[rhn-users] Determining whether RHEL4 is registered?

[Timothy Kallinis]

On Wed, 7 Nov 2007, Alfred Hovdestad wrote:

> You should have a system_id in /etc/sysconfig/rhn/systemid.  That system_id 
> is generated when you register with RHN.  If you go to rhn.redhat.com, you 
> can look up your server and it should have the same system_id.  We have had 
> severs registered multiple times and the only way we found to identify the 
> last registration is by using the system_id.
>
>  Alfred Hovdestad, RHCE
>  University of Saskatchewan

Alfred, thanks for the info. I think this is what I need. Actually, I just 
noticed another file that could prove useful. I used a minimal RHEL4 
VMWare image for my initial testing and there weren't any tell-tale 
registration files under /etc/sysconfig/rhn. I've now tried a VMWare image 
of a full RHEL4 installation and I noticed the empty file:

/etc/sysconfig/rhn/rhn_register_remind

which did not exist in my initial minimal RHEL4 environment for whatever 
reason. I guess this file got deleted somehow since the system wasn't 
registered?

Anyhow, I think it would be better to use the systemid file to check for 
registration as you suggested; however, I don't want to check 
rhn.redhat.com for the registration status since I can't assume the server 
will be online when my package is installed. My package is actually on a 
CD. This is the logic I intend to use in the postinst scriptlet of my 
package:

If /etc/sysconfig/rhn/systemid exists then the system is registered 
otherwise it is not. Do you think this is sufficient? Also is the filename 
systemid or system_id? I don't have any registered systems at the moment, 
so I can't confirm this.

Regards,

Timothy Kallinis