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SL Micro Release Notes 6.2

SL Micro Release Notes

 
Publication Date: 2024-11-27

SUSE Linux Micro is a modern operating system primarily targeted for edge computing. This document provides a high-level overview of its features, capabilities, and limitations.

1 About the release notes

 

These Release Notes are identical across all architectures, and the most recent version is always available online at https://www.suse.com/releasenotes.

Entries are only listed once but they can be referenced in several places if they are important and belong to more than one section.

Release notes usually only list changes that happened between two subsequent releases. Certain important entries from the release notes of previous product versions are repeated. To make these entries easier to identify, they contain a note to that effect.

However, repeated entries are provided as a courtesy only. Therefore, if you are skipping one or more service packs, check the release notes of the skipped service packs as well. If you are only reading the release notes of the current release, you could miss important changes.

1.1 Documentation and other information

 

For the most up-to-date version of the documentation for SUSE Linux Micro, see:

2 SUSE Linux Micro Version 6.2

 

These release notes apply to SUSE Linux Micro 6.2.

2.1 Changes affecting all architectures

 

  • Image re-encryption during the OS initialisation is now faster

  • ULP (user space live patching) is now supported with transactional updates

2.2 Switch to mountfd API in util-linux

 

The util-linux mount command has switched from the old string-based method to the new kernel mountfd API. This change introduces new features but also comes with some minor incompatibilities.

There is a special case that cannot be handled by mountfd and needs to be handled by applications:

  • mountfd discriminates between the physical mount layer and the virtual mount layer

  • once the physical mount layer is read-only, read-write mount on the virtual layer is not possible

If the first mount is read-only, then the physical filesystem is mounted read-only, and later mounting of the same file system as read-write is not possible. To solve this problem, the first mount needs to be read-only on the virtual layer only, keeping the physical layer read-write. The userspace fix is simple. Instead of:

mount -oro

use

mount -oro=vfs

This will keep the physical layer read-write, but the virtual file system layer (and the userspace access) read-only.

2.3 Switch to predictable network names

 

The persistent network naming scheme used in SL Micro 15 became legacy with the switch to the systemd predictable network names. For complicated setups, we recommend using systemd.link.

For more information, see:

Note
Note

In the future, when upgrading from SL Micro to SL Micro 6.3 (so-called "SLE merge"), some systems will have net.ifnames=0 set on their kernel command line (this is the case for new installations of SL Micro 6.0 and 6.1). This boot option will prevent the system from switching to the predictable naming scheme and it will need to be removed.

2.3.1 Minimum hardware requirements

 

SUSE Linux Micro 6.2 requires hardware to meet requirements on these architectures:

  • For AMD64 and Intel* 64 systems: Microarchitecture level x86-64-v2 or higher.

  • For IBM* Power LE systems: POWER10 or higher (see note below).

  • For Arm64* systems: Armv8.0-A or higher.

  • For IBM* Z systems: z14 or higher.

Note
Note

POWER9 systems may work with SL Micro 6.2 but are not supported by IBM, the hardware vendor.

2.3.2 SHA1 to be disabled or mark unapproved

 

Due to FIPS 140-3 certification requirements, the SHA1 cryptographic algorithm will be disabled or marked unapproved when running in FIPS mode.

2.3.3 Changes to product identification

 

The identification variables in /etc/os-release have been changed. The before and after state is as follows:

VariableBeforeNow

NAME

SL-Micro

SLES

PRETTY_NAME

SUSE Linux Micro 6.2

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 16.0

VARIANT

-

Micro

VARIANT_ID

-

transactional

CPE_NAME

cpe:/o:suse:sl-micro:6.2

cpe:/o:suse:sles:16:16.0

VERSION

6.2

16.0

VERSION_ID

16.0

16.0

ID

sl-micro

sles

ID_LIKE

suse sle-micro opensuse-microos microos

suse opensuse

SUSE_SUPPORT_PRODUCT

-

SUSE Linux Micro

SUSE_SUPPORT_PRODUCT_VERSION

-

6.2

SUSE_PRETTY_NAME

-

SUSE Linux Micro 6.2

2.3.4 Default user group assignment changed

 

Previously, all user accounts belonged to a single users group.

