SUSE Multi-Linux Manager Server 5.1

SUSE Multi-Linux Manager 5.1 server is built upon the containerized foundation introduced in version 5.0, further enhancing modularity, flexibility, and scalability. This release refines deployment and management processes, improving performance, resilience, and ease of use.

With optimizations in containerized infrastructure and additional refinements, SUSE Multi-Linux Manager 5.1 continues the journey toward a more adaptable and efficient management solution for modern enterprise environments.

SUSE Multi-Linux Manager now supports Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) to provide users with fine-grained access control and configuration options. This enhancement centralizes access control rules, making them easier to manage and adapt. The implementation is designed to be flexible, allowing new use cases and rules to be defined through configuration rather than code changes. The SUSE Multi-Linux Manager Server will include sensible default policies while also enabling users to create custom access policies (user access groups) to suit their specific requirements.

SUSE Multi-Linux Manager 5.1 introduces a new online synchronization mechanism between the Hub and peripheral servers, providing a more user-friendly and automated approach to content synchronization. This enhancement leverages existing stable mechanisms to deliver a robust and efficient solution. With the Hub architecture, centralized content management is now seamlessly extended to peripheral servers.

Additionally, the scope of ISSv2 has been refined to focus exclusively on offline synchronization, ensuring a clearer and more streamlined functionality.

SUSE Multi-Linux Manager 5.1 has enhanced its integration with Ansible to provide users with greater flexibility and control over their workflows. These improvements streamline the scheduling, management, and monitoring of Ansible playbooks within the platform. These updates are designed to make Ansible management more efficient, user-friendly, and seamless within SUSE Multi-Linux Manager.

With the release of SUSE Multi-Linux Manager 5.1, the platform now extends support to SUSE Linux Micro 6.1, SUSE Linux Enterprise 15 SP7 family, Amazon Linux 2023, Raspberry Pi OS (Tech Preview), and OpenEuler (Tech Preview). This expansion enables centralized management of multiple Enterprise Linux distributions, regardless of their location.

SUSE Multi-Linux Manager now offers comprehensive management capabilities for a wide range of distributions, including SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server Micro, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, openSUSE, SUSE Liberty Linux, Oracle Linux, AlmaLinux, Rocky Linux, Ubuntu, Debian, and Amazon Linux.

SUSE Multi-Linux Manager 5.1 comes with a standalone Health Check tool. This tool provides a detailed dashboard, metrics, and logs from the server, showcasing its current health status based on the support-config. Users can efficiently evaluate the health of their running instance and identify any potential errors for effective troubleshooting.

SUSE Multi-Linux Manager 5.1 will not be a base product, similar to version 5.0. Instead, it will be an extension for SUSE Linux Micro 6.1 and SUSE Linux Enterprise 15 SP7, available through the SUSE Customer Center. This extension will include all the necessary tools to install and manage SUSE Multi-Linux Manager.

SUSE Multi-Linux Manager 5.1 Server will be supported on x86_64, s390x, IBM POWER (ppc64le), and ARM64 (AArch64) architectures.

SUSE Multi-Linux Manager Server, Proxy, and Retail Branch Server will be delivered as containers, accessible via the SUSE Registry.

SUSE Linux Enterprise as Host OS requires an additional subscriptions, while SUSE Linux Micro is included.

Additionally, VM images based on SUSE Linux Micro are provided for simplified setup, featuring preloaded configurations for easy customization.

For more details on system requirements, see the Installation Guide on https://documentation.suse.com/multi-linux-manager/5.1/

In-place upgrade from SUSE Multi-Linux Manager Server 5.0 is supported, if the host operating system remains the same.

However, an in-place upgrade from SUSE Multi-Linux Manager Server 4.3 is not supported.

SUSE Multi-Linux Manager Server 5.1 includes tools designed to simplify the migration process.

Once the migration is complete, all connected clients will seamlessly continue to run without any changes.

For detailed instructions on upgrading, please refer to the Upgrade Guide available at https://documentation.suse.com/multi-linux-manager/5.1/

Although SUSE Multi-Linux Manager Server 5.1 works with SUSE Multi-Linux Manager Proxy 4.3/5.0 and SUSE Multi-Linux Manager Retail Branch Server 4.3/5.0, we highly recommend upgrading your Proxy and Retail Branch Server when feasible. The product is designed for optimal performance when used in a scenario where all components — SUSE Multi-Linux Manager Server, SUSE Multi-Linux Manager Proxy, and Retail Branch Server — are of the same version. It’s generally advised to avoid using mixed versions long-term in production environments.

When upgrading, upgrade the SUSE Multi-Linux Manager Server first, followed by the SUSE Multi-Linux Manager Proxy and Retail Branch Servers.

