https://access.redhat.com/support/cases/#/case/02855547

On an already licensed RH VM I executed the command "subscription-manager list --consumed" and made a note of the "Pool ID: 8a85f99b68b939730169079174316632". Is this not the correct way to get the <subscription pool ID>?

1. convert2rhel --debug --username rsrmis --password ********** --pool 8a85f99b68b939730169079174316632 --enablerepo=rhel-6-server-rpms --enablerepo=rhel-6-server-optional-rpms
   ...
   [01/04/2021 17:57:25] TASK - [Convert: Subscription Manager - Subscribe system] *****************
   Building subscription-manager command ...
   ... activation key not found, username and password required
   ... username detected
   ... password detected
   Registering system by running subscription-manager command ...
   [01/04/2021 17:57:25] DEBUG - Calling command 'subscription-manager register --force --username=rsrmis --password="*****"'
   Registering to: subscription.rhsm.redhat.com:443/subscription
   The system has been registered with ID: 8a47ec33-7a74-4ed4-85d3-e1be5de9e738
   The registered system name is: WEB-MAINT
   Attaching provided subscription pool ID to the system ...
   [01/04/2021 17:57:38] DEBUG - Calling command 'subscription-manager attach --pool 8a85f99b68b939730169079174316632'
   No subscriptions are available from the pool with ID "8a85f99b68b939730169079174316632".
   CRITICAL - Unsuccessful attachment of a subscription.

Customer is having two types of subscription in his account.

1) Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Virtual Datacenters ---> Hypervisor based
2) Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server (Physical or Virtual Nodes) ---> Instance based

Pool ID cannot be obtained directly from the 1st subscription as Virtual Datacenter requires virt-who configurations.

In order to obtain the pool ID, customer can use the instance based subscription i.e Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server (Physical or Virtual Nodes). This subscription can be attached directly on the system irrespective of the hypervisor on which VM is running.

Please note that the virtual datacenter subscription is a hypervisor based subscription and its subscribing technique is different from the normal instance based subscription. VDC subscription can only be attached to the hypervisor and then it will unlock the derived virtual pool which can only be used to subscribe the guests hosted on subscribed hypervisor. The VMs will automatically fetch the derived virtual pool of Virtual datacenter subscription while performing auto-attach. Direct pool ID cannot be generated for the Virtual Datacenter subscription and that is the reason it was suggested to use the instance based subscription to obtain the Pool ID.