Version 11.1.0.20
Abstract
These release notes are generic for all products that are part of our SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 product line. Some parts may not apply to a particular architecture or product. Where this is not obvious, the specific architectures or products are explicitly listed.
Startup and Deployment Guides can be found in the
docu directory on the media. Documentation (if
installed) can also be found below the
/usr/share/doc/
directory in an installed system.
This Novell product includes materials licensed to Novell under the GNU General Public License (GPL). The GPL requires that Novell makes available certain source code that corresponds to the GPL-licensed material. The source code is available for download at http://www.novell.com/linux/source/. Also, for up to three years from Novell's distribution of the Novell product, upon request Novell will mail a copy of the source code. Requests should be sent by e-mail to sle_source_request@novell.com or as otherwise instructed at http://www.novell.com/linux/source/. Novell may charge a fee to recover its reasonable costs of distribution.
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server is a highly reliable, scalable, and secure server operating system, built to power mission-critical workloads in both physical and virtual environments. It is an affordable, interoperable, and manageable open source foundation. With it, enterprises can cost-effectively deliver core business services, enable secure networks, and simplify the management of their heterogeneous IT infrastructure, maximizing efficiency and value.
The only enterprise Linux recommended by Microsoft and SAP, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server is optimized to deliver high-performance mission-critical services, as well as edge of network, and web infrastructure workloads.
Designed for interoperability, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server supports open standard CIM interfaces and can be managed by any management solution utilizing CIM.
This modular, general purpose operating system runs on five processor architectures and is available with optional extensions that provide advanced capabilities for real time computing, high availability clustering, and running .NET applications on Linux.
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server is optimized to run as a high performance guest on leading hypervisors and supports an unlimited number of virtual machines per physical system with a single subscription, making it the perfect guest operating system for virtual computing.
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server is backed by award-winning support from Novell, an established technology leader with a proven history of delivering enterprise-quality support services.
CJK Languages Support in Text-Mode Installation
CJK (Chinese, Japanese, and Korean) languages do not work properly during text-mode installation if framebuffer is not used (TextMode selected in boot loader).
There are three alternatives to resolve this issue:
Use English or some other non-CJK language for installation and then switch to the CJK language later on a running system using YaST -> System -> Language.
Use your CJK language during installation, but do not choose TextMode in boot loader using <F3>. Select one of the other VGA modes instead. Select the CJK language of your choice using <F2>, add "textmode=1" to the boot loader command-line and start Installation.
Use graphical installation (or install over SSH or VNC).
Installation using Persistent Device names
The installer uses persistent device names by default. If you plan to add additional storage devices to your system after the OS installation, we strongly recommend you use persistent device names for all storage devices.
To switch to persistent device names on a system that has already been installed, use the YaST2 partitioner. For each partition, select "Edit" and go to the "FStab Options" dialog. Any mount option except "Device name" provides you persistent device names. In addition, rerun the boot loader module in YaST to switch the bootloader to using the persistent device name. Just start the module and select "Finish" to write the new proposed configuration to disk. This needs to be done before adding new storage devices.
For further information please visit http://en.opensuse.org/Persistant_Storage_Device_Names.
Using qla3xxx and qla4xxx drivers at the same time
QLogic iSCSI Expansion Card for IBM BladeCenter provides both Ethernet and iSCSI functions. Some parts on the card are shared by both functions. The current qla3xxx (Ethernet) and qla4xxx (iSCSI) drivers support Ethernet and iSCSI function individually. They do not support using both functions at the same time. Using both Ethernet and iSCSI functions at the same time may hang the device and cause data loss and filesystem corruptions on iSCSI devices, or network disruptions on Ethernet.
Boot the installation with brokenmodules=qla3xxx or brokenmodules=qla4xxx to prevent one of the drivers from loading.
Using iSCSI Disks When Installing
To use iSCSI disks during installation it is necessary to add the
following parameter to the boot option line:
withiscsi=1
During installation an additional screen appears that provides the option to attach iSCSI disks to the system and use them in the installation process.
Booting from an iSCSI server on i386 and x86_64 is supported, when iSCSI enabled firmware is used.
Note: While the installer for SLES 11 SP1 for VMware supports iscsi install, it uses the software iscsi method. Native Broadcom iSCSI capabilities (which involves the software stack) aren't supported during installation.
Using EDD Information for Storage Device Identification
EDD information (/sys/firmware/edd/<device>) to
identify your storage devices are used by default. To disable this,
change the installer default settings using an additional kernel
parameter.
EDD Requirements:
BIOS provides full EDD information (found in
/sys/firmware/edd/<device>)
Disks are signed with a unique MBR signature (found in
/sys/firmware/edd/<device>/mbr_signature)
Procedure:
Add parameter edd=off to the kernel parameters to
disable EDD.
For more "Infrastructure, Package and Architecture specific Information", please see the respective chapter below.
GCC 4.3.4
glibc 2.11.1
Linux kernel 2.6.32
perl 5.10
php 5.2.6
python 2.6.0
ruby 1.8.7
Note: version numbers do not necessarily give the final patch- and security-status of an application, as Novell may have added additional patches to the specific version of an application.
Apache 2.2.10 - Webserver
Bind 9.5.0P2 - The Bind Domain Name Server
Samba 3.2.7
GNOME 2.28
GNOME was updated to the latest version and uses PulseAudio for sound.
KDE 4.3.5
KDE was updated to the latest 4.3.4 version.
X.org 7.4
PAM configuration
The common PAM configuration files
(/etc/pam.d/common-*) are now created and
managed with pam-config.
Basic SELinux enablement
In addition to AppArmor, SELinux capabilities were added to SUSE Linux Enterprise Server. While it is not enabled by default, and not supported, this will allow customers to enable and run SELinux with SUSE Linux Enterprise Server if they want to do so.
What does SELinux basic enablement mean?
The kernel will ship with SELinux support.
We will apply SELinux patches to all “common” userland packages.
The libraries required for SELinux (libselinux, libsepol, libsemanage, etc.) were added to openSUSE and SUSE Linux Enterprise.
However, we are not offering enterprise class support for SELinux at this time; thus we will run QA with SELinux disabled – to make sure that SELinux patches don’t break the default delivery and the majority of packages.
The SELinux specific tools are shipped as part of the default distribution delivery. However, packages such as checkpolicy, policycoreutils, selinux-doc are not supported.
We will not be shipping any SELinux policies in the distribution. (Reference and minimal policies may be available from the repositories at some future point.)
By enabling SELinux in our codebase, we add missing pieces of code that exist in the community already, and we allow those who wish to use SELinux to do so conveniently without having to replace a big portion of the distribution.