For instructions on upgrading when SUSE Multi-Linux Manager Proxy or SUSE Multi-Linux Manager Retail Branch Servers are in use, see the Upgrade Guide on https://documentation.suse.com/multi-linux-manager/5.1/.

SUSE Multi-Linux Manager 5.1, continues to use Salt 3006. It is considered by upstream to be a long-term support (LTS) version. Our plan is to upgrade to the next LTS version, which will be 3008 when available. Short-term support (STS) versions of Salt are not supported for use with SUSE Multi-Linux Manager.

Throughout this process, all critical bug fixes, including CVEs, L3 fixes, and essential features needed for SUSE Multi-Linux Manager, will be provided.

As part of this commitment, the following CVE fixes have been included:

SUSE Multi-Linux Manager 5.1 is delivered as a containers, built on the bci-init image, which is based on SLES 15 SP7.

With version 5.1, SUSE Multi-Linux Manager moves to SUSE Linux Micro 6.1 and SUSE Linux Enterprise 15 SP7 as its supported container host systems. The SL Micro subscription for the host server is included with the SUSE Multi-Linux Manager subscription. However, for SUSE Linux Enterprise 15 SP7, users will need to have a separate subscription.

SUSE Multi-Linux Manager 5.1 extends the list of operating systems that can be managed by introducing support for the following:

This broadens the range of systems that can be managed, offering more flexibility for diverse environments.

SUSE Multi-Linux Manager 5.1 introduces a rebranded set of client tools for all supported operating systems. This transition is seamless, and users performing a new product synchronization should only notice the updated channel names.

Channels named SUSE Manager Client Tools for XYZ, used by clients previously registered with SUSE Manager 4.3 or 5.0, are no longer available in version 5.1 and will no longer receive updates in 5.1.

Although the legacy channels remain assigned to existing clients after migration, the corresponding repositories have been removed.

To ensure continued updates, users must:

This also means that any CLM projects based on the old client tools must be adjusted accordingly.

SUSE Multi-Linux Manager 5.1 introduces a new online synchronization mechanism between the Hub and peripheral servers, providing a more user-friendly and automated approach to content synchronization. This enhancement leverages existing stable mechanisms to deliver a robust and efficient solution and significantly improves both performance and the overall user experience. With the Hub architecture, centralized content management is now seamlessly extended to peripheral servers.

The new Hub online synchronisation feature builds on the existing repository synchronization mechanism. It allows peripheral servers to sync their software channels directly from repositories hosted on the Hub server. Once the connection is established, the Hub becomes the primary content source for its connected peripheral servers.

Currently, this functionality is limited to software channels, but future releases will expand support to include other artifacts such as images and configuration channels.

As part of this improvement, the already deprecated ISSv1 will be removed. ISSv2 will remain available for offline synchronization scenarios.

Migration will be available from both ISSv1 and ISSv2 to the new method of synchronizing content between the Hub server and peripheral servers.

SUSE Multi-Linux Manager 5.1 introduces significantly improved Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) to provide users with fine-grained access control and configuration options. This enhancement centralizes access control rules, making them easier to manage and adapt. The implementation is designed to be flexible, allowing new use cases and rules to be defined through configuration rather than code changes.

The SUSE Multi-Linux Manager Server will include sensible default policies while also enabling users to create custom access policies (user access groups) to suit their specific requirements.

Administrators can now better manage user permissions, delegating access to specific functions or sections of the system as needed. This is the first phase of a broader effort, and additional enhancements to RBAC are planned in future releases.

SUSE Multi-Linux Manager 5.1 includes a range of enhancements to its Ansible integration, making it easier to manage automation workflows directly from within the product. These improvements aim to streamline day-to-day operations and increase visibility and control over Ansible-driven configurations.

Key improvements include:

These enhancements mark a major step forward in improving Ansible usability and integration in Multi-Linux Manager.

SUSE Multi-Linux Manager 5.1 introduces a built-in backup and restore solution via the mgradm backup command-line tool. It provides a reliable and consistent way to safeguard your Multi-Linux Manager installation, simplifying disaster recovery and system migration.

The mgradm backup create command performs a full backup of all critical data, while mgradm backup restore enables system recovery. Additional subcommands and options are available and can be viewed using the tool’s help output.

Regular use of this tool is recommended to prevent data loss and ensure quick recovery in case of failure.

For more details about the tool, refer to the Backup and Restore section of the documentation.

SUSE Multi-Linux Manager 5.1 now includes the PostgreSQL database in a separate container. As this new database container no longer shares the SSL certificate with the web server, the password of the SSL CA key is required when upgrading from any older version. When using third party certificates, a certificate and key for the database will need to be provided instead.

