1 General #
SUSE Lifecycle Management Server (SLMS) is a component of SUSE Studio. SUSE Lifecycle Management Server deliver updates for application images or appliances based on SUSE Linux Enterprise 11 SP2 products. It handles authentication, entitlement and access control required for software vendors to distribute updates to their customers. SLMS is primarily responsible for creating and then managing access to update repositories containing software updates. It also provides a basic interface for managing customer data and their subscriptions. For customers it provides a simple customer center that allows them to get a read-only access to information about their subscriptions.
SUSE Lifecycle Management Server 1.3 requires SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) 11 SP2 as a host system on the x86_64 architecture.
If you add SUSE Lifecycle Management Server during your installation process, online update repositories are added as soon as you register your product.
1.1 SLMS Customer Center #
SUSE Lifecycle Management Server 1.3 provides a simple customer center. If you run SUSE Lifecycle Management Server on a single server, HTTP/HTTPS ports show the customer center, where your credentials defined during the set-up don't work. To log-in to SLMS administration (as known in SLMS 1.1), point your Web browser to https:///admin or htps://:4849.
1.2 Support #
The following packages are also part of other SUSE Linux Enterprise products with various support levels. They are fully supported to provide functionality needed by SLMS 1.3:
check-create-certificate
createrepo
rubygem-rails
FastCGI
collectd
haveged
libcollectdclient0
liboping0
libstatgrab6
perl-Cache-Cache
perl-DBD-Pg
perl-Error
perl-Log-Dispatch
perl-Log-Log4perl
perl-Params-Validate
perl-YAML
python-lxml
ruby-dbus
ruby-fcgi
rubygem-abstract_method
rubygem-actionmailer-3_2
rubygem-actionpack-3_2
rubygem-activemodel-3_2
rubygem-activerecord-3_2
rubygem-activeresource-3_2
rubygem-activesupport-3_2
rubygem-arel-3_0
rubygem-bcrypt-ruby
rubygem-builder-3_0
rubygem-bundler
rubygem-cancan
rubygem-cheetah
rubygem-cocaine
rubygem-daemon_controller
rubygem-daemons
rubygem-declarative_authorization
rubygem-delayed_job
rubygem-delayed_job_active_record
rubygem-devise
rubygem-devise-i18n
rubygem-devise_unix2_chkpwd_authenticatable
rubygem-erubis-2_7
rubygem-factory_girl
rubygem-factory_girl_rails
rubygem-fast_gettext
rubygem-fastthread
rubygem-gemcutter
rubygem-gettext
rubygem-gettext_i18n_rails
rubygem-haml
rubygem-hike
rubygem-hoe
rubygem-http_accept_language
rubygem-i18n-0_6
rubygem-inifile
rubygem-journey-1_0
rubygem-json
rubygem-json_pure
rubygem-locale
rubygem-locale_rails
rubygem-mail-2_4
rubygem-mime-types
rubygem-mocha
rubygem-multi_json
rubygem-net_observer
rubygem-nokogiri
rubygem-orm_adapter
rubygem-paperclip-2
rubygem-passenger
rubygem-passenger-apache2
rubygem-passenger-nginx
rubygem-pg
rubygem-polkit
rubygem-polyglot
rubygem-rack
rubygem-rack-1_4
rubygem-rack-cache-1_2
rubygem-rack-ssl
rubygem-rack-test-0_6
rubygem-rails-3_2
rubygem-rails-i18n
rubygem-railties-3_2
rubygem-rake
rubygem-rake-compiler
rubygem-rdoc
rubygem-restful_authentication
rubygem-restility
rubygem-ruby-dbus
rubygem-rubyforge
rubygem-selenium-client
rubygem-sprockets-2_2
rubygem-sqlite3
rubygem-studio_api
rubygem-test-unit
rubygem-testunitxml
rubygem-thor
rubygem-tilt-1_1
rubygem-treetop
rubygem-tzinfo
rubygem-warden
rubygem-webyast-administrator
rubygem-webyast-eulas
rubygem-webyast-firewall
rubygem-webyast-network
rubygem-webyast-rake-tasks
rubygem-webyast-registration
rubygem-webyast-slms
rubygem-webyast-software
rubygem-webyast-status
rubygem-webyast-system
rubygem-will_paginate
rubygem-xml-simple
rubygem-yard
rubygems
yum-common
yum-metadata-parser
2 Installation of SUSE Lifecycle Management Server 1.3 #
SLMS 1.3 can be either deployed as an appliance, or installed as an add-on product. The add-on product can be added during installation, so the additional packages that come with SLMS can be selected and installed right from the beginning, or later.
Be aware that before you run SLMS 1.3 you also need to install all updates of SLES11-SP2.
If you install SLMS on top of SLES that has the latest maintenance patches applied, you may get dependency errors in some cases if you do not also use the latest SLMS patches.
To avoid these errors, make sure that you re-run the Novell Customer Center (NCC) Configuration in YaST2 right after you have added the SLMS installation repository to your system, but before you install any packages from SLMS. This will add the SLMS update repository to your setup.
YaST2 will then automatically use newer packages from the update repository if available. Your system needs to be connected to the Internet for both running the NCC Configuration and receiving actual maintenance updates.
If you install SLMS together with SLES11-SP2 installation, manually enable the WebYaST and collectd services after the installation finishes.
SUSE continuously releases maintenance updates for SLMS, and newer packages are likely to be available compared to those installed from media. To install updates you can use for example 'zypper patch' command line command.
2.1 Existing SSL Certificate #
If your system contains a certificate at /etc/ssl/servercerts/servercert.pem
before installation, SLMS will use it and will not generate its own certificate.
If it is not signed properly or is not valid in some other way, delete both
/etc/slms.d/certs/servercert.pem and /etc/slms.d/certs/serverkey.pem
and restart SLMS. SLMS will create a new certificate on start.
2.2 Changes in WebYaST #
WebYaST 1.3 has merged the REST API service with the Web User Interface. This change means that the Web UI is now available on port 4984.
2.3 Firewall Configuration #
If you configure a separate internal and external server and open the firewall of the internal server, then the PostgreSQL port will be open as well. Use the firewall configuration if you need more detailed settings. Note that the communication with the database is not encrypted, which means that the database credentials as well as the database records itself could be read and modified by an attacker with access to your network.
2.4 Update of the PostgreSQL Database #
SLMS 1.3 uses a PostgreSQL 9.1 database. After updating from 1.2, PostgreSQL 8 is still running.
You must migrate the database to the new format as soon as possible via the
migrate_postgresql_database script, which is installed together with SLMS 1.3. See the
documentation for more details.
2.5 Change of Appliance Adapation Process #
With SLMS 1.3, it is not needed to adapt an appliance. However, in order to have an appliance visible in SLMS, you must configure it in Studio Onsite via the Update tab. The same applies for appliances previously adapted with SLMS 1.2. Until appliances are configured in Studio Onsite, they are not visible in SLMS.
After fresh rebuild of an appliance in Studio, the update stack on the running appliance will report one package to update; this is an internal package for appliance updates tracking.
2.6 Configuration of Email Redirection #
If you intend to redirect root emails to another host, make sure that the Postfix email server is configured properly; otherwise emails from the system may not be delivered, based on your system settings.
3 Known Issues #
This is a list of issues known in this release.
3.1 Upgrade of the PostgreSQL Database #
If you update the PostgreSQL database, which is used by SLMS, it is possible that
SLMS will not work properly until it is restarted. After upgrading PostgreSQL
we strongly recommend to restart SLMS with the command /sbin/rcslms restart
or to reboot the server.
3.2 Reporting of Available Patches #
If you create custom testing repositories for an appliance, the amount of available updates (as reported in the header) may be incorrect. To get the details about available updates, see the “Updates” tab.
4 Providing Feedback to Our Products #
Please read the READMEs on the CD.
In case of encountering a bug please report it through your support contact.
Your SUSE Lifecycle Management Server Team