Now instead of being added to the common users group, each new user now gets their own primary group matching their username. This is due to USERGROUPS_ENAB being enabled in /usr/etc/login.defs. This change affects all new installations and upgraded systems that did not change the default /etc/login.defs. This has several consequences:

  • files created by new users are not group-readable by default

  • configurations that used the primary users group as a condition do not work anymore

  • configurations that used the primary or secondary users group as a condition need to have the users group manually added to these user accounts in order to continue to work, for example, to for @users in the sudoers file

  • home directories inherited from a previous system need to standardize the GID of the files by running: find "$HOME" -group users -exec chgrp myuser {} \;, or chgrp -R myuser "$HOME" if you did not use any GID other than users

2.3.5 Helm has been added

 

Helm has been added to SUSE Linux Micro 6.2.

2.3.6 podmansh added

 

The podmansh package has been added. It provides a confined login and user shell with access to volumes and capabilities specified in user quadlets.

2.3.7 Extras channel

 

A new channel called "SUSE Linux Micro Extras" has been added. It includes testing, development and certifications packages and components that are not normally included with the OS itself. These packages are not supported.

2.4 Arm 64-bit-specific features and fixes (AArch64)

 

  • full-disk encryption is now supported

2.4.1 System-on-Chip driver enablement

 

SL Micro 6.2 includes driver enablement for the following System-on-Chip (SoC) chipsets:

  • Ampere* X-Gene*, eMAG*, Altra*, Altra Max, AmpereOne*

  • AWS* Graviton, Graviton2, Graviton3

  • Broadcom* BCM2837/BCM2710, BCM2711

  • Fujitsu* A64FX

  • Huawei* Kunpeng* 916, Kunpeng 920

  • Marvell* ThunderX*, ThunderX2*; OCTEON TX*; Armada* 7040, Armada 8040

  • NVIDIA* Grace; Tegra* X1, Tegra X2, Xavier*, Orin; BlueField*, BlueField-2, BlueField-3

  • NXP* i.MX 8M, 8M Mini; Layerscape* LS1012A, LS1027A/LS1017A, LS1028A/LS1018A, LS1043A, LS1046A, LS1088A, LS2080A/LS2040A, LS2088A, LX2160A

  • Rockchip RK3399

  • Socionext* SynQuacer* SC2A11

  • Xilinx* Zynq* UltraScale*+ MPSoC

Note
Note

Driver enablement is done as far as available and requested. Refer to the following sections for any known limitations.

Some systems might need additional drivers for external chips, such as a Power Management Integrated Chip (PMIC), which may differ between systems with the same SoC chipset.

For booting, systems need to fulfill either the Server Base Boot Requirements (SBBR) or the Embedded Base Boot Requirements (EBBR), that is, the Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) either implementing the Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) or providing a Flat Device Tree (FDT) table. If both are implemented, the kernel will default to the Device Tree; the kernel command line argument acpi=force can override this default behavior.

Check for SUSE YES! certified systems, which have undergone compatibility testing.

2.5 Removed and deprecated features and packages

 

2.5.1 Removed features and packages

 

  • criu

  • yomi is not supported anymore

  • nerdctl

  • crun has been removed. Use runc instead.

2.5.1.1 realtime sysfs entry is removed
 

realtime sysfs entry (/sys/kernel/realtime) is supposed to accelerate boot times if many udev rules require checking for PREEMPT_RT. However, it is not merged upstream, and we do not know if any customer relies on it, so we removed it in SUSE Linux Micro (RT) 6.2.

Undoubtedly, the customer can still use the command 'uname -a' or 'uname -v' to verify if it is running RT kernel or not.

2.5.2 Deprecated features and packages

 

The following features and packages are deprecated and will be removed in a future version of SUSE Linux Micro.

2.5.2.1 nmap deprecation notice
 

The nmap project has moved to a new source license that makes future releases of nmap incompatible with our product.

In SL Micro 6.2, we are shipping the latest version of nmap released under the old license. In an upcoming release we will switch to an alternative tool.

3 Obtaining source code

 

This SUSE product includes materials licensed to SUSE under the GNU General Public License (GPL). The GPL requires SUSE to provide the source code that corresponds to the GPL-licensed material. The source code is available for download at https://www.suse.com/download/sle-micro/ on Medium 2. For up to three years after distribution of the SUSE product, upon request, SUSE will mail a copy of the source code. Send requests by e-mail to sle_source_request@suse.com. SUSE may charge a reasonable fee to recover distribution costs.