Enablement for TPM/Trusted Computing
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 comes with support for Trusted Computing technology. To enable your system's TPM chip, make sure that the "security chip" option in your BIOS is selected. TPM support is entirely passive, meaning that measurements are being performed, but no action is taken based on any TPM-related activity. TPM chips manufactured by Infineon, NSC and Atmel are supported, in addition to the virtual TPM device for Xen.
The corresponding kernel drivers are not loaded automatically - please enter: find /lib/modules -type f -name "tpm*.ko" and load the kernel modules for your system manually or via MODULES_LOADED_ON_BOOT in /etc/sysconfig/kernel.
If your TPM chip with taken ownership is configured in Linux and available for use, you may read PCRs from /sys/devices/*/*/pcrs .
The tpm-tools package contains utilities to administer your TPM chip, and the trousers package provides "tcsd" - the daemon that allows userland programs to communicate with the TPM driver in the Linux kernel. Tcsd can be enabled as a service for the runlevels of your choice.
To implement a trusted ("measured") boot path, please use the package trustedgrub instead of the grub package as your bootloader. The trustedgrub bootloader does not display any graphical representation of a boot menu for informational reasons.
IPv6 Improvements
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server can be installed in an IPv6 environment and run IPv6 applications. When installing via network, don't forget to boot with "ipv6=1" (accept v4 and v6) or "ipv6only=1" (only v6) on the kernel command line. Please see the Deployment Guide for additional details. See also "IPv6 Implementation and Compliance" below.
10G networking capabilities
OFED 1.4
traceroute 1.2
Support for traceroute over TCP
FCoE
FCoE is an implementation of the Fibre Channel over Ethernet working draft. Fibre Channel over Ethernet is the encapsulation of Fibre Channel frames in Ethernet packets. It allows users with a FCF (Fibre Channel over Ethernet Forwarder) to access their existing Fibre Channel storage using an Ethernet adapter. When leveraging DCB's PFC technology to provide a loss-less environment, FCoE can run SAN and LAN traffic over the same link.
Data Center Bridging (DCB)
Data Center Bridging (DCB) is a collection of Ethernet enhancements designed to allow network traffic with differing requirements (e.g., highly reliable, no drops vs. best effort vs. low latency) to operate and co-exist on Ethernet. Current DCB features are:
Enhanced Transmission Selection (aka Priority Grouping) to provide a framework for assigning bandwidth guarantees to traffic classes.
Priority-based Flow Control (PFC) provides a flow control mechanism which can work independently for each 802.1p priority.
Congestion Notification provides a mechanism for end-to-end congestion control for protocols which do not have built-in congestion management.
Improved update stack
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 comes with an improved update stack and a new command line tool - zypper - to manage the repositories and install/update packages.
Enhanced YaST partitioner
Extended built-in management infrastructure
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server provides CIM/WBEM enablement with the SFCB CIMOM.
http://en.opensuse.org/SystemsManagement/CIM/Providers provides a complete list of providers and management profiles.
Support for Web Services for Management (WS-Management)
The WS-Management protocol is supported via Openwsman, providing client (package: openwsman-client) and server (package: openwsman-server) implementations.
This allows for interoperable management with the Windows 'winrm' stack.
WebYaST - web based remote management
WebYaST is a simple, easy to use, web-based administration tool targeted at casual Linux administators.
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 SP1 adds WebYaST through an online software repository. After successful registration you can install and start WebYaST by following these steps:
Enable online repositories
zypper mr -e SLE11-WebYaST-SP1-Pool
zypper mr -e SLE11-WebYaST-SP1-Updates
Install via pattern
zypper in -t pattern WebYaST-UI WebYaST-Service
Open firewall ports
SuSEfirewall2 open EXT TCP 54984
SuSEfirewall2 restart
Start services
rccollectd start
rcyastws start
rcyastwc start
The last command will display the URL to connect to with a web browser.
Kernel Resource Management
cgroups (Control groups, replaces and enhances CKRM from SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 9), with fine-grained control of CPU, Memory and Devices.
Added Novell developed, open source 'cpuset' command-line tool.
EVMS2 was replaced by LVM2
A public statement can be found at http://www.novell.com/linux/volumemanagement/strategy.html.
Default Filesystem
The default file system in new installations has been changed from ReiserFS to ext3. A public statement can be found at http://www.novell.com/linux/techspecs.html?tab=0 and in our FAQ at: http://www.novell.com/linux/filesystems/faq.html
UEFI enablement on AMD64/Intel64
Xen boot via native-UEFI is not supported
SWAP over NFS
Updated bnx driver to version 2.0.4
Updated bnx2x driver to version 1.52.1-7
Updated e100 driver to version 3.5.24-k2
Updated tg3 driver to version 3.106
Added bna driver for Brocade 10Gbit LAN card in version 2.1.2.1
Updated bfa driver to version 2.1.2.1
Updated qla3xxx driver to version 2.03.00-k5
Updated sky2 driver to version 1.25
Updated qla2xxx to version 8.03.01.04.11.1-k8
Updated qla4xxx to version v5.01.00.00.11.01-k13
Updated megaraid_mbox driver to version 2.20.5.1
Updated megaraid_sas to version 4.27
Updated MPT Fusion to version 4.22.00.00
Updated mpt2sas driver to version 04.100.01.02
Updated lpfc driver to version 8.3.5.7
Added bnx2i driver for Broadcom NetXtreme II in version 2.1.1
Updated bfa driver to version 2.1.2.1
Updated CIFS to version 1.50c
Updated OCFS2 to version 1.4.0
Updated intel-i810 driver
Added X11 driver for AMD Geode LX 2D (xorg-x11-driver-video-amd)
Updated X11 driver for Radeon cards
Updated XFS and DMAPI driver
Updated XFS and DMAPI driver
Updated Wacom driver to version 1.46
Support for installation from a NFSv4 server was added.