To help with backing up and restoring the data a new tool mgradm backup command is available, more information about it can be found in the Backup and Restore section of the documentation.

The product migration feature has been enhanced, allowing users to seamlessly migrate their SLES systems to SLES for SAP when needed. This improvement significantly enhances the user experience, eliminating the need for specific scripts previously required, as it is now integrated into SUSE Multi-Linux Manager’s capabilities.

Saline is a tool that brings powerful monitoring and profiling capabilities to SUSE Multi-Linux Server, helping users maintain a well-tuned and responsive Salt infrastructure.

It is designed to work as a Prometheus exporter, collecting and exposing metrics from the Salt event bus. This provides better visibility into Salt events, helping identify performance bottlenecks and profile Salt internals.

For more details about the tool, deployment options, and related information, refer to the Monitoring Salt Events.

The virtualization feature, deprecated in SUSE Multi-Linux Manager 5.0, has been fully removed in version 5.1. If you still rely on VM management functionalities, we highly recommend considering alternatives like https://harvesterhci.io/.

Starting with the SUSE Multi-Linux Manager 5.1 release, ISSv1 has been fully removed, following its deprecation in the previous release. For offline inter-server synchronization, ISSv2 is now available. For online synchronization, the required functionality is fully integrated into the Hub server. If you encounter any gaps or issues during this transition, please don’t hesitate to contact us for assistance.

Starting with the SUSE Multi-Linux Manager 5.1, the smdba tool has been deprecated. Alternative solutions for backup, restore, and database tuning will be provided.

With SUSE Manager 4.3, the spacewalk-clone-by-date tool was deprecated in favor of Content Lifecycle Management (CLM), a more powerful and flexible solution.

We are now also deprecating spacewalk-manage-channel-lifecycle, as CLM fully covers the functionality of both tools.

CLM’s comprehensive API provides all key capabilities previously offered, and we strongly recommend migrating existing workflows and scripts to CLM.

When handling Service Requests, supporters and engineers may ask for the output of the supportconfig tool from SUSE Multi-Linux Manager Server or clients.

This disclaimer applies:

When you run supportconfig or mgradm support, the output will contain information about your clients as well as about the Server. In particular, debug data for the subscription matching feature contains a list of registered clients, their installed products, and some minimal hardware information (such as the CPU socket count). It also contains a copy of the subscription data available from the SUSE Customer Center.

If this is a concern, please prune data in the subscription-matcher directory in the spacewalk-debug tarball before sending it to SUSE.

All software components embedded into SUSE Multi-Linux Manager, like Cobbler for PXE booting, are only supported in the context of SUSE Multi-Linux Manager. Stand-alone usage (e. g. Cobbler command-line) is not supported.

The SUSE Multi-Linux Manager engineering team provides best effort support for products past their end-of-life date. For more information about product support, see Product Support Lifecycle.

Support for products that are considered past their end-of-life is limited to assisting you to bring production systems to a supported state. This could be either by migrating to a supported service pack or by upgrading to a supported product version.

SUSE Multi-Linux Manager supports SUSE Liberty Linux 7, 8 and 9. SUSE Liberty Linux clients are sometimes also called SUSE Linux Enterprise Server with Expanded Support (SLESES) or simply RES.

SUSE has offered LTSS support for SUSE Liberty Linux 7, and SUSE Multi-Linux Manager will continue to support it throughout the LTSS phase.

For a detailed list of supported features, check the Client Configuration Guide.

SUSE Multi-Linux Manager supports RHEL/Oracle Linux 8 and 9.

SUSE Multi-Linux Manager has the ability to mirror all entitled content for the supported operating systems. Although SUSE Multi-Linux Manager doesn’t assign content for specific systems using subscription-manager, it does rely on it initially to retrieve the list of repositories that are available. By utilizing the same EUS channels that Red Hat provides, customers can limit content to individual dot releases.

CentOS Stream is explicitly not supported by SUSE.

Note: Direct sync’ing ULN repos with SUSE Multi-Linux Manager are not currently supported. An Oracle Local Distribution for ULN must be used. To set up a local ULN mirror, please consult the Oracle documentation provided at the following link

SUSE Multi-Linux Manager supports Rocky Linux 8/9 and AlmaLinux 8/9.

For a detailed list of supported features for AlmaLinux, check the Client Configuration Guide. For a detailed list of supported features for Rocky Linux, check the Client Configuration Guide.

SUSE Multi-Linux Manager supports Ubuntu 22.04 LTS and 24.04 LTS clients using Salt.

Support for Ubuntu is limited to a growing list of specific features. For a detailed list of supported features, check the Client Configuration Guide.

SUSE Multi-Linux Manager supports Debian 12 "bookworm" clients using Salt.

