Applies to SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 SP4

About This Guide #

Subscription Management Tool (SMT) for SUSE Linux Enterprise 12 SP4 allows enterprise customers to optimize the management of SUSE Linux Enterprise software updates and subscription entitlements. It establishes a proxy system for SUSE® Customer Center with repository (formerly known as catalog) and registration targets. This helps you centrally manage software updates within the firewall on a per-system basis, while maintaining your corporate security policies and regulatory compliance.

SMT allows you to provision updates for all of your devices running a product based on SUSE Linux Enterprise. By downloading these updates once and distributing them throughout the enterprise, you can set more restrictive firewall policies. This also reduces bandwidth usage, as there is no need to download the same updates for each device. SMT is fully supported and available as a download for customers with an active SUSE Linux Enterprise product subscription.

Subscription Management Tool provides functionality that can be useful in many situations, including the following:

You want to update both SUSE Linux Enterprise and RedHat Enterprise Linux servers.
You want to get a detailed overview of your company's license compliance.
Not all machines in your environment can be connected to SUSE Customer Center to register and retrieve updates for bandwidth or security reasons.
There are SUSE Linux Enterprise hosts that are restricted and difficult to update without putting in place a custom update management solution.
You need to integrate additional software update external or internal repositories into your update solution.
You are looking for a turnkey box staging solution for testing updates before releasing them to the clients.
You want to have a quick overview of the patch status of your SUSE Linux Enterprise servers and desktops.

Figure 1: SMT #

1 Overview #

The Subscription Management Tool Guide is divided into the following chapters:

SMT Installation: Introduction to the SMT installation process and the SMT Configuration Wizard. You will learn how to install the SMT add-on on your base system during the installation process or on an already installed base system.
SMT Server Configuration: Description of the YaST configuration module SMT Server. This chapter explains how to set and configure organization credentials, SMT database passwords, and e-mail addresses to send SMT reports, or set the SMT job schedule, and activate or deactivate the SMT service.
Mirroring Repositories on the SMT Server: Explanation of how to mirror the installation and update sources with YaST.
Managing Repositories with YaST SMT Server Management: Description of how to register client machines on SUSE Customer Center. The client machines must be configured to use SMT.
SMT Reports: In-depth look at generated reports based on SMT data. Generated reports contain statistics of all registered machines and products used and of all active, expiring, or missing subscriptions.
SMT Tools and Configuration Files: Description of the most important scripts, configuration files and certificates supplied with SMT.
Configuring Clients to Use SMT: Introduction to configuring any client machine to register against SMT and download software updates from there instead of communicating directly with the SUSE Customer Center.

2 Additional Documentation and Resources #

Chapters in this manual contain links to additional documentation resources that are available either on the system or on the Internet.

For an overview of the documentation available for your product and the latest documentation updates, refer to http://www.suse.com/documentation.

3 Improving the Documentation #

Your feedback and contributions to this documentation are welcome. The following channels for giving feedback are available:

Service Requests and