Updated binutils to version 2.20.0
Updated bluez to version 4.51
Updated clamav to version 0.95.2
Updated crash to version 5.0.1
Updated dhcp to version 3.1.3
Updated gdb to version 7.0
Updated hplip to version 3.9.8
Updated ipsec-tools to version 0.7.3
Updated IBM Java 1.4.2 to SR13 FP3
Updated IBM Java 1.6.0 to SR7
Updated libcgroup1 to version 0.34
Updated libcmpiutil to version 0.5
Updated libelf to version 0.8.12
Updated QT4 to version 4.6.2
Updated mdadm to version 3.0.3
Updated module-init-tools to version 3.11.1
Updated MozillaFirefox to version 3.5.7
Added mt_st in version 0.9b
Added netlabel in version 0.19
Updated numactl to version 2.0.3
Updated openCryptoki to version 2.3.0
Updated openldap2 to version 2.4.20
Added openvas in version 3.0
Added perf: Performance Counters For Linux
Added perl-WWW-Curl in version 4.09
Added rng-tools: Support daemon for hardware random device
Updated sblim-cim-client2 to version 2.1.3
Updated sblim-cmpi-base to version 1.6.0
Updated sblim-cmpi-fsvol to version 1.5.0
Updated sblim-cmpi-network to version 1.4.0
Updated sblim-cmpi-nfsv3 to version 1.1.0
Updated sblim-cmpi-nfsv4 to version 1.1.0
Updated sblim-cmpi-params to version 1.3.0
Updated sblim-cmpi-sysfs to version 1.2.0
Updated sblim-gather to version 2.2.0
Updated sblim-sfcb to version 1.3.7
Updated sblim-sfcc to version 2.2.1
Updated sblim-wbemcli to version 1.6.1
Updated strongswan to version 4.3.4
Added stunnel in version 4.27
Updated dcbd to version 0.9.24
Updated e2fsprogs to version 1.41.9
Updated iprutils to version 2.2.20
Updated iscsitarget to version 1.4.19
Updated nfs-utils to version 1.2.1 for improved IPv6 support
Added apport, a tool to collect data automatically from crashed processes
To receive support, customers need an appropriate subscription with Novell; for more information, please see: http://www.novell.com/products/server/services_support.html.
The following definitions apply:
L1: Installation and problem determination, which means technical support designed to provide compatibility information, installation configuration assistance, usage support, on-going maintenance and basic troubleshooting. Level 1 Support is not intended to correct product defect errors.
L2: Reproduction of problem isolation, which means technical support designed to duplicate customer problems, isolate problem area and potential issues, and provide resolution for problems not resolved by Level 1 Support.
L3: Code debugging and problem resolution, which means technical support designed to resolve complex problems by engaging engineering in patch provision, and resolution of product defects which have been identified by Level 2 Support.
For contracted customers and partners, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 will be delivered with L3 support for all packages, except the following:
Technology Previews and SELinux Basic Enablement
Sounds, Graphics, Fonts and Artwork
Packages, which require an additional customer contract
Packages on the Software Development Kit (SDK)
Novell will only support the usage of original (e.g., unchanged or un-recompiled) packages.
The following packages require additional support contracts to be obtained by the customer, in order to receive full support.
BEA Java (Itanium only)
MySQL Database
PostGreSQL Database
WebSphere CE Application Server
Technology Previews are not supported or only supported minimally. These features are mainly included for customer convenience. They may be functionally incomplete, instable or in other ways not suitable for production use.
Hot-Add of Memory
Hot-Add-memory is currently only supported on the following hardware:
IBM eServer xSeries x260, single node x460, x3800, x3850, single node x3950
certified systems based on recent Intel Xeon Architecture
certified systems based on recent Intel IPF Architecture
All IBM servers and blades with POWER5, POWER6, or POWER7 processors and recent firmware
If your specific machine is not listed, please call Novell support to confirm whether or not your machine has been successfully tested. Also, please regulary check our maintenance update information, which will explicitly mention the general availability of this feature.
Restriction on using IBM eHCA InfiniBand adapters in conjunction with Hot-Add of Memory on IBM System p:
The current eHCA Device Driver will prevent dynamic memory operations on a partition as long as the driver is loaded. If the driver is unloaded prior to the operation and then loaded again afterwards, adapter initialization may fail. A Partition Shutdown / Activate sequence on the HMC may be needed to recover from this situation.
Internet Storage Naming Service (iSNS)
The Internet Storage Naming Service (iSNS) package is by design suitable for secure internal networks only. Novell will continue to work with the community on improving security on this.
Linux Filesystem Capabilities
Our kernel is compiled with support for Linux Filesystem Capabilities.
This is disabled per default and can be enabled by adding
file_caps=1 as kernel boot option.
eCryptfs Filesystem
The eCryptfs kernel modules and the ecryptfs-utils package shipped with SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 are a preview of a stacked cryptographic filesystem for Linux.
Ext4 Filesystem
The Ext4 kernel modules and userland tools shipped with SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 are a preview of a new filesystem for Linux.
PerfMon2
The PerfMon2 kernel modules and userland tools shipped with SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 are a preview of a performance monitoring tool for Linux. It will be replaced with a successor if accepted and integrated into the official Kernel.
biosdevname
biosdevname in its simplest form takes a kernel name as an argument, and returns the BIOS-given name it "should" be. This is necessary on systems where the BIOS name for a given device (e.g., the label on the chassis is "Gb1") doesn't map directly and obviously to the kernel name (e.g., eth0).
btrfs Filesystem
The btrfs kernel modules and userland tools shipped with SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 SP1 are a preview of a new filesystem for Linux.
Read-Only Root Filesystem
It is possible to run SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 on a shared read-only root filesystem.
A read-only root setup consists of the read-only root filesystem, a scratch
and a state filesystem. The /etc/rwtab file defines
which files and directories on the read-only root filesystem are replaced by
which files on the state and scratch filesystems for each system
instance.
The readonlyroot kernel command line option enables
read-only root mode; the state= and
scratch= kernel command line options determine the
devices on which the state and scratch filesystems are located.
In order to set up a system with a read-only root filesystem, set up a
scratch filesystem, set up a filesystem to use for storing persistent per-
instance state, adjust /etc/rwtab as needed, add the
appropriate kernel command line options to your boot loader configuration,
replace /etc/mtab with a symlink to
/proc/mounts as described below, and (re)boot the
system.
In order to replace /etc/mtab with the appropriate symlinks, do this:
rm -f /etc/mtab ln -s /proc/mounts /etc/mtab
Please see the rwtab(5) manual page for further details.
Novell provides a Software Development Kit (SDK) for SUSE Linux Enterprise 11 Service Pack 1. This SDK contains libraries, development-environments and tools along the following patterns:
C/C++ Development
Certification
Documentation Tools
GNOME Development
Java Development
KDE Development
Linux Kernel Development
Programming Libraries
.NET Development
Miscellaneous
Perl Development
Python Development
Qt 4 Development
Ruby on Rails Development
Ruby Development
Version Control Systems
Web Development
YaST Development
This section includes update-related information for this release:
Kernel split in different packages
With SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 the kernel RPMs are split in different parts:
kernel-flavor-base
Very reduced hardware support, intended to be used in virtual machine images.
kernel-flavor
Extends the base package; contains all supported kernel modules.
kernel-flavor-extra
All other kernel modules which may be useful, but which are not supported. This package will not be installed by default.
