Version 1.6, 26-Aug-2013
Changelog
2012-Aug-9 | Initial version |
2012-Aug-14 | Reviewed |
2012-Aug-14 | Added known bugs section |
2012-Sep-3 | Proxy config changes |
2012-Nov-28 | New features
Plus many bug fixes Oracle hot backup fully functional now |
2013-Jun-18 | New features
|
2013-Aug-26 | Add OES 11 support |
Table of Contents
Release notes for SUSE Manager Server 1.7
Major changes since initial release
Database recovery (Oracle hot backup) working now
New autoinstallation snippet sles_register_script
Creation of kickstart profile needs anaconda package
Automatically create users in SUSE Manager which are members of an LDAP group
SUSE Manager Server distribution
Upgrading from SUSE Manager Server 1.2
How to apply patches on first install
How to apply patches to a running SUSE Manager Server
New database administration tool
Activation of SUSE Manager Server
Entitlement counting in SUSE Manager
About the Client Tools Channel
Support for SLES 10 based systems
Changes since SUSE Manager 1.2
Providing feedback to our products
Documentation and other information
This SUSE product includes materials licensed to SUSE under the GNU General Public License (GPL). The GPL requires that SUSE makes available certain source code that corresponds to the GPL-licensed material. The source code is available for download at http://www.suse.com/download-linux/source-code.html.
Also, for up to three years from SUSE's distribution of the SUSE product, upon request SUSE will mail a copy of the source code. Requests should be sent by e-mail to sle_source_request@suse.com or as otherwise instructed at http://www.suse.com/download-linux/source-code.html.
SUSE may charge a fee to recover its reasonable costs of distribution.
You have more than just a few Linux servers to manage, maybe even a mixed environment of RHEL and SLES?
Then SUSE Manager is the answer.
SUSE Manager gives you best of breed Linux lifecycle management based on the most mature codebase for any Linux management tool, with both RHEL and SLES support from one unified console, maintained and improved by the guys who wrote the fastest and most advanced Linux update stack on the planet.
SUSE Manager gives you the lowest possible Total Cost of Ownership for your Linux environment, from bare metal provisioning to daily patch management.
SUSE Manager is an open source (GPLv2) Linux systems management solution that allows you to:
You can stay up-to-date regarding information about SUSE Manager and SUSE products:
SUSE Manager now supports Novell Open Enterprise Server 11 (OES11) as a client OS for patching and service pack migration.
See http://www.novell.com/communities/node/14227/using-suse-manager-oes-management
for the initial announcement with further links within.
Start it with # smdba backup-hot
Restoring a backup is done with # smdba backup-restore
See the man page for smdba and the SUSE Manager manuals for details
This snippet makes it easier to use registration in the autoyast.xml file:
<init-scripts config:type="list">
$SNIPPET('spacewalk/sles_register_script')
</init-scripts>
The old snippet sles_register is still available for backwards-compatibility.
Deploying SUSE Manager into existing infrastructure is a challenge esp. when trying to discover and bootstrap existing Linux clients.
SUSE Manager now comes with a passive network scanner allowing you to detect hosts and subnets.
See http://wiki.novell.com/index.php/SM_NetworkScanner on how to install, configure and run the scanner.
SUSE Manager can now work with multiple NCC mirror credentials. Just extend the existing credentials in /etc/rhn/rhn.conf
server.susemanager.mirrcred_user = 111111
server.susemanager.mirrcred_pass = secret
with additional ones by adding an underline and a digit
server.sussuemanager.mirrcred_user_1 = 222222
server.susemanager.mirrcred_pass_1 = secret
(continue like this with ..._2, …_3, etc.)
Finally run
mgr-ncc-sync --refresh
and you should see a combined channel list with mgr-ncc-sync -l
See the SUSE Manager manual and http://wiki.novell.com/index.php/SUSE_Manager/MultipleMirrorCredentials for additional documentation.
Service Pack Migration means "migrating" a system from one Service Pack level to another.
