Upgrading RHEL 8 to RHEL 8.1

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8

Needed to reboot my Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 desktop anyway, so decided to upgrade it to RHEL 8.1.

Check That Your Software Subscription is Active

For example, I realised that I have still been using the RHEL 8 beta subscription instead of the Developers License. After completing Red Hat subscription registration, I got the following:

greys@redhat:~ $ sudo subscription-manager list
 +-------------------------------------------+
     Installed Product Status
 +-------------------------------------------+
 Product Name:   Red Hat Enterprise Linux for x86_64
 Product ID:     479
 Version:        8.1
 Arch:           x86_64
 Status:         Subscribed
 Status Details:
 Starts:         14/11/19
 Ends:           13/11/20

Upgrade Red Hat OS with yum-update

yum tools are more integrated that many people though! So I’m still using yum update instead of dnf:

root@redhat:~ # yum update
 Updating Subscription Management repositories.
 Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 for x86_64 - AppStream (RPMs)                                                              2.6 kB/s | 4.5 kB     00:01
 Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 for x86_64 - AppStream (RPMs)                                                              3.0 MB/s |  13 MB     00:04
 Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 for x86_64 - BaseOS (RPMs)                                                                 2.4 kB/s | 4.1 kB     00:01
 Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 for x86_64 - BaseOS (RPMs)                                                                 2.4 MB/s |  12 MB     00:04
 Last metadata expiration check: 0:00:01 ago on Thu 14 Nov 2019 21:28:59 GMT.
 Dependencies resolved.
  Package                                        Arch      Version                                           Repository                           Size
 Installing:
  yum-utils                                      noarch    4.0.8-3.el8                                       rhel-8-for-x86_64-baseos-rpms        64 k
      replacing  dnf-utils.noarch 4.0.2.2-3.el8
  kernel-debug-devel                             x86_64    4.18.0-147.0.3.el8_1                              rhel-8-for-x86_64-baseos-rpms        14 M
  kernel-devel                                   x86_64    4.18.0-147.0.3.el8_1                              rhel-8-for-x86_64-baseos-rpms        13 M
  kernel-core                                    x86_64    4.18.0-147.0.3.el8_1                              rhel-8-for-x86_64-baseos-rpms        25 M
  kernel                                         x86_64    4.18.0-147.0.3.el8_1                              rhel-8-for-x86_64-baseos-rpms       1.5 M
  kernel-modules                                 x86_64    4.18.0-147.0.3.el8_1                              rhel-8-for-x86_64-baseos-rpms        22 M
 Upgrading:
  netcf-libs                                     x86_64    0.2.8-12.module+el8.1.0+4066+0f1aadab             rhel-8-for-x86_64-appstream-rpms     77 k
  libXt                                          x86_64    1.1.5-12.el8                                      rhel-8-for-x86_64-appstream-rpms    185 k
  alsa-utils                                     x86_64    1.1.9-1.el8                                       rhel-8-for-x86_64-appstream-rpms    1.1 M
...
  podman-manpages                                noarch    1.4.2-5.module+el8.1.0+4240+893c1ab8              rhel-8-for-x86_64-appstream-rpms    180 k
  python3-pip-wheel                              noarch    9.0.3-15.el8                                      rhel-8-for-x86_64-baseos-rpms       1.2 M
  mozjs60                                        x86_64    60.9.0-3.el8                                      rhel-8-for-x86_64-baseos-rpms       6.7 M
  libssh-config                                  noarch    0.9.0-4.el8                                       rhel-8-for-x86_64-baseos-rpms        18 k
  python3-setuptools-wheel                       noarch    39.2.0-5.el8                                      rhel-8-for-x86_64-baseos-rpms       289 k
 Installing weak dependencies:
  oddjob-mkhomedir                               x86_64    0.34.4-7.el8                                      rhel-8-for-x86_64-appstream-rpms     52 k
  libvarlink                                     x86_64    18-3.el8                                          rhel-8-for-x86_64-baseos-rpms        44 k
 Transaction Summary
 Install   17 Packages
 Upgrade  646 Packages
 Total download size: 1.2 G
 Is this ok [y/N]:

Some 15min later I had my desktop in a much better shape:

...
   sos-3.7-6.el8_1.noarch
   hwdata-0.314-8.2.el8_1.noarch
   ca-certificates-2019.2.32-80.0.el8_1.noarch
   microcode_ctl-4:20190618-1.20191112.1.el8_1.x86_64
   kernel-tools-4.18.0-147.0.3.el8_1.x86_64
   kernel-headers-4.18.0-147.0.3.el8_1.x86_64
   bpftool-4.18.0-147.0.3.el8_1.x86_64
   kernel-tools-libs-4.18.0-147.0.3.el8_1.x86_64
   python3-perf-4.18.0-147.0.3.el8_1.x86_64
 Installed:
   yum-utils-4.0.8-3.el8.noarch                                            kernel-debug-devel-4.18.0-147.0.3.el8_1.x86_64
   kernel-devel-4.18.0-147.0.3.el8_1.x86_64                                kernel-core-4.18.0-147.0.3.el8_1.x86_64
   kernel-4.18.0-147.0.3.el8_1.x86_64                                      kernel-modules-4.18.0-147.0.3.el8_1.x86_64
   oddjob-mkhomedir-0.34.4-7.el8.x86_64                                    libvarlink-18-3.el8.x86_64
   python3-argcomplete-1.9.3-6.el8.noarch                                  oddjob-0.34.4-7.el8.x86_64
   tbb-2018.2-9.el8.x86_64                                                 gnome-shell-extension-horizontal-workspaces-3.32.1-10.el8.noarch
   podman-manpages-1.4.2-5.module+el8.1.0+4240+893c1ab8.noarch             python3-pip-wheel-9.0.3-15.el8.noarch
   mozjs60-60.9.0-3.el8.x86_64                                             libssh-config-0.9.0-4.el8.noarch
   python3-setuptools-wheel-39.2.0-5.el8.noarch
 Complete!
 root@redhat:~ #

And that’s it! I rebooted the server and my OS is RHEL 8.1 now:

greys@redhat:~ $ more /etc/redhat-release
Red Hat Enterprise Linux release 8.1 (Ootpa)
greys@redhat:~ $ uname -a
Linux redhat 4.18.0-147.0.3.el8_1.x86_64 #1 SMP Mon Nov 11 12:58:36 UTC 2019 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

See Also



Web Console in RHEL8

I’m not a fan of web interfaces for managing Linux systems and usually don’t see them unless a hosting provider preinstalled something. But it seems my default Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 in a VirtualBox VM got the web console enabled by default.

Accessing Web Console in RHEL8

I see reminder of the web console upon every SSH login into the VM:

Web console: https://rhel8:9090/ or https://192.168.X.Y:9090/

So, connection to the virtual machine’s IP address on port 9090 will open the RHEL8 web console:

Web console in RHEL8

Screenshots of Web Console in RHEL8

Here are just the screenshots of the web panel, it seems most of the common tasks can now be accomplished using the panel – from joining AD domain to managing users, updates, disk storage and subscriptions. Pretty cool!

What do you like most in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8? Let me know!

See Also



List RHEL subscriptions

Screen Shot 2019-01-28 at 22.45.00.pngIf you’re lucky to be working with a recent enough version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) – namely, anything after RHEL 5.7 and RHEL 6.1, then you should know what software subscriptions are and how to list them.

List active subscriptions in Red Hat

subscription-manager is a Linux command in RHEL, you run it with the list option to show what current subscriptions are active for your server.

Here’s how this looks on my recently build RHEL8 beta virtual machine:

[root@rhel8 ~]# subscription-manager list
+-------------------------------------------+
Installed Product Status
+-------------------------------------------+
Product Name: Red Hat Enterprise Linux for x86_64 Beta
Product ID: 486
Version: 8.0 Beta
Arch: x86_64
Status: Subscribed
Status Details:
Starts: 23/11/18
Ends: 22/11/19

If you attempt running the same command as a regular user, you’ll probably need to authenticate (tell the root password) first:

[greys@rhel8 ~]$ subscription-manager list
You are attempting to run "subscription-manager" which requires administrative
privileges, but more information is needed in order to do so.
Authenticating as "root"
Password:
...