Tickless Idle
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server uses tickless timers. This can be disabled by adding
nohz=off as a boot option.
Development Packages
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server will no longer contain any development packages, with the exception of some core development packages necessary to compile kernel modules. Development packages are available in the SUSE Linux Enterprise Software Development Kit.
Displaying manual pages with the same name
The man command now asks which manual page the user wants to see if manual pages with the same name exist in different sections. The user is expected to type the section number to make this manual page visible.
If you want to revert back to the previously used method, please set
MAN_POSIXLY_CORRECT=1 in a shell
initialization file such as ~/.bashrc.
YaST LDAP Server no longer using /etc/openldap/slapd.conf
The YaST LDAP Server module no longer stores the configuration of the LDAP
Server in the file /etc/openldap/slapd.conf.
It uses OpenLDAP's dynamic configuration backend, which stores the
configuration in an LDAP database it self. That database consists
of a set of .ldif files in the directory
/etc/openldap/slapd.d.
You should - usually - not need to access those files directly. To access
the configuration you can either use the
yast2-ldap-server module or any capable LDAP client
(e.g., ldapmodify, ldapsearch, etc.). For details on the dynamic configuration
of OpenLDAP, please look at the OpenLDAP Administration Guide.
Novell AppArmor
This release of SUSE Linux Enterprise Server ships with Novell AppArmor.
The AppArmor intrusion prevention framework builds a firewall around your
applications by limiting the access to files, directories, and POSIX
capabilities to the minimum required for normal operation. AppArmor
protection can be enabled via the AppArmor control panel, located
in YaST under Novell AppArmor. For detailed information about using Novell
AppArmor, see the documentation in
/usr/share/doc/packages/apparmor-docs.
The AppArmor profiles included with SUSE Linux have been developed with our best efforts to reproduce how most users use their software. The profiles provided work unmodified for many users, but some users may find our profiles too restrictive for their environments.
If you discover that some of your applications do not function as you expected, you may need to use the AppArmor Update Profile Wizard in YaST (or use the aa-logprof(8) command line utility) to update your AppArmor profiles. Place all your profiles into learning mode with the following: aa-complain /etc/apparmor.d/*
When a program generates many complaints, the system's performance is degraded. To mitigate this, we recommend periodically running the Update Profile Wizard (or aa-logprof(8)) to update your profiles even if you choose to leave them in learning mode. This reduces the number of learning events logged to disk, which improves the performance of the system.
Upgrading MySQL to SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11
During the upgrade to SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 MySQL is also upgraded to the latest version. To complete this migration you may have to upgrade your data as described in the MySQL documentation.
Fine-Tuning Firewall Settings
SuSEfirewall2 is enabled by default. That means that by default you cannot log in from remote systems. This also interferes with network browsing and multicast applications, such as SLP and Samba ("Network Neighborhood"). You can fine-tune the firewall settings using YaST.
LILO configuration via YaST/AutoYaST
The configuration of the LILO bootloader via YaST/AutoYaST is still possible, but not supported on the x86/x86_64 architecture any more. For further information please consult Novell TID 7003226 http://www.novell.com/support/documentLink.do?externalID=7003226.
The following list item were removed with the major release of SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11:
dante
JFS
The JFS filesystem is no longer supported and the utilities were removed from the distribution.
EVMS
For the future strategy and development with respect to volume- and storage-management on SUSE Linux Enterprise, please see: http://www.novell.com/linux/volumemanagement/strategy.html
ippl
powertweak
SUN Java
uw-imapd
The mapped-base functionality, which is used by 32-Bit applications that need a larger dynamic data space (such as database management systems), was replaced with flexmap.
zmd
The following list item were removed with the release of SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 Service Pack 1:
brocade-bfa
The brocade-bfa kernel module is now part of the main kernel package.
enic-kmp
The enic kernel module is now part of the main kernel package.
fnic-kmp
The fnic kernel module is now part of the main kernel package.
java-1_6_0-ibm-x86
The following list of current functionality is deprecated and will be removed with the next Service Pack or major release of SUSE Linux Enterprise Server:
The reiserfs filesystem is fully supported for the lifetime of SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 specifically for migration purposes. We will however remove support for creating new reiserfs filesystems starting with SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12.
The sendmail package is deprecated and might be removed with SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12.
The lprng package is deprecated and will be removed with SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12.
The dhcp-client package is deprecated and will be removed with SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12.
The qt3 package is deprecated and will be removed with SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12.
openswan and strongswan packages will be consolidated.
syslog-ng will be replaced with rsyslog
The smpppd package is deprecated and will be removed with one of the next Service Packs or SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12.
The RAW devices are deprecated and will be removed with one of the next Service Packs or SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12.
IBM Java 1.4.2 is supported with SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 specifically for migration purposes. We will however remove support for this specific Java version with SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 latest.
Modified operation against Novell Customer Center
Effective on 2009-01-13, provisional registrations will be disabled in the Novell Customer Center. Registering an instance of SUSE Linux Enterprise Server or Open Enterprise Server (OES) products now requires a valid, entitled activation code. Evaluation codes for reviews or proofs of concept can be obtained from the product pages and from the download pages on novell.com. If a device is registered without a code at setup time, a provisional code is assigned by Novell Customer Center (NCC) to the device, and an entry for it is made in your NCC list of devices. No update repositories are assigned to the device at this time. Once you are ready to assign a code to the device, starting the YaST Novell Customer Center registration module and putting in the appropriate code (replacing the un-entitled provisional code that NCC generated) will fully entitle the device and activate the appropriate update repositories.
Operation against Subscription management Tool
Operation under the Subscription Management Tool (SMT) package and registration proxy is not affected. Registration against SMT will assign codes automatically from your default pool in NCC until all entitlements have been assigned. Registering additional devices once the pool is depleted will result in the new device being assigned a provisional code (with local access to updates), and the SMT server will provide appropriate notification to the administrator that these new devices need to be entitled.
Minimal Pattern
The minimal pattern provided in YaST's Software Selection Dialog targets experienced customers and should be used as a base for your own specific software selections.
Please do not expect that an unchanged / not-extended minimal pattern provides a useful basis for your business needs.
This pattern does not include any dump- or logging-tools. To fully support your configuration, Novell Technical Services (NTS) will request the installation of all the tools which are needed for further analysis, in case of a support request.
SPident
SPident is a tool to identify the Service Pack level of the current installation. This tool is not delivered with SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 GA, but is replaced by the new SAM tool (package "suse-sam").
Linux Completely Fair Scheduler affects Java performance
Problem (Abstract)
Java applications that use synchronization extensively might perform poorly on Linux systems that include the Completely Fair Scheduler. If you encounter this problem, there are two possible workarounds.
