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:
Stopping the VM and appending the license to the boot disk
Validating the license and starting the VM
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
-
Install the Google Cloud CLI, then initialize it by running the following command:
gcloud init
- Set a default region and zone.
-
Append the RHEL ELS license
Append the RHEL ELS license to the Linux VM's boot disk by using the following procedure:
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.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.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.Get the name of the boot disk by running the
gcloud compute disks list
command:gcloud compute disks list
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 stepZONE
: the zone containing the boot diskRHEL_ELS_VERSION
: the RHEL ELS version. For example,rhel-7-els
.
Validate the RHEL ELS license
Check that the RHEL ELS license is appended to the Linux VM boot disk by using the following procedure:
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 licenseZONE
: the zone containing the boot disk
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
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 thegcloud beta compute disks update
command.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 startENCRYPTION_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:
RHEL 7
Check that you are using RHEL 7.9 or RHEL 7.9 for SAP:
cat /etc/redhat-release
Download and install the latest update:
sudo yum -y update
Remove the RHUI client packages and install the RHUI ELS client package:
sudo yum -y remove google-rhui-client-rhel7 google-rhui-client-rhel79-sap google-rhui-client-rhel7-sap sudo yum makecache sudo yum -y install google-rhui-client-rhel7-els
RHEL 6
Check that you are using RHEL 6.10:
cat /etc/redhat-release
Download and install the latest update:
sudo yum -y update
Remove the RHUI client package and install the RHUI ELS client package:
sudo yum -y remove google-rhui-client-rhel6 sudo yum makecache sudo yum -y install google-rhui-client-rhel6-els
View audit logs
View the history of license updates by using the following procedure:
In the Google Cloud console, go to the Activity page.
In the Filters pane in Categories, for Activity types select Configuration.
In the Filters pane in Categories, for the Resource type select Disk.