Frequently Asked Questions

Learn the answers to frequently asked questions about BigFix EUS/ELS Patch Add-Ons for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5, 6, 7 and 8.

What are the prerequisites for Red Hat?

Access to EUS repos requires the Extended Update Support feature as part of your Red Hat OS license subscription.  Red Hat’s online store says it is an add-on to the Standard subscription and is included in a Premium subscription.
The following examples are from the Red Hat store and are not owned or controlled by HCL.
From https://www.redhat.com/en/store/red-hat-enterprise-linux-server



From https://www.redhat.com/en/store/red-hat-enterprise-linux-virtual-datacenters



Access to ELS repos requires purchasing the Extended Life Cycle Support Add-On from Red Hat, which is available to Standard and Premium subscriptions only. See https://www.redhat.com/en/resources/els-datasheet.

RedHat Enterprise accounts and terms with RedHat may vary. For certainty, you should confirm licensing details with your RedHat license representative.

Are SAP, Resilient Storage and the other add-ons for RHEL 6 included in the ELS content?

Red Hat does not offer support to any RHEL 6 add on repositories under its ELS program. See https://access.redhat.com/articles/4665701 for more information.

On November 30, when ELS was started for RHEL 6, Red Hat published two new repositories:
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 Server - Extended Life (RPMs)
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 Server - Extended Life Cycle Support - Optional (RPMs)

RHEL Extended Support includes applicable patch Fixlets for updates released through these two new repositories.

Why does my EUS and ELS patch actions keep failing?

The two most common reasons for EUS and ELS patch action failures are:

  • The GPG key has not yet been imported to the endpoint being patched.
  • The RHSM entitlement certificate(s) being used for the RHSM Download Plugin on the BigFix root server are invalid or expired.
Both of these issues manifest themselves by actions failing the exit line near the end, as shown in the following figure:
Figure 1. EUS and ELS patch failing


If the GPG key is not imported, run the Import RPM-GPG-KEY-redhat-release task (which is fixlet ID 10 in each of the RHEL Extended Support patch sites) on the endpoints in question.

To check whether the Red Hat subscription entitlement certificates used by the RHSM Download Plugin are valid, open a command prompt window and run this command in the RHSMProtocol folder (typically C:\Program Files (x86)\BigFix Enterprise\BES Server\DownloadPlugins\RHSMProtocol) on your BigFix root server:
rhsmplugin –checkallrepos

If repos show as not enabled, try re-downloading your RHSM subscription entitlement certificates from the RHSM portal at access.redhat.com.

To diagnose these or other Red Hat patch action failures, it can be helpful to review the EDRDeploymentResults.txt file which contains a log of the RHEL patch Fixlet’s activity. The file can be found in the /var/opt/BESClient/EDRDeployData/ folder on each BigFix RHEL client.

Can I use the Yum Transaction History dashboard to undo EUS and ELS updates?

Undoing a yum transaction involves re-installing the package that was installed prior to the yum transaction. If the prior version was sourced from a Full or Maintenance repository (pre-EUS/pre-ELS), then undoing the transaction using the dashboard will work. If the prior version was sourced from an EUS or ELS repository, the dashboard cannot undo the transaction.

Can I use the EUS or ELS patch fixlets without using the RHSM download plugin?

You can use the EUS and ELS patch fixlets without using the download plugin by enabling custom repository support via the Enable Custom Repository Support fixlet (fixlet ID 13) in the Patching Support site, just as you would do when using the standard Patches for RHEL sites.
Each computer to be patched must have Internet access and must have the EUS/ELS repositories enabled using the RHSM subscription-manager tool to install EUS or ELS patches without using the plugin.

What are the special disk space requirements?

All repository metadata and update packages are cached locally under /var/opt/BESClient/rhsmyum/cache, similarly to how standard Patches for RHEL packages are cached. This data is not subject to the BigFix client cache size limitations and can range up to 3GB in some cases.

When are the RHEL Extended Support patch sites added to WebUI and SCA?

The RHEL Extended Support patch sites were added to the BigFix WebUI in January 2021. They are scheduled to be added as patch sites to BigFix SCA in March 2021.