Symptom
You may observe extremely high CPU usage by your Java application, and very slow progress through synchronized blocks. The application may appear to hang due to the slow progress.
Cause
The Completely Fair Scheduler (CFS) is a scheduler that was adopted into the mainline Linux kernel as of release 2.6.23. The CFS algorithm is different from previous Linux releases. It might change the performance properties of some applications. In particular, CFS implements sched_yield() differently, making it more likely that a thread that yields will be given CPU time regardless. More information on CFS can be found here: "Multiprocessing with the Completely Fair Scheduler", http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/library/l-cfs/?ca=dgrlnxw06CFC4Linux
The new behavior of sched_yield() might adversely affect the performance of synchronization in the IBM JVM.
Environment
This problem may affect IBM JDK 5.0 and 6.0 (all versions) running on Linux kernels that include the Completely Fair Scheduler, including Linux kernel 2.6.27 in SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11.
Resolving the problem
If you observe poor performance of your Java application, there are two possible workarounds:
Either invoke the JVM with the additional argument "-Xthr:minimizeUserCPU"
Or configure the Linux kernel to use the more backward-compatible heuristic for sched_yield(), by setting the sched_compat_yield tunable kernel property to 1. For example:
echo "1" > /proc/sys/kernel/sched_compat_yield
You should not use these workarounds unless you are experiencing poor performance.
Tuning performance of simple database engines
Simple database engines like Berkeley DB use memory mappings (mmap(2)) to manipulate database files. When the mapped memory is modified, those changes need to be written back to disk. In SUSE Linux Enterprise 11, the kernel includes modified mapped memory in its calculations for deciding when to start background writeback, and when to throttle processes which modify additional memory. (In previous versions, mapped dirty pages were not accounted for, and the amount of modified memory could exceed the overall limit defined.) This can lead to a decrease in performance; the fix is to increase the overall limit.
The maximum amount of dirty memory is 40% in SUSE Linux Enterprise 11 by default. This value is chosen for average workloads, so that enough memory remains available for other uses. The following settings may be relevant when tuning for database workloads:
vm.dirty_ratio
Maximum percentage of dirty system memory (default 40).
vm.dirty_background_ratio
Percentage of dirty system memory at which background writeback will start (default 10).
vm.dirty_expire_centisecs
Duration after which dirty system memory is considered old enough to be eligible for background writeback (in centiseconds).
These limits can be observed or modified with the sysctl utility (see sysctl(1), sysctl.conf(5)).
Multipathing - SCSI Hardware Handler
Some storage devices, e.g. IBM DS4K, require special handling for path failover and failback. In SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 SP2, this was handled at the dm layer as hardware handler.
One drawback of this implementation was that the underlying SCSI layer didn't know about the existence of the Hardware Handler. Hence, during device probing, SCSI would send I/O on the passive path, which would fail after a timeout and also print extraneous error messages in the console.
In SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11, this problem is resolved by moving the hardware handler to the SCSI layer, hence the term SCSI Hardware Handler. These handlers are modules created under the SCSI directory in the Linux Kernel.
In SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11, there are four SCSI Hardware Handlers: scsi_dh_alua, scsi_dh_rdac, scsi_dh_hp_sw, scsi_dh_emc.
These modules need to be included in the initrd image so that SCSI knows about the special handling during probe time itself.
This can be done by following these steps:
Add the device handler modules to the INITRD_MODULES variable in /etc/sysconfig/kernel
Create a new initrd using
mkinitrd -k /boot/vmlinux-<flavour> -i /boot/initrd-<flavour>-scsi_dh -M /boot/System.map-<flavour>
Update the grub.conf/lilo.conf/yaboot.conf file with the newly built initrd
Reboot
Multipathing: failed paths do not return after a path failure
To work in a fully certified environment with all storage backend systems
and fully supported by Novell and your storage vendor,
please make sure that you have installed at least multipath-tools-0.4.8-40.2
or a later version. Appropriate packages are available as a maintenance
update for SUSE Linux Enterprise 11.
Local Mounts of iSCSI Shares
An iSCSI shared device should never be mounted directly on the local machine. In an OCFS2 environment, doing so causes all hardware to hard hang.
With the SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability Extension 11, Novell offers the most modern open source High Availability Stack for Mission Critical environments.
The SLES 11 SP 1 kernel has memory cgroup support enabled by default.
While this functionality is welcomed in most environments, it requires about 1% of memory: memory allocation is done on boot time and is using 40 Bytes per 4 KiB page which results in 1% of memory.
In virtualized environments, specifically, but not exclusively on s390x systems, this may lead to a higher basic memory consumption: e.g. a 20GiB host with 200 x 1GiB Guests consumes 10% of the real memory.
This memory is not swappable by Linux itself, but the guest cgroup memory is pageable by a z/VM host on an s390x system and might be swappable on other hypervisors as well.
In SLES11 SP1 the cgroup memory support is activated by default but it can be deactivated by adding the Kernel Parameter cgroup_disable=memory
A reboot is required to deactivate/activate this setting.
The tomcat6 Servlet/JSP engine is delivered as part of the SUSE Linux Enterprise Software Development Kit 11.
NFS over RDMA server hangs during shutdown
If your system is configured as a nfs over rdma server the system may hang during a shutdown if a remote system has an active nfs over rdma mount. To avoided this problem, prior to shutting down the system run the command "/etc/init.d/openibd stop" this commands will hang therefor should not be run on the console! A shutdown can now be run from a separate session and should not hang.
Removable media
To allow a specific user to mount removable media, always run the following command as root
polkit-auth --user joe --grant org.freedesktop.hal.storage.mount-removable
To allow all locally logged in users on the active console to mount removable media, run the following commands as root:
echo 'org.freedesktop.hal.storage.mount-removable no:no:yes' >> /etc/polkit-default-privs.local /sbin/set_polkit_default_privs
Verbose audit records for system user management tools
Install the package "pwdutils-plugin-audit". To enable this plugin, please add "audit" to /etc/pwdutils/logging . Please see the Security Guide for more information.
Using the system as a router
As long as the firewall is active, the option ip_forwarding will be reset by the
firewall module. To activate the system as a router, the variable
FW_ROUTE has to be set too. This can be done through yast2-firewall or manually.
Myricom 10GigE (x86, x86_64 and IA64)
With SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11, we have switched to the mainline myri10ge driver. This driver needs a firmware for correct operation. In order to operate correctly, customers need to install the firmware separately as SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 does not include this.
Boot device larger as 2 TiB
Due to limitations in the legacy x86/x86_64 BIOS implementations booting from devices larger than 2 TiB is technically not possible using legacy partition tables (DOS MBR).
With SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 Service Pack 1 we support installation and boot using uEFI on the x86_64 architecture and certified hardware.
i586 and i686 Machine with more than 16 GB of Memory
Depending on the workload, i586 and i686 machines with 16GB-48GB of
memory can run into instabilities. Machines with more than 48GB
of memory are not supported at all. To run on such a machine,
lower the memory with the mem= kernel boot option.
In such memory scenarios we strongly recommend using a x86-64 system with 64-bit SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, and run the (32-bit) x86 applications on it.
NetXen 10G Ethernet Expansion Card on IBM BladeCenter HS12 system
When installing SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 on a HS12 system with a "NetXen Incorporated BladeCenter-H 10 Gigabit Ethernet High Speed Daughter Card", the boot parameter pcie_aspm=off should be added.
NIC Enumeration
Ethernet interfaces on some hardware do not get enumerated in a way that matches the marking on the chassis.
HP Linux ProLiant Support Pack for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11
The HP Channel Interface Device Driver (hpilo) device driver has been submitted to the open source community as part of the upstream Linux kernel. This device driver replaces the two versions of channel interface drivers (hp_ilo, hpqci) previously shipped by HP in the hp-ilo RPM package. Due to changes in the API between driver versions, various utilities in the Linux ProLiant Support Pack require updates to properly communicate with hpilo. These utilities have been updated in Linux ProLiant Support Pack release 8.25.
The hpilo driver is included in SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11. Therefore, no hp-ilo package will be provided in the Linux ProLiant Support Pack for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11.
For more details, please consult Novell TID 700273
HP High Performance Mouse for iLO Remote Console.
The desktop in SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 now recognizes the HP High Performance Mouse for iLO Remote Console and is configured to accept and process events from it. For the desktop mouse and the HP High Performance Mouse to stay synchronized, it is necessary to turn off mouse acceleration. As a result, the HP iLO2 High-Performance mouse (hpmouse) package is no longer needed with SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 once one of the three following options are implemented.
In a terminal run "xset m 1" -- this setting will not survive a reset of the desktop.
(Gnome) In a terminal run "gconf-editor" and go to desktop->gnome->peripherals->mouse. Edit the "motion acceleration" field to be 1.
(KDE) Open "Personal Settings (Configure Desktop)" in the menu and go to "Computer Administration"->Keyboard&Mouse->Mouse->Advanced and change "Pointer Acceleration" to become 1.
(Gnome) In a terminal run "gnome-mouse-properties" and adjust the "Pointer Speed" slide scale until the HP High Performance Mouse and the desktop mouse run at the same speed across the screen. The recommended adjustment is close to the middle just to the "Slow" side.
After acceleration is turned off, sync the desktop mouse and the ILO mouse by moving to the edges and top of the desktop to line them up in the vertical and horizontal directions. Also if the HP High Performance Mouse is disabled, pressing the <Ctrl> key will stop the desktop mouse and allow easier synching of the two pointers.
For more details please consult Novell TID 7002735
Missing 32-bit compatibility libraries for libstdc++ and libg++ on 64-bit systems (x86_64)
32-bit (x86) compatibility libraries like "libstdc++-libc6.2-2.so.3" have been available on x86_64 in the package "compat-32-bit" with SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 9, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10, and are also available on the SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 11 medium (compat-32-bit-2009.1.19), but not included in SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11.
Background
The respective libraries had been deprecated back in 2001, and have been shipped in the compatibility package already with the release of SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 9 in 2004. The package was shipped with SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 to provide a longer transition period for applications requiring the package.
With the release of SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 the compatibility package is no longer supported.
Solution
In an effort to enable a longer transition period for applications still requiring this package, it has been moved to the unsupported "Extras" channel. This channel is visible on every SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 system, which has been registered with the Novell Customer Center, and it is also mirrored via SMT alongside the supported and maintained SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 channels.
Packages in the "Extras" channel are not supported or maintained.
The compatibility package is part of SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 11 due to a policy difference with respect to deprecation and deprecated packages as compared to SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11.
We encourage customers to work with Novell and Novell's partners to resolve dependencies on those old libraries.
32-bit devel-packages missing from the Software Development Kit (x86_64)
Example: libpcap0-devel-32-bit package was available in Software Development Kit 10, but is missing from Software Development Kit 11
Background
Novell supports running 32-bit applications on 64-bit architectures; respective runtime libraries are provided with SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 and fully supported. With SUSE Linux Enterprise 10 we also provided 32-bit devel packages on the 64-bit Software Development Kit. Having 32-bit devel packages and 64-bit devel packages installed in parallel may lead to side-effects during the build process. Thus with SUSE Linux Enterprise 11 we started to remove some of (but not yet all) the 32-bit devel packages from the 64-bit Software Development Kit.
Solution
With the development tools provided in the Software Development Kit 11, customers and partners have two options to build 32-bit packages in a 64-bit environment (see below). Beyond that, Novell's appliance offerings provide powerful environments for software building, packaging and delivery.
Use the "build" tool, which creates a chroot environment for building packages.
The Software Development Kit contains the software used for the openSUSE buildservice. Here the abstraction is provided by virtualization.
Bugfixes
This Service Pack contains all the latest bugfixes for each package released via the maintenance Web since the GA version.
Security Fixes
This Service Pack contains all the latest security fixes for each package released via the maintenance Web since the GA version.
Program Temporary Fixes
This Service Pack contains all the PTFs (Program Temporary Fix) for each package released via the maintenance Web since the GA version which were suitable for integration into the maintained common codebase.
This section contains information about system limits, a number of technical changes and enhancements for the experienced user.
When talking about CPUs we are following this terminology:
CPU Socket
The visible physical entity, as it is typically mounted to a motherboard or an equivalent.
CPU Core
The (usually not visible) physical entity as reported by the CPU vendor.
On System z this is equivalent to an IFL.
Logical CPU
This is what the Linux Kernel recognizes as a "CPU".
We avoid the word "Thread" (which is sometimes used), as the word "thread" would also become ambiguous subsequently.
