Red Hat LINUX ADVANCED SERVER 2.1 -, User Reference Manual

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Section 1.4:Before You Begin 13
1.3 Security, Quality Assurance, and Red Hat
Network
Red Hat Network provides significant benefits to your network including security and quality assur-
ance. All transactions made between you and Red Hat Network are encrypted, and all RPM packages
are signed with Red Hat’s GNU Privacy Guard (GPG) signature to ensure authenticity.
Red Hat Network incorporates the following security measures:
1. Your System Profile available at http://www.redhat.com/network/ is only accessible with the
correct user name and password.
2. A Digital Certificate stored on the client system in the file
/etc/sysconfig/rhn/systemid
after registration is used to authenticate the system during each transaction between the client and
Red Hat Network.
3. All notifications and information messages are signed by Red Hat with an electronic signature us-
ing GPG. The
rpm
utility can be used to verify the authenticity of the package before it is installed.
4. All transactions are encrypted using a Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) connection.
5. All packages are tested and verified by the Red Hat Quality Assurance Team before they are added
to the Red Hat errata list and Red Hat Network.
1.4 Before You Begin
Red Hat Network is available for Red Hat Linux 6.2 and higher. For instructions on configuring Red
Hat Linux 6.2 for Red Hat Network, refer to Chapter 7, Using Red Hat Network with Red Hat Linux
6.2.
By default, all the software packages you need to use Red Hat Network are installed with Red Hat
Linux 7 and higher. However, if you chose not to install them during the installation process or per-
formed an upgrade from Red Hat Linux 6.2 or lower, you might not have the
Red Hat Network
Registration Client
or the
Red Hat Update Agent
installed. To verify that the
Red Hat Network
Registration Client
is installed, type the following command:
rpm -q rhn_register
If the Red Hat Network Registration Client is installed, it will return something similar to
rhn_register-1.0-7
The version number might differ slightly if you have a newer version installed.
If you do not have Red Hat Network Registration Client installed, the command will return