaries for your systems on the Your Preferences page.
To change your preferred email address, click Change Email in the left navigation bar. You are then asked for the new email address. Enter it and click the Update button. A confirmation email is sent to the new email address; responding to the confirmation email validates the new email address. Note that false email addresses such as those ending in "@localhost" are filtered and rejected.
6.3.1.3. Account Deactivation
The Account Deactivation page provides a means to cancel your Red Hat Network service. Click the Deactivate Account button to deactivate your account. The web interface returns you to the login screen. If you attempt to log back in, an error message advises you to contact the Organization Administrator for your organization. Note that if you are the only Organization Administrator for your organization, you are unable to deactivate your account.
6.3.2. Your Preferences
The Your Preferences page allows you to configure Red Hat Network options, including:
Email Notifications — Determine whether you want to receive email every time an Errata Alert is applicable to one or more systems in your RHN account.
Important This setting also enables Management and Provisioning customers to receive a daily summary of system events. These include actions affecting packages, such as scheduled Errata Updates, system reboots, or failures to check in. In addition to selecting this checkbox, you must identify each system to be included in this summary email. (By default, all Management and Provisioning systems are included in the summary.) This can be done either individually through the System Details page or for multiple systems at once through the System Set Manager interface. Note that RHN sends these summaries only to verified email addresses. To disable all messages, simply deselect this checkbox.
RHN List Page Size — Maximum number of items that appear in a list on a single page. If more items are in the list, clicking the Next button displays the next group of items. This preference applies to system lists, Errata lists, package lists, and so on.
"Your RHN" Start Page — select the information areas that are displayed on the Your RHN Start Page. Check the box to the left of the information area you would like to include.
After making changes to any of these options, click the Save Preferences button in the bottom right-hand corner.
6.3.3. Locale Preferences
The Your RHN ⇒ Locale Preferences page allows each user to tailor their RHN interface to the local time and their preferred language. Select the appropriate timezone from the Time Zone dropdown box, then click the Save Preferences button to apply the selection.
When the language preference is set to Use Browser Settings, RHN uses the language preference from the user's browser (such as Firefox) to determine which language to use for the web interface. When one of the listed languages is selected, the user sees the web interface in that language each time they log in, regardless of their browser's settings. Choosing a preferred language may be helpful for users traveling abroad. To select a default language, click the radio button to the left of the appropriate language and click the Save Preferences button to apply the change.
6.3.4. Subscription Management
To use all of the features of RHN, your systems must be entitled — subscribed to an RHN service level. Use the System Entitlements page to configure which systems are entitled to which service offerings. There are four primary types of entitlements:
Update — manages a single Red Hat Enterprise Linux system. It includes Errata Alerts, Scheduled Errata Updates, Package Installation, and the Red Hat Update Agent.
Management — manages multiple systems with multiple system administrators. In addition to the features of the Update offering, it includes system group management, user management, and the System Set Manager interface to quickly perform actions on multiple systems.
Provisioning — offers the highest level of functionality. It should be used to provision multiple systems that will need to be re-installed and reconfigured regularly. The Provisioning offering provides tools for kickstarting machines, managing their configuration files, conducting snapshot rollbacks, and inputting searchable custom system information, as well as all of the functionality included in the Management service level.
Monitoring — monitors the health of multiple systems. The Monitoring offering provides probes that watch system metrics and notify Administrators when changes occur. Such notifications alert Administrators to system performance degradation before it becomes critical.
6.3.4.1. System Entitlements
The System Entitlements page allows you to view, add, and remove the entitlements for your registered systems. Red Hat Network 4.0 allows you to apply and remove entitlements at will, allowing you to adjust your Red Hat Network infrastructure as your organization grows and changes.
To change an individual entitlement, select the checkbox to the left of the system, then click the button that corresponds to the entitlement you wish to add. If clicking on an entitlement fails to update the information in the table, you may need to purchase additional entitlements. Check the number of available subscriptions, listed in bold below the table. Non-RHN Satellite Server customers may purchase more entitlements; click the Buy Now link at the left of the page to do so.
When an entitlement expires, the last system entitled to the same service level (such as Management) will be unentitled. For instance, if you have 10 Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS systems entitled to Management and either one of the RHN entitlements or one of the operating system subscriptions expire, the last system subscribed or entitled will have their subscription or entitlement removed.
6.3.4.2. Software Channel Entitlements
The software channels listed on this page are the subscription-based channels to which your organization has paid access. The table lists each of the supported operating systems that can be managed via RHN, the number of such systems you have registered with RHN, and finally the remaining number of entitlements for that operating system. Clicking on the name of the channel opens a page that displays information about the channels associated with that channel entitlement. Clicking on the number of entitled systems displays a list of the systems so entitled.
6.3.4.3. Purchase or Renew
This page is only visible to RHN Hosted customers.
As the title suggests, this page provides links to the main Red Hat site, from which you can renew or purchase entitlements. The Red Hat Renewal Center can renew both your Red Hat Enterprise Linux subscription and your Red Hat Network entitlements. The Red Hat Store can provide additional entitlements.
6.3.4.4. Expiration Dates & Purchase History
The Purchase History page provides a link to the main Red Hat site, where you can view your purchase history and the expiration dates for web and phone support, Red Hat Enterprise Linux subscriptions, and Red Hat Network software and service entitlements.