Virtual CPU
A logical CPU as seen from within a Virtual Machine.
http://www.novell.com/products/server/techspecs.html
This table summarizes the various limits which exist in our recent kernels and utilities (if related) for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11.
| CODE 11 (2.6.27) | x86 | ia64 | x86_64 | s390x | ppc64 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
CPU bits |
32 |
64 |
64 |
64 |
64 |
|
max. # Logical CPUs |
32 |
4096 |
4096 |
64 |
1024 |
|
max. RAM (theoretical / certified) |
64/16 GiB |
1 PiB/8+ TiB |
64 TiB/16 TiB |
4 TiB/256 GiB |
1 PiB/512 GiB |
|
max. user-/kernelspace |
3/1 GiB |
2 EiB/φ |
128 TiB/128 TiB |
φ/φ |
2 TiB/2 EiB |
|
max. swap space |
up to 32 * 64 GB | ||||
|
max. #processes |
1048576 | ||||
|
max. #threads per process |
tested with more than 120000; maximum limit depends on memory and other parameters | ||||
|
max. size per block device |
up to 16 TiB |
and up to 8 EiB on all 64-bit architectures | |||
http://www.novell.com/linux/filesystems/features.html
SUSE Linux Enterprise was the first enterprise Linux distribution to support journaling filesystems and logical volume managers back in 2000. Today, we have customers running XFS and ReiserFS with more than 8TiB in one filesystem, and our own SUSE Linux Enterprise engineering team is using all 3 major Linux journaling filesystems for all its servers.
We are excited to add the OCFS2 cluster filesystem to the range of supported filesystems in SUSE Linux Enterprise.
We propose to use XFS for large-scale filesystems, on systems with heavy load and multiple parallel read- and write-operations (e.g for file serving with Samba, NFS, etc.). XFS has been developed to be used under those conditions, while typical desktop use (single write or read) will not necessarily benefit from it's capabilities.
Due to technical limitations (of the bootloader), we do not support XFS to be used for "/boot" though.
| Feature | Ext 3 | Reiserfs 3.6 | XFS | Btrfs * | OCFS 2 ** |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Data/Metadata Journaling |
•/• |
○/• |
○/• |
n/a * |
○/• |
|
Journal internal/external |
•/• |
•/• |
•/• |
n/a * |
•/○ |
|
Offline extend/shrink |
•/• |
•/• |
○/○ |
•/• |
•/○ |
|
Online extend/shrink |
•/○ |
•/○ |
•/○ |
•/• |
•/○ |
Sparse Files | • | • | • | • | • |
Tail Packing | ○ | • | ○ | • | ○ |
Defrag | ○ | ○ | • | • | ○ |
Extended Attributes/ Access Control Lists | •/• | •/• | •/• | •/• | •/• |
|
Quotas |
• |
• |
• |
• |
• |
|
Dump/Restore |
• |
○ |
• |
○ |
○ |
|
Blocksize default |
4KiB | ||||
|
max. Filesystemsize |
16 TiB |
16 TiB |
8 EiB |
16 EiB |
16 TiB |
|
max. Filesize |
2 TiB |
1 EiB |
8 EiB |
16 EiB |
1 EiB |
|
|
* Btrfs is provided as a Technology Preview in SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 Service Pack 1. Btrfs is a copy-on-write logging-style file system, so rather than needing to journal changes before writing them in-place, it writes them in a new location, and then links it in. Until the last write, the new changes are not "committed". | ||||
|
|
** OCFS2 is fully supported as part of the SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability Extension. | ||||
The maximum file size above can be larger than the filesystem's actual size due to usage of sparse blocks. It should also be noted that unless a filesystem comes with large file support (LFS), the maximum file size on a 32-bit system is 2 GB (2^31 bytes). Currently all of our standard filesystems (including ext3 and ReiserFS) have LFS, which gives a maximum file size of 2^63 bytes in theory. The numbers in the above tables assume that the filesystems are using 4 KiB block size. When using different block sizes, the results are different, but 4 KiB reflects the most common standard.
In this document: 1024 Bytes = 1 KiB; 1024 KiB = 1 MiB; 1024 MiB = 1 GiB; 1024 GiB = 1 TiB; 1024 TiB = 1 PiB; 1024 PiB = 1 EiB. See also http://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units/binary.html
An important requirement for every Enterprise operating system is the level of support a customer can get for his environment. Kernel modules are the most relevant connector between hardware ("controllers") and the operating system. Every kernel module in SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 has a flag 'supported' with three possible values: "yes", "external", "" (empty, not set, "unsupported").
The following rules apply:
All modules of a self-recompiled kernel are by default marked as unsupported.
Kernel Modules supported by Novell partners and delivered using Novell's Partner Linux Driver process are marked "external".
If the "supported" flag is not set, loading a module will taint the kernel. Kernels which are tainted are not supported. To avoid this, not supported Kernel modules are included in an extra RPM (kernel-<flavor>-extra) and will not be loaded by default ("flavor"=default|smp|xen|...). In addition, those unsupported modules are not available in the installer, and the package kernel-$flavor-extra is not on the SUSE Linux Enterprise Server media.
Kernel Modules not provided under a license compatible to the
License of the Linux Kernel will also taint the Kernel; see
/usr/src/linux/Documentation/sysctl/kernel.txt and cf. the state
of "/proc/sys/kernel/tainted".
Technical Background
Linux Kernel
The value of /proc/sys/kernel/unsupported defaults to 2 on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11
("do not warn in syslog when loading unsupported modules"). This
is the default used in the installer as well as in the installed system.
See /usr/src/linux/Documentation/sysctl/kernel.txt for more information.
modprobe
The "modprobe" utility for checking module dependencies and loading modules appropriately checks for the value of the "supported" flag. If the value is "yes" or "external" the module will be loaded, otherwise it will not. See below, for information on how to override this.
Note: Novell does not generally support removing of storage modules via modprobe -r.
Working with unsupported modules
While the general supportability requirement is important, there might occur situations, where loading an unsupported module seems appropriate or is required (e.g., for testing or debugging purposes, or if your hardware vendor provides a hotfix):
You can override the default by changing the variable
allow_unsupported_modules in
/etc/modprobe.d/unsupported-modules and set the
value to "1".
If you only want to try loading a module once,
the --allow-unsupported-modules
command-line switch can be used with modprobe.
(see: man modprobe).
During installation, unsupported modules may be added through driver update disks, and they will be loaded.
To enforce loading of unsupported modules during boot and afterwards,
please use the kernel command line option oem-modules.
While installing and initializing the module-init-tools package,
the kernel flag "TAINT_NO_SUPPORT" ("/proc/sys/kernel/tainted")
will be evaluated. If the kernel is already tainted, allow_unsupported_modules
will be enabled. This will prevent unsupported modules from
failing in the system being installed. (If no unsupported modules are
present during installation and the other special kernel command line option
is not used, the default will still be to disallow unsupported modules.)
If you install unsupported modules after the initial installation
and want to enable those modules to be loaded during system boot,
please don't forget to run depmod and mkinitrd.
Please remember that loading and running unsupported modules will make the kernel and the whole system unsupported by Novell.
