Append RHEL ELS licenses

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When a Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) version reaches end of maintenance and your OS image uses an on-demand license, support and access to these VMs are limited according to the Maintenance policy for lifecycle stage.

For extended support, which provides critical impact security fixes and selected urgent priority bug fixes, you can append the RHEL Extended Life Cycle Support (ELS) Add-On. The ELS Add-On applies to the last minor release of a major release as follows:

• For RHEL 7, the ELS Add-On applies to the latest minor release which is RHEL 7.9 or RHEL 7.9 for SAP. The ELS Add-On for RHEL 7 is available until June 30, 2028.
• For RHEL 6, the ELS Add-On applies to the latest minor release which is RHEL 6.10. The ELS Add-On for RHEL 6 is available until June 30, 2024.

For more information, see the RHEL Life Cycle and the FAQ.

This document shows you how to append the ELS Add-On to RHEL VMs that have on-demand licenses for their images and have reached end of maintenance. The ELS Add-On is appended automatically to the RHEL 6.10 VMs when you migrate them to Google Cloud.

Append ELS licenses

Append the ELS license by doing the following for each VM:

1. Stopping the VM and appending the license to the boot disk

2. Validating the license and starting the VM

3. Installing the Red Hat Update Infrastructure (RHUI) ELS client package on the VM

Billing

After you attach RHEL ELS to a disk, Compute Engine adds an additional SKU to your bill.

For example if you are using RHEL 7, your bill includes one line item for RHEL 7 and another for RHEL 7 ELS.

You are billed for RHEL VMs according to the pricing for premium images.

Limitations

• You must stop a VM before appending a license.

Before you begin

• The ELS Add-On only applies to the latest minor release. For each RHEL VM, update to the latest minor release by connecting to the VM and running the following command:

  sudo yum -y update

• Make sure you have the following permissions on the boot disk:

  • compute.disks.get
  • compute.disks.update
• If you haven't already, then set up authentication. Authentication is the process by which your identity is verified for access to Google Cloud services and APIs. To run code or samples from a local development environment, you can authenticate to Compute Engine by selecting one of the following options:
  

  Select the tab for how you plan to use the samples on this page:

  Console

  When you use the Google Cloud console to access Google Cloud services and APIs, you don't need to set up authentication.

  gcloud

  1. Install the Google Cloud CLI, then initialize it by running the following command:

     gcloud init

  2. Set a default region and zone.

Append the RHEL ELS license

Permissions required for this task

To perform this task, you must have the following permissions:

• compute.disks.update on the boot disk

Append the RHEL ELS license to the Linux VM's boot disk by using the following procedure:

1. Stop the VM by using the gcloud compute instances stop command:

   gcloud compute instances stop VM_NAME
   

   Replace VM_NAME with the name of the VM to stop.

2. List the disks associated with the VM by using the gcloud compute instances describe command:

   gcloud compute instances describe VM_NAME --format="yaml(disks)"
   

   Replace VM_NAME with the name of the VM.

3. Verify that the output is similar to the following:

   disks:
   - autoDelete: true
     boot: true
     deviceName: persistent-disk-0
     diskSizeGb: '20'
     index: 0
     interface: SCSI
     kind: compute#attachedDisk
     licenses:
     - https://www.googleapis.com/compute/v1/projects/rhel-cloud/global/licenses/RHEL_VERSION
     mode: READ_WRITE
     source: https://www.googleapis.com/compute/v1/projects/PROJECT_NAME/zones/ZONE/disks/VM_NAME
     type: PERSISTENT
   

   Note that no userLicenses have been appended yet.

4. Get the name of the boot disk by running the gcloud compute disks list command:

   gcloud compute disks list
   

5. Update the boot disk with the RHEL ELS license URI by using the gcloud beta compute disks update command:

   gcloud beta compute disks update BOOT_DISK_NAME \
      --zone ZONE \
      --update-user-licenses="https://www.googleapis.com/compute/v1/projects/rhel-cloud/global/licenses/RHEL_ELS_VERSION"
   

   Replace the following:

   • RHEL_VERSION: the RHEL version. For example, rhel-7-server.

   • BOOT_DISK_NAME: the name of the boot disk obtained in the previous step

   • ZONE: the zone containing the boot disk

   • RHEL_ELS_VERSION: the RHEL ELS version. For example, rhel-7-els.

Validate the RHEL ELS license

Permissions required for this task

To perform this task, you must have the following permissions:

• compute.disks.get on the boot disk

Check that the RHEL ELS license is appended to the Linux VM boot disk by using the following procedure:

1. Get information about the boot disk by using the gcloud beta compute disks describe command:

   gcloud beta compute disks describe BOOT_DISK_NAME \
      --zone ZONE
   

   Replace the following:

   • BOOT_DISK_NAME: the name of the boot disk to check for the appended license

   • ZONE: the zone containing the boot disk

2. Verify that the output is similar to the following:

   creationTimestamp: '2021-05-05T15:26:27.835-07:00'
   id: '727854272460268924'
   interface: SCSI
   kind: compute#disk
   labelFingerprint: 42WmSpB8rSM=
   lastAttachTimestamp: '2021-05-05T15:26:27.836-07:00'
   licenseCodes:
   - '1000006'
   - '6213885950785916969'
   licenses:
   - https://www.googleapis.com/compute/v1/projects/rhel-cloud/global/licenses/RHEL_VERSION
   multiWriter: false
   name: VM_NAME
   physicalBlockSizeBytes: '4096'
   selfLink: https://www.googleapis.com/compute/beta/projects/PROJECT_NAME/zones/ZONE/disks/DISK_NAME
   selfLinkWithId: https://www.googleapis.com/compute/beta/projects/PROJECT_NAME/zones/ZONE/disks/DISK_ID
   sizeGb: '20'
   sourceImage: https://www.googleapis.com/compute/beta/projects/IMAGE_PROJECT/global/images/IMAGE
   sourceImageId: '7397991294075835597'
   status: READY
   type: https://www.googleapis.com/compute/beta/projects/PROJECT_NAME/zones/ZONE/diskTypes/DISK_TYPE
   userLicenses:
   - https://www.googleapis.com/compute/v1/projects/rhel-cloud/global/licenses/RHEL_ELS_VERSION
   users:
   - https://www.googleapis.com/compute/beta/projects/PROJECT_NAME/zones/ZONE/instances/VM_NAME
   zone: https://www.googleapis.com/compute/beta/projects/PROJECT_NAME/zones/ZONE
   

3. Validate that the RHEL ELS license is appended to the Linux VM boot disk by checking the output of the previous step for the userLicenses field for the appropriate license string.

   If the userLicenses field doesn't contain the intended licensing string, you might need to clear and then update the user licenses. For more information, see the gcloud beta compute disks update command.

4. Start the VM by using the gcloud compute instances start command:

   gcloud compute instances start VM_NAME \
      [--csek-key-file ENCRYPTION_KEY]
   

   Replace the following:

   • VM_NAME: the name of the VM to start

   • ENCRYPTION_KEY: an optional flag that specifies the path to the Customer-Supplied Encryption Key (CSEK) file if the boot disk is encrypted

Install the RHUI ELS client package

After appending the license string to the RHEL disk, install the RHUI ELS client package on the VM by connecting to the VM and running the following commands:

View audit logs

View the history of license updates by using the following procedure:

1. In the Google Cloud console, go to the Activity page.

   Go to Activity

2. In the Filters pane in Categories, for Activity types select Configuration.

3. In the Filters pane in Categories, for the Resource type select Disk.