Short tip: RHEL7 channels not available to Red Hat Satellite 5.6
It is possible that RHEL7 channels aren't available to Red Hat Satellite even though you're having a valid Red Hat Enterprise Linux subscription.
The appropriate software channel (rhel-x86_64-server-7) is not part of the list of available channels - it also cannot be downloaded manually:
1# satellite-sync --list-channels|grep "server-*7"
2# satellite-sync -c rhel-x86_64-server-7
316:17:48 Red Hat Satellite - live synchronization
4...
516:23:23 ERROR: these channels either do not exist or are not available:
616:23:23 rhel-x86_64-server-7
716:23:23 (to see a list of channel labels: /usr/bin/satellite-sync --list-channels)
The solution was pretty simple in my case - I fixed it by re-generating the Satellite certificate and re-activating the server at Red Hat Network. To do this you need so select your appropriate Satellite system in RHN beneath the following folder structure: Subscriptions > Subscription management > Satellite
Select the button "Download Satellite Certificate" in the following form. The downloaded XML file is transfered to the server and the is system re-activated using rhn-satellite-activate afterwards. In my case all needed software channels were available immediately:
1# scp HOSTNAME.xml root@IP:/tmp
2# rhn-satellite-activate --rhn-cert=/tmp/HOSTNAME.xml
3# satellite-sync --list-channels|grep "server-*7"
4...
516:28:01 . rhel-x86_64-server-7 4459
616:28:03 rhel-x86_64-server-7:
716:28:03 . rhel-x86_64-server-7-debuginfo 1949
816:28:03 . rhel-x86_64-server-7-thirdparty-oracle-java 16
916:28:03 . rhel-x86_64-server-7-thirdparty-oracle-java-beta 0
1016:28:03 . rhn-tools-rhel-x86_64-server-7 20
1116:28:03 . rhn-tools-rhel-x86_64-server-7-debuginfo 0
12...
I'd like to thank Markus Koch from Red Hat GmbH who was able to help me with this issue quickly. 🙂