Support for Debian is limited to a growing list of specific features. For a detailed list of supported features, check the Client Configuration Guide.

The Multi-Linux Manager supports multiple major versions of non-SUSE client operating systems, such as RHEL, Rocky Linux, Debian and others. However, only the latest minor release of each supported major version is fully supported.

For example:

Older minor releases might still work but will only be supported on a limited and reasonable-effort basis. If issues arise on an outdated minor release, users will be asked to upgrade to the latest available minor version before further support is provided.

For RHEL clients on the ppc64le architecture, SUSE Multi-Linux Manager offers the same functionality that is supported for the x86_64 architecture. Client tools are not available yet from SCC but the RHEL 9 client tools from Uyuni can be enabled using spacewalk-common-channels.

RHEL ppc64le are only supported at L1 level support. L1 support is limited to problem determination, which means technical support designed to provide compatibility information, usage support, on-going maintenance, information gathering, and basic troubleshooting using available documentation. At the time of writing, any problems or bugs specific to RHEL on ppc64le will only be fixed on a best-effort basis.

Please contact your Sales Engineer or SUSE Consulting if you need additional support or features for these operating systems.

SUSE provides scap-security-guide package for different OpenSCAP profiles. In the current version of scap-security-guide, SUSE supports the following profiles:

Other profiles, are community supplied and not officially supported by SUSE.

For Non-SUSE OSs, please note that the included profiles are community supplied and not officially supported by SUSE.

Only the file Podman secret driver has been tested and is officially supported for SUSE Multi-Linux Manager container deployments at this time. Other drivers, such as pass or any custom or external secret providers, have not been tested and are not supported.

To effectively manage your SUSE Multi-Linux Manager environment via the Web UI, it’s essential to use an up-to-date web browser. SUSE Multi-Linux Manager is compatible with:

Please note that Windows Internet Explorer is not supported. The SUSE Multi-Linux Manager Web UI may not render correctly when accessed through Windows Internet Explorer.

Please refer to the General Requirements for a list of supported browsers.

The only supported methods for installing SUSE Multi-Linux Manager is by utilizing images provided by SUSE, or the tools provided in the SUSE Multi-Linux Manager 5.1 Extension, on top of SUSE Linux Micro 6.1 and SUSE Linux Enterprise 15 SP7.

During proxy migration from SUSE Multi-Linux Manager 5.0 to 5.1, an issue has been identified that will require user intervention. In some cases, the upgrade appears successful, but services fail to start. This is likely due to a mismatch in the /etc/uyuni/proxy/config.yaml file, where the expected server_version is set incorrectly.

The value should be 5.1.0, but it may instead be 5.0.5. User can confirm this by checking the logs via:

or by reviewing the mgrpxy logs uyuni-proxy-httpd logs. Look for an error message such as:

To resolve this issue, manually edit the /etc/uyuni/proxy/config.yaml file and set

Then proceed with the upgrade by running:

After a successful upgrade, start the services manually using:

A permanent fix is in progress and will be included in an upcoming update.

When bootstrapping an SL Micro 6.1 client, users may encounter the following error:

This error occurs due to an outdated version of the suse-build-key package. To resolve the issue, upgrade the suse-build-key package and retry the bootstrapping process.

A potential issue in SLE Micro 5.5 may prevent successful product migration to SL Micro 6.1 when using the Product Migration feature of SUSE Multi-Linux Manager. While the migration may succeed in some cases, failures have been observed due to a known bug. A permanent fix is in progress.

It is strongly recommended to create a full backup of the SLE Micro 5.5 minion disk before attempting the migration in this case. If the process fails, the backup will allow to restore the system and avoid any unwanted state.

After performing a backup and restore of the system, you may encounter a permissions error when generating bootstrap repositories:

This occurs due to incorrect SELinux labels on restored volumes, which can prevent access to the required files.

To resolve the issue, restore the correct SELinux context by running the following command:

This command will recursively reset the SELinux context on the affected directory, allowing bootstrap repository generation to proceed successfully.

When using the backup/restore feature in SUSE Multi-Linux Manager 5.1, do not rename the backup directory or any of its internal paths.

Renaming the backup folder (for example, changing backup-2025-07-25 to backup-new-name) will result in a checksum mismatch error during the restore process, such as:

To avoid such issues:

Some issues remain unresolved in context of database container

Ansible is no longer included in the new client tools. Users are expected to obtain Ansible from their operating system vendor’s repositories.

On SLE 15 SP6 and SP7, Ansible is provided through the Systems Management Module.

For older service packs such as SP4 and SP5, users who wish to install a newer version of Ansible must enable the Python 3 Module to ensure a successful installation.