SAS Viya deployment: what is redhat server-optional subscription

[AmitSri]

As per the deployment Guide,  To use Ansible for the deployment, the Ansible controller machine must be connected to the Red Hat Network with a Server-Optional subscription in addition to the Base (operatingsystem) subscription. Could you please explain what is Server-Optional subscription? (We have registered RHEL7). Thanks!!

[JuanS_OCS]

Hello @AmitSri,

that is a step that is good-to-have, but I don't think it is a requirement. I am installing Viya on CentOS for testing purposes and CentOS does not have any subscription, of course.

What you will need, for sure, is to add the SAS repositories, to be able to download/install the SAS software, also in the deployment steps.

https://access.redhat.com/documentation/en-us/red_hat_subscription_management/1/html/rhsm/supplement...

https://access.redhat.com/solutions/265523

http://documentation.sas.com/?cdcId=calcdc&cdcVersion=3.2&docsetId=dplyml0phy0lax&docsetTarget=p1w4w...

[alexal]

@JuanS_OCS,

>> that is a step that is good-to-have, but I don't think it is a requirement.

This is not true. Server-Optional subscription is a requirement on RHEL!

[AmitSri]

Thanks Alex!!

How to obtain this. Will it come by default when we register RHEL? We have registered RHEL7.1 and if I do a command for subscription-manager version, I am unable to find server-optional subscription. Will it show some other words instead like extended RHEL etc. Thanks!!

[alexal]

@AmitSri,

What do you have in files in /etc/yum.repos.d/*?

For an example, here is rhel-mirror.repo from my server:

...
[rhel7-optional]
name=RHEL7 Optional
baseurl=http://<FQDN>/pub/vendor_pkgs/RedHat/7/x86_64/optional
gpgcheck=1
enabled=1
gpgkey=file:///etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-redhat-release
...

This might be specific to our organization.  Please check this page on Red Hat website:

How to access Optional and Supplementary channels, and -devel packages using Red Hat Subscription Ma...

[AmitSri]

Okay.. I too have found little similar to that. So does it means I do have server-optional subscription?

My outcome for the command /etc/yum.repos.d/* is:
....
[rhel-7server-e4s-optional-rpms]
baseurl=https://cdn.redhat.com/content/e4s/rhel/server/7/$releasesever//basearch/optional/os
and so on ....

[alexal]

@AmitSri,

No. Please check link below:

https://access.redhat.com/solutions/392003

[JuanS_OCS]

Thanks for the input @alexal