List all the available subscriptions in Red Hat

It may well be that you have multiple subsriptions available as part of your setup – for instance, you might have additional software installed that is maintained and supported by Red Hat, but uses separate subscription channel instead of being supplied with the default OS one.

You can use the same subscription-manager command to list all the available subscriptions:

[root@rhel8 ~]# subscription-manager list --available
+-------------------------------------------+
Available Subscriptions
+-------------------------------------------+
Subscription Name: Red Hat Developer Subscription
Provides: dotNET on RHEL Beta (for RHEL Server)
Red Hat Enterprise Linux for SAP
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Resilient Storage (for RHEL Server)
Red Hat Ansible Engine
RHEL for SAP HANA - Update Services for SAP Solutions
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Scalable File System (for RHEL Server) - Extended Update Support
RHEL for SAP HANA - Extended Update Support
Red Hat Container Images Beta
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Atomic Host Beta
Red Hat Container Images
Red Hat Enterprise Linux High Availability (for RHEL Server) - Extended Update Support
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Load Balancer (for RHEL Server)
Red Hat Container Development Kit
Red Hat Beta
Red Hat EUCJP Support (for RHEL Server) - Extended Update Support
RHEL for SAP (for IBM Power LE) - Update Services for SAP Solutions
MRG Realtime
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Load Balancer (for RHEL Server) - Extended Update Support
dotNET on RHEL (for RHEL Server)
Red Hat Enterprise Linux High Availability - Update Services for SAP Solutions
Oracle Java (for RHEL Server)
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - Update Services for SAP Solutions
Red Hat Software Collections (for RHEL Server)
Red Hat Enterprise Linux for ARM 64
Red Hat Enterprise Linux High Availability (for RHEL Server)
Red Hat Enterprise Linux High Performance Networking (for RHEL Server)
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Scalable File System (for RHEL Server)
Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Real Time
Red Hat Enterprise Linux High Performance Networking (for RHEL Server) - Extended Update Support
RHEL for SAP - Update Services for SAP Solutions
Oracle Java (for RHEL Server) - Extended Update Support
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Atomic Host
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - Extended Update Support
Red Hat Developer Tools (for RHEL Server)
Red Hat Software Collections Beta (for RHEL Server)
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server
Red Hat Developer Tools Beta (for RHEL Server)
RHEL for SAP - Extended Update Support
Red Hat Developer Toolset (for RHEL Server)
Red Hat Enterprise Linux High Performance Networking (for RHEL Compute Node)
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Resilient Storage (for RHEL Server) - Extended Update Support
Red Hat Enterprise Linux for SAP Hana
Red Hat S-JIS Support (for RHEL Server) - Extended Update Support
SKU: RH00798
Contract:
Pool ID: 8a85f99a65c8c8a1016698f9e87423fe
Provides Management: No
Available: 16
Suggested: 1
Service Level: Self-Support
Service Type:
Subscription Type: Standard
Starts: 21/10/18
Ends: 21/10/19
System Type: Physical

Pretty impressive, isn’t it? Can’t wait to try some of these out, Red Hat Developer Tools, Red Hat Container Images and Red Hat Enterprise Linux High Availability all sound fun!

See Also



screenFetch in RHEL 8

Look what I have finally installed in one of my VirtualBox 6.0 virtual machines yesterday:

Screen Shot 2019-01-16 at 16.01.08.png

Yes, you guessed it right – the installation steps for screenFetch CentOS work in Red Hat just fine!

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 beta

I’m surprised the screenFetch isn’t reporting release version. Had to use the hostnamectl command to do this:

[greys@rhel8 ~]$ hostnamectl
Static hostname: rhel8
Icon name: computer-vm
Chassis: vm
Machine ID: 02b5e17ce41846fbaa965ee1c3678162
Boot ID: b36e64b343934359843d2e76db34e8af
Virtualization: oracle
Operating System: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.0 Beta (Ootpa)
CPE OS Name: cpe:/o:redhat:enterprise_linux:8.0:beta
Kernel: Linux 4.18.0-32.el8.x86_64
Architecture: x86-64

See Also