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 is compliant to IPv6 Logo Phase 2. However, when running the respective tests, you may see some tests failing. For various reasons, we cannot enable all the configuration options by default, which are necessary to pass all the tests. Please find details below.
Section 3: RFC 4862 - IPv6 Stateless Address Autoconfiguration
Some tests fail because of the default DAD handling in Linux; disabling the complete interface is possible, but not the default behavior (because security-wise, this might open a DoS attack vector, a malicious node on a network could shutdown the complete segment) this is still conforming to RFC 4862: the shutdown of the interface is a "should", not a mandatory ("must") rule.
The Linux kernel allows you to change the default behavior with a sysctl parameter. To do this on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11, you need to make the following changes in configuration:
Add ipv6 to the modules load early on boot
Edit /etc/sysconfig/kernel and add ipv6 to MODULES_LOADED_ON_BOOT
e.g. MODULES_LOADED_ON_BOOT="ipv6"
This is needed for the second change to work, if ipv6 is not loaded early enough, setting the sysctl fails.
Add the following lines to /etc/sysctl.conf
## shutdown IPV6 on MAC based duplicate address detection net.ipv6.conf.default.accept_dad = 2 net.ipv6.conf.all.accept_dad = 2 net.ipv6.conf.eth0.accept_dad = 2 net.ipv6.conf.eth1.accept_dad = 2
Note: if you use other interfaces (e.g. eth2), please modify the lines. With these changes, all tests for RFC 4862 should pass.
Section 4: RFC 1981 - Path MTU Discovery for IPv6
Test v6LC.4.1.10: Multicast Destination - One Router
Test v6LC.4.1.11: Multicast Destination - Two Routers
On these two tests ping6 needs to be told to allow defragmentation of multicast packets. Newer ping6 versions have this disabled by default. Use: ping6 -M want <other parameters>. see man ping6 for more information
Enable IPv6 in Yast for SCTP support
SCTP is dependent on IPv6, so in order to successfully insert the SCTP module, IPv6 must be enabled in YaST. This allows for the IPv6 module to be automatically inserted when `modprobe sctp` is called.
Changes to network setup
The script modify_resolvconf is removed in favor of a more versatile script called netconfig. This new script handles specific network settings from multiple sources more flexibly and transparently. Please review the documentation and man-page of netconfig for more details.
Memory cgroups
Memory cgroups are now disabled for machines where they cause memory exhaustion and crashes. Namely, X86 32-bit systems with PAE support and more than 8G in any memory node have this feature disabled.
MCELog
The mcelog package logs and parses/translates Machine Check Exceptions (MCE) on hardware errors (also including memory errors). Formerly this has been done by a cronjob executed hourly. Now hardware errors are immediately processed by an mcelog daemon.
However the mcelog service is not enabled by default resulting in memory and CPU errors also not being logged by default. In addition, mcelog has a new feature to also handle predictive bad page offlining and automatic core offlining when cache errors happen.
The service can either be enabled via commandline with
chkconfig mcelog on rcmcelog start
or via the YaST runlevel editor.
Locale Settings in ~/.i18n
If you are not satisfied with locale system defaults, change
the settings in ~/.i18n. Entries in
~/.i18n override system defaults from
/etc/sysconfig/language. Use the same
variable names but without the RC_ namespace
prefixes; for example, use LANG instead of
RC_LANG. For more information about locales in
general, see "Language and Country-Specific Settings" in the
Reference Manual.
Configuration of kdump
The kernel is crashing or otherwise misbehaving and a kernel core dump needs to be captured for analysis.
Please use YaST (System->Kernel Kdump) to configure your environment.
JPackage Standard for Java Packages
Java packages are changed to follow the JPackage Standard
(http://www.jpackage.org/). Please read the
documentation in
/usr/share/doc/packages/jpackage-utils/
for more information.
Pulseaudio
For better sound functionality on SUSE Linux Enterprise systems we strongly recommend that pulseaudio 0.9.14 or higher is installed. This version is available via maintenance channels for SUSE Linux Enterprise systems registered with Novell.
Read the READMEs on the DVDs.
Get the detailed changelog information about a particular package from the RPM (with filename <FILENAME>):
rpm --changelog -qp <FILENAME>.rpm
Check the ChangeLog file in the top level of DVD1 for
a chronological log of all changes made to the updated packages.
Find more information in the docu directory of DVD1
of the SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 Service Pack 1 for VMware DVDs. This directory includes PDF
versions of the SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 startup and deployment guides.
http://www.novell.com/documentation/ contains additional or updated documentation for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 Service Pack 1 for VMware.
These Release Notes are identical across all architectures, and are available online at http://www.novell.com/linux/releasenotes/x86_64/SUSE-SLES/11/, http://www.novell.com/linux/releasenotes/s390x/SUSE-SLES/11/, etc.
Visit http://www.novell.com/linux/ for the latest Linux product news from Novell and http://www.novell.com/linux/source/ for additional information on the source code of SUSE Linux Enterprise products.
Novell, Inc. makes no representations or warranties with respect to the contents or use of this documentation, and specifically disclaims any express or implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for any particular purpose. Further, Novell, Inc. reserves the right to revise this publication and to make changes to its content, at any time, without the obligation to notify any person or entity of such revisions or changes.
Further, Novell, Inc. makes no representations or warranties with respect to any software, and specifically disclaims any express or implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for any particular purpose. Further, Novell, Inc. reserves the right to make changes to any and all parts of Novell software, at any time, without any obligation to notify any person or entity of such changes.
Any products or technical information provided under this Agreement may be subject to U.S. export controls and the trade laws of other countries. You agree to comply with all export control regulations and to obtain any required licenses or classifications to export, re-export, or import deliverables. You agree not to export or re-export to entities on the current U.S. export exclusion lists or to any embargoed or terrorist countries as specified in U.S. export laws. You agree to not use deliverables for prohibited nuclear, missile, or chemical/biological weaponry end uses. Please refer to http://www.novell.com/info/exports/ for more information on exporting Novell software. Novell assumes no responsibility for your failure to obtain any necessary export approvals.
Copyright (c) 2010 Novell, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, photocopied, stored on a retrieval system, or transmitted without the express written consent of the publisher.
Novell, Inc. has intellectual property rights relating to technology embodied in the product that is described in this document. In particular, and without limitation, these intellectual property rights may include one or more of the U.S. patents listed at http://www.novell.com/company/legal/patents/ and one or more additional patents or pending patent applications in the U.S. and other countries.
For Novell trademarks, see Novell Trademark ad Service Mark list (http://www.novell.com/company/legal/trademarks/tmlist.html). All third-party trademarks are the property of their respective owners.