Before You Begin - Red Hat NETWORK 2.9 - MANAGEMENT Reference Manual

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1.5. 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://rhn.redhat.com is accessible only with an RHN-verified
username and password.
2. A Digital Certificate is written to the client system after registration and is used to authenticate
the system during each transaction between the client and Red Hat Network. The file is only
readable by the root user on the client system.
3. All notifications and information messages are signed by Red Hat with an electronic signature
using GPG. RPM 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.
Tip
Refer to https://rhn.redhat.com/help/faq/ for a list of Frequently Asked Questions.

1.6. 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 6 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 may not have the Red Hat Network Reg-
istration Client or the Red Hat Update Agent installed. Remember, if you are a Red Hat Linux 8.0
or newer user, you do not need the Red Hat Network Registration Client. To determine if 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-2.8.27
The version number might differ slightly.
If you do not have the Red Hat Network Registration Client installed, the command will return
package rhn_register is not installed
Perform this check for every package in Table 1-1. If you prefer to use the command line versions,
you do not have to install the two packages ending in
Chapter 1. What is Red Hat Network?
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