We only support one step at a time, so it will not be possible to do a migration from e.g. SP1 to SP3. Supported migrations include these:
Note that the migration from SLE 10 SP 4 to SLES 11 SP 1 is unsupported, while addon products are generally supported. So you can migrate in one step e.g.:
Further note that currently it is only possible to schedule migrations for single systems.
The SP-Migration feature can be found in the Web UI:
Systems -> (select a system) -> Software -> SP-Migration
See the SUSE Manager manual for additional documentation.
Migrating a SUSE Manager Proxy 1.2 (based on SLES 11 SP1 ) to SUSE Manager Proxy 1.7 (based on SLES 11 SP2) works identically to client migration described above.
mgr-ncc-sync can now group channels per product.
Changes:
-l --list-channels
list now only the base channels and child channels of
already synced base channels. Use additionally --all-childs
option to get the old behaviour
New options:
--list-products
list all the products which are available for you
--list-products-xml
list all the products which are available for you (XML format)
--add-product
Add all mandatory channels of a product [interactive]
--all-childs
Show also childs, if the parent is not synced yet
--no-optional
Do not list optional channels
--filter=FILTER
Show only labels, which contains the filter word (case-insensitive)
When creating a kickstart profile for a RHEL deployment, one of the assigned channels must contain the anaconda (RHEL installer) package.
We added a tool (sw-ldap-user-sync) to the spacewalk-utils package which can query a LDAP server for users be member of a specific group.
These users are created as normal Users in SUSE Manager. Additional roles can be specified later using the WebUI or the API.
If a user is removed from the LDAP group he will be removed from SUSE Manager as well.
A working PAM authentication for SUSE Manager is required because the new created accounts will be setup to use PAM.
sw-ldap-user-sync has a configuration file /etc/rhn/sw-ldap-user-sync.conf. The format is YAML.
directory:
user: uid=xyz,dc=example,dc=com
password: xxx
url: ldaps://ldap.example.com:636
group: cn=admin,ou=groups,dc=example,dc=com
users: ou=people,dc=example,dc=com
spacewalk:
url: http://localhost/rpc/api
user: spacewalk
password: xxx
The LDAP groups need to have the object class groupOfNames and the attribute member. The LDAP user objects need to have the object class posixAccount and the attributes givenName, sn, mail, uid.
SUSE Manager Server 1.7 is available in two flavors
This is the fully open-source SUSE Manager product. It comes with an embedded PostgreSQL 9.1 database. This is also suitable for evaluation purposes and downloadable at http://www.suse.com/products/suse-manager
This version can also be configured to use an external Oracle database.
This is the enterprise SUSE Manager product. It comes with an embedded Oracle Enterprise Edition database. To request an evaluation version of this build please contact your sales representative.
Details are covered in the updated SUSE Manager documentation which is included in the product and available online at http://www.suse.com/products/suse-manager/technical-information/documentation.html
SUSE Manager Server is a 64bit Java application with an embedded database backend. This requires sufficient CPU power and main memory. A multi-core 64bit CPU (x86_64) is required, accompanied with a minimum of 4 (SUSE Manager Server) to 8 (SUSE Manager Server with Database) GB of main memory. Adding more main memory will significantly improve performance.
The database will write a recovery log, taking a lot of disk space. You need to follow a strict backup strategy to copy this log to a safe place and reclaim the disk space. See the SUSE Manager manual for details.
The SUSE Manager Server database contains all information required to manage clients. This includes all installable packages and updates as well as lists of installed packages for every client. This data requires a lot of storage space on the harddisk, typically 50 GB or more per package repository.
See the Quick Start guide for more details on the system requirements.
SUSE Manager Server is distributed as an appliance which bundles an operating system (SLES 11 SP2 x86_64) with the SUSE Manager Server application and a database.
The installable ISO of the SUSE Manager Server appliance can be deployed on physical hardware or fully virtualized (e.g. KVM, VMware) hosts.
The para-virtual XEN image available with SUSE Manager 1.2 is discontinued with SUSE Manager 1.7
Installation is done in two major steps. The first installs the appliance and configures the underlying SLES 11 operating system. The second configures SUSE Manager Server and populates the database with initial data.
