How To Create a Red Hat Developer Account And Activate Your RHEL Subscription For Free

Are you a software developer looking to expand your skills and knowledge by working with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)? Then you’ll need a Red Hat Developer account. Not only does this give you access to Red Hat’s developer tools and resources, but you can also activate your RHEL subscription for free. In this blog post, we’ll show you how to create a Red Hat Developer account and activate your RHEL subscription, so you can start taking advantage of all that RHEL has to offer. Whether you’re a seasoned Linux user or just starting out, this guide will help you get started with RHEL and take your development skills to the next level.

The Red Hat Developer program offers numerous benefits to software developers and IT professionals. By joining the program, you gain access to Red Hat’s robust collection of development tools and resources, including the latest version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). You can also receive support from Red Hat experts, participate in the thriving Red Hat Developer Community, and attend events and training sessions to learn about new technologies and best practices. In addition, with a Red Hat Developer Subscription, you can download and use RHEL for free, giving you the opportunity to build, test, and deploy your applications on a reliable and secure platform.

Step 1: Create a Red Hat account

If you already have a Red Hat account then skip this step and move on to Step 2. Otherwise, navigate to the Red Hat Customer Portal and select the Register option.

Follow the registration instructions to create your Red Hat account. Ensure you select the ‘Personal’ Account Type option.

Step 2: Download RHEL for free

Navigate to Red Hat Developer and log in to your Red Hat account. Select the ‘Red Hat Enterprise Linux’ option from the ‘Products & technologies’ drop-down at the top of the page.

On the RHEL download page you will see the options to download an ISO image of RHEL. The latest release is version 9.1.

Alternatively, you could use the image builder option to create a cloud-ready image and push it to a target environment such as AWS, GCP or Azure.

Step 3: Install RHEL and connect to Red Hat to register your RHEL subscription

Start the installation process and follow the on-screen instructions to select your language, keyboard layout, time zone, and other settings. You’ll also need to create a root password and configure partitioning for your hard drive.

During the installation process you can connect to Red Hat to register your RHEL subscription.

Input your Red Hat account details and register your system.

Once the installation process is complete your computer will restart and boot into RHEL. You can now start using and configuring RHEL to meet your specific needs.

If you failed to register your system for a RHEL subscription during the installation you can still do it anytime after installation using this subscription-manager command:

subscription-manager register --username=<redhat_account_username> --password=<redhat_account_password> --auto-attach

Your system can now consume Red Hat provided content. Download packages from the online repositories and install the latest security updates.

Step 4: Manage your RHEL subscription

You can manage your RHEL subscriptions on the Red Hat Subscription Management page. On this page it’s helpful to note the date when your subscription will require renewal. In a future post I will cover How to renew your Red Hat Developer Subscription for Individuals when it expires.

Click ‘Red Hat Developer Subscription for Individuals‘ and you can view all the entitlement details.

Conclusion

Registering you RHEL systems is a simple process. Once your subscription is active, you can register a very generous 16 physical or virtual nodes with Red Hat Cloud Access.

For example:

• If your development system is running Windows, you can create 16 Red Hat Enterprise Linux virtual nodes on your Windows system using VirtualBox, VMware, or Microsoft Hyper-V.
• If you install Red Hat Enterprise Linux on a physical system, you will use one physical node; then you may create 15 additional virtual nodes on that system using KVM/libvirt virtualization or another hypervisor.
• Using Cloud Access, you can provision 16 virtual instances in the clouds available from Red Hat’s Certified Cloud and Service Provider (CCSP) partners.