Introduction to the Guide
Welcome to the Red Hat Network 3.7 Reference Guide. The RHN Reference Guide will guide you
through registering your system with Red Hat Network and using its many features.
Since Red Hat Network offers a variety of service levels, from the most basic Update module to the
most advanced Monitoring package, some content of this guide may be inapplicable to you. This is
particularly true of the RHN website, which displays selected categories, pages, and tabs depending
on the entitlement level of the account used to log in. Refer to Chapter 6 Red Hat Network Website to
determine what is available to you.
Depending on which version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux you have installed, the Red Hat Network
Registration Client and the Red Hat Update Agent might be different than the ones described in
this manual as new features are added. Once you use Red Hat Network to update these applications,
you can use the latest version of this manual.
All versions of this manual are available in HTML and PDF formats at
http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/RHNetwork/.
This version of the manual covers version 4.2.38 of the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 Red Hat Update
Agent and versions 2.9.14 and 2.9.12 of the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 2.1 Red Hat Update Agent
and Red Hat Network Registration Client, respectively.
Warning
Systems running Red Hat Enterprise Linux 2.1 will need to use the separate Red Hat Network
Registration Clientbefore starting the RedHat UpdateAgent. Refer toChapter 5Red HatNetwork
Registration Client for instructions. Systems running Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 can go directly to
the Red Hat Update Agent, which has registration functionality built in. Refer to Chapter 2 Red Hat
Update Agent for instructions.
For an overview of Red Hat Network offerings, please review the descriptions available at
http://www.redhat.com/software/rhn/ .
1. Document Conventions
When you read this manual, certain words are represented in different fonts, typefaces, sizes, and
weights. This highlighting is systematic; different words are represented in the same style to indicate
their inclusion in a specific category. The types of words that are represented this way include the
following:
command
Linux commands (and other operating system commands, when used) are represented this way.
This style should indicate to you that you can type the word or phrase on the command line
and press [Enter] to invoke a command. Sometimes a command contains words that would be
displayed in a different style on their own (such as file names). In these cases, they are considered
to be part of the command, so the entire phrase is displayed as a command. For example:
Use the cat testfilecommand to view the contents of a file,named testfile, inthe current
working directory.
file name
File names, directory names, paths, and RPM package names are represented this way. This style
should indicate that a particular file or directory exists by that name on your system. Examples:
