Connecting redmine issue http://projects.theforeman.org/issues/17721 from this bug

Moving this bug to POST for triage into Satellite 6 since the upstream issue http://projects.theforeman.org/issues/17721 has been resolved.

so, the fix is introducing another problem.  The override is in fact now overriding my fqdn.  The katello.facts file being static is not a good idea. I spent hours trying to figure out why all of my hostname settings were not being reflected during registration.

I agree that caching the hostname in a static file is a bad idea. I've run in to the issue where "hostname -f" fails and an empty string is cached in the file, but I've also recently run in to an issue where a registered RHEL VM is cloned, and when you change the hostname and IP, reboot, and try to re-register the new system, it just overwrites the registration in Satellite of the original VM because it's still using the original VM's cached hostname. I don't see how there is any sense is caching the hostname in a separate file when it's available easily in the HOSTNAME environment variable or the "hostname" command for any applications running on the system.

Its a temporary measure to work around differences in how puppet and subscription-manager report the hostname.  It is obsoleted by:

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1367126

and by installing the newest katello-agent (which will provide the fqdn fact if its not present).

VERIFIED.

@satellite-6.2.8-1.0.el7sat.noarch (snap3)
katello-installer-base-3.0.0.77-1.el7sat.noarch
tfm-rubygem-katello-3.0.0.103-1.el7sat.noarch

by following manual reproducer:

1. Create a VM that SAT (6.2.7) is not aware of (preferably behind NAT)

2. Simulate that `hostname -f` fails for on the VM
# cat > /usr/bin/hostname <<<'exit 1'

3. Install CA consumer certs
# rpm -Uvh http://$SAT/pub/katello-ca-consumer-latest.noarch.rpm

4. Check contents of /etc/rhsm/facts/katello.facts
# cat /etc/rhsm/facts/katello.facts
{"network.hostname-override":""}

5. Try to register to 6.2.7 
# subscription-manager register --force --username admin --password changeme
Registering to: <SATFQDN>:443/rhsm
Validation failed: Name can't be blank, Name is invalid

>>> REPRODUCED


6. Upgrade SAT to 6.2.8

7. Check contents of /etc/rhsm/facts/katello.facts
# cat /etc/rhsm/facts/katello.facts
{"network.hostname-override":""}

8. Register to 6.2.8
# subscription-manager register --force --username admin --password changeme
Registering to: <SATFQDN>:443/rhsm
The system has been registered with ID: f4c33c48-34a2-4b0b-8df4-05a3a0e8b4e4 

>>> VERIFIED that though network.hostname-override is empty the VM registers
>>> re-registration of already (before the fix) registered client succeeds


9. Simulate brand new registration
# subscription-manager unregister
# rpm -e $(rpm -qa katello-ca-consumer-*)
# rm -f /etc/rhsm/facts/katello.facts

10. Install CA consumer certs
# rpm -Uvh http://$SAT/pub/katello-ca-consumer-latest.noarch.rpm

11. Check contents of /etc/rhsm/facts/katello.facts
# cat /etc/rhsm/facts/katello.facts
cat: /etc/rhsm/facts/katello.facts: No such file or directory

12. Register new (not yet registered) client
# subscription-manager register --force --username admin --password changeme 
Registering to: <SATFQDN>:443/rhsm
The system has been registered with ID: 094873f8-3972-4879-9452-fc8af730ea11 

>>> VERIFIED that though /etc/rhsm/facts/katello.facts is no longer generated by /usr/bin/katello-rhsm-consumer the VM registers
>>> the new client registration succeeds

Since the problem described in this bug report should be
resolved in a recent advisory, it has been closed with a
resolution of ERRATA.

For information on the advisory, and where to find the updated
files, follow the link below.

If the solution does not work for you, open a new bug report.

https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHBA-2017:0447

This is good information as we hit this with virt-customize on a minimal kickstart image.