See the QuickStart manual for step-by-step instructions for installing and configuring SUSE Manager Server.
An existing SUSE Manager Server 1.2 installation can be upgraded to SUSE Manager Server 1.7 with the help of YaST2 wagon. This is essentially the same workflow as a SLES service pack upgrade.
Be aware that the required database schema migration can be a time-consuming process, esp. if monitoring is enabled and used.
It is also possible to migrate data from an existing Red Hat Satellite Server.
Satellite migration requires either SUSE Manager Server with Database or SUSE Manager Server with an external Oracle database.
The migration itself is a time-consuming process and requires careful planning and expertise. Migration needs to sync the complete database as well as all cached RPM packages. Depending on the network bandwidth and the database setup, this can take up to a day or more.
Depending on the actual database structure and contents, a server migration might also fail. Please report problems via your support channel.
On first install (i.e. before running yast2 susemanager_setup) just follow the Quick Start guide and apply available patches using either zypper patch or YaST Online Update.
In general, follow the patch description when installing updates. Only apply updates to a stopped SUSE Manager Server (spacewalk-service stop)
For changes to the database schema, running spacewalk-schema-upgrade is required. Proceed as follows:
SUSE Manager Server 1.7 comes with a new database administration tool (smdba) suitable for either embedded database. Consult the manual on how to use this tool and about the regular database maintenance tasks required.
The embedded database will write a recovery log, taking a lot of disk space. You need to follow a strict backup strategy to copy this log to a safe place and reclaim the disk space. See the SUSE Manager manual for details.
With the purchase of SUSE Manager Server you will get an activation code. This code needs to be entered at the registration step during installation.
This code enables your SUSE Manager Server to retrieve updates from the Novell Customer Center. Regularly installing updates is a mandatory step to keep your SUSE Manager Server stable and secure. Before applying some updates the SUSE Manager services needs to be stopped and only restarted after the update has been applied. See the SUSE Manager Installation Guide for details.
SUSE Manager currently doesn't technically limit the number of deployed servers in most cases, except for a theoretical limit of 200,000 entitlements/subscriptions. Please note that this is a technical limitation and does not indicate in any way that you can deploy more servers than you have valid subscriptions for!
Later releases of SUSE Manager Server will keep track of allowed and used entitlements for managed systems.
The Client Tools Channel contains client-side packages to enable specific functionality. Please refer to the Client Configuration Guide about which packages relate to which function. Some packages have a very specific use case and installing them blindly is discouraged.
Managing Red Hat clients requires availability of appropriate Red Hat packages. These are not available through the Novell Customer Center (NCC) but must be provided by other means, e.g. from a retired Red Hat Satellite installation.
The SUSE Manager client stack for SLES10 based systems is identical to the one used on SLES11 based systems. SLES 10 systems managed by SUSE Manager will have the ZENworks Managemen Daemon (ZMD) and the rug command line tool removed.
SUSE Manager has the ability to log all user actions to an external log sink. This give SUSE Manager full audit-log capabilities a required by compliance rules.
It is enabled by adding the following line to /etc/rhn/rhn.conf
audit.enabled = 1
See http://wiki.novell.com/index.php/AuditLogKeeper for details on the setup of the log consumer.
SUSE Manager Server 1.7 can work with version 1.2 or version 1.7 of SUSE Manager Proxy.
Upgrade of SUSE Manager Proxy from version 1.2 to 1.7 will be available shortly.
- none -
Any of these commands needs expertise and can break your system. However, we consider these tools valueable enough to be included, but not fully supported.
In case of encountering a bug please report it through your support contact.
http://www.suse.com/products/suse-manager/technical-information contains additional or updated documentation for SUSE Manager Server 1.7.
These Release Notes are available online at http://www.suse.com/documentation/releasenotes
Further information about SUSE Manager is available at http://wiki.novell.com/index.php/SUSE_Manager
Visit http://www.suse.com for the latest Linux product news from SUSE and http://www.suse.com/download-linux/source-code.html for additional information on the source code of SUSE Linux Enterprise products.
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