Release Notes for Subscription Management Tool 11 SP2 for SUSE Linux Enterprise

<H1>Release Notes for Subscription Management Tool 11 SP2 for SUSE Linux Enterprise</H1>

<P>
These release notes cover the following areas:
<ul>
<li>General: Information of general interest.</li>
<li>Installation: Additional pertinent information for the Installation.</li>
<li>Update: Additional information for updating from previous versions.</li>
<li>Known Issues: Known problems and issues of the release and hints for their solutions.</li>
<li>Providing Feedback</li>
</ul>
</P>

<H2>General</H2>

<p>Subscription Management Tool 11 SP2 for SUSE Linux Enterprise was developed for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) 11 SP2.</p>

<p>Some of the highlights are:</p>
<ul>
<li>The mirroring solution delivers maintenance updates from Novell Customer Center</li>
<li>Registration proxy with support for SUSE Linux Enterprise products</li>
</ul>

<p>This release enhances the staging capabilities and allows to define multiple staging groups.
This allows to stage repositories, which are used by multiple products, separately for each of
such products. To use this capability for already registered clients, they must be re-registered
to use the desired staging group.</p>

<p>When adding Subscription Management Tool during installation, online update repositories for
 Subscription Management Tool are added when you register product.</p>

<h3>Support</h3>
<p>
Subscription Management Tool is supported for use with all SUSE Linux Enterprise 10
and SUSE Linux Enterprise 11 client products that are supported from Novell Customer Center.
</p>

<p>
Subscription Management Tool 11 SP2 Server requires SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 SP2 as its host.
</p>

<H2>Installation</H2>

<P>Subscription Management Tool for SUSE Linux Enterprise (SMT) is an add-on
product. You can add SMT during the installation, so the additional packages that come
with SMT can be selected and installed right from the beginning, or later.<P>

<p>If you install SMT on top of SLES with the latest maintenance patches applied, you may get dependency errors in some cases if you do not also use the latest SMT patches.</p>

<p>To avoid those dependency errors, re-run Novell Customer Center (NCC) Configuration in YaST2 right <em>after</em> you have added the SMT installation repository to your system, but <em>before</em> you install any packages from SMT. 
This way the SMT update repository will be properly available to your system.</p>

<p>YaST will then automatically use newer packages from the update repository if available. Your system needs to be connected to the Internet for both running
NCC Configuration and receiving actual maintenance updates.</p>

<p>It is recommended to to check for SMT updates available
immediately after installing the product. SUSE continuously releases maintenance
updates for SMT, and newer packages are likely to be available
compared to those installed from media, for example using the 'zypper patch' command.
</p>

<H2>Update from Subscription Management Tool 11 (GA)</H2>

<p>There are two ways of upgrading SMT 11 (GA) to SMT 11 SP2</p>
<p><ul>
<li>Perform the on-line migration, using the wagon tool. For more information,
refer to the general documentation for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server.</li>
<li>When upgrading SLES 11 to SP2 via booting the installation media, add the SMT
add-on product. This will make sure that the SMT packages get updated together
with SLES 11.</li>
</ul></p>

<H2>Update from Subscription Management Tool 10</H2>

<P>In general, the update from SMT 10 is not supported. This is a list of issues
that might occur if the update is performed:

<H3>Configuration Changes</H3>

<H3>Authentication of Access</H3>
<p>
There is a new optional value "requiredAuthType" in /etc/smt.conf to specify if authentication should be
required to access the update repositories. If the value is not present in /etc/smt.conf, behavior
is unchanged from SMT 10. See the SMT 11 manual for further details.
</p>

<H3>Registration URL Specific for SMT 11</H3>
<p>
SMT 11 does not use registration URL from /etc/suseRegister.conf anymore, but reads the
value "[NU] NURegUrl" from /etc/smt.conf. If the value is not present in /etc/smt.conf, the
value from /etc/suseRegister.conf is used as a fallback.
</p>

<H3>Update of apache2 Configuration</H3>
<p>
The installed version of /etc/apache2/conf.d/nu_server.conf and /etc/apache2/conf.d/smt_mod_perl.conf 
will be replaced with a newer version.
</p>

<H3>Changes Related to Dropping Privileges by SMT scripts</H3>

<H3>smt User</H3>
<p>
All SMT scripts run by default under a new, unprivileged, smt user. The user can be defined in smt.conf.
</p>

<H3>Permissions of Files and Repositories</H3>
<p>
In SMT 10, all files and repositories were owned by root. In SMT 11, the smt user needs
write access to these repositories. To fix up the permissions, use the changeSMTUserPermissions.sh script
shipped as part of the smt package.
</p>

<H3>Proxy Settings</H3>
<p>
The YaST2 proxy module writes the proxy information to /root/.curlrc. 
In SMT 11 the scripts are running with privileges dropped, therefore the
.curlrc file in the home directory of the used user (smt by default) must be edited.
Otherwise use smt.conf to define the proxy settings.
</p>


<H2>Known Issues</H2>
<P>
This is a list of issues known in this release.
</P>
<H3>Make Sure to Mirror All Needed Repositories</H3>
<P>
Make sure all needed repositories are mirrored on the SMT server. Clients
registered against the SMT server will be given only the repositories that are
enabled to be mirrored from Novell Customer Center. To enable mirroring of
all repositories required for a given product, use the 'smt repos' command
with the '-p' option: 'smt repos -p &lt;productname&gt;'.
</P>
<H3>Provisional Subscriptions are Shown in SMT Only</H3>
<P>
SMT displays all subscriptions, including provisional subscriptions,
in the same way. However, NCC never displays provisional
subscriptions. For this reason, if you are using provisional
subscriptions, the NCC and SMT reports will be different during the
two weeks the provisional codes are active.
</P>
<H3>supporturl Installation Kernel Parameter Not Used</H3>
<P>
Both SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 and SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 11 contain an installation
bug that prevents propagating of the supporturl installation-time kernel parameter to proper
configuration file on the installed system. As a workaround, modify /etc/supportconfig.conf manually
after the installation is finished.
</P>
<H2>Providing feedback to our products</H2>
<P>
For more information, see the READMEs on the installation media.
</P>
<P>
In case of encountering a bug, please report it
via your support contact.
</P>
<P>
Your SUSE Linux Enterprise Team
</P>
<P><TT>Fri Apr  6 13:37:37 UTC 2012</TT></P>