2.2.1. Registering with Activation Keys

Red Hat recommends using activation keys for registering and configuring client systems that access RHN Proxy Server or RHN Satellite Server. Activation keys can be used to register, entitle, and subscribe systems in a batch. Refer to the Activation Keys section of the Red Hat Update Agent chapter within the RHN Management Reference Guide for instructions on use.

Registering with an activation key has four basic steps:

Generate an Activation Key as described in the Activation Keys section of the Red Hat Update Agent chapter within the RHN Management Reference Guide
Import custom GPG keys.
Download and install the SSL Certificate RPM from the /pub/ directory of the RHN Proxy Server or RHN Satellite Server. The command for this step could look something like this:
```
 rpm -Uvh\ http://your-satellite.com/pub/rhn-org-trusted-ssl-cert-1.0-1.noarch.rpm 
```
Register the system with your RHN Proxy Server or RHN Satellite Server. The command for this step could look something like:
```
 rhnreg_ks --activationkey mykey --serverUrl https://your-satellite.com/XMLRPC 
```

Alternatively, most of the above steps can be combined in a shell script that includes the following lines:

 wget -0 - http://your-satellite-DQDN/pub/bootstrap.sh | bash \ && rhnreg_ks --activation-key my_key --serverUrl \ https://your-satellite-FQDN/XMLRPC

The bootstrap script, generated at installation and available for both RHN Satellite Server and RHN Proxy Server, is such a script. The script and the RHN Bootstrap that generates it are discussed in detail in Chapter 5, Using RHN Bootstrap.

Warning

Systems running Red Hat Enterprise Linux 2.1 and versions of Red Hat Linux prior to 8.0 may experience problems using Activation Keys to migrate SSL certificate settings from rhn_register to up2date. Therefore, the SSL certificate information on those systems must be set manually. All other settings, such as the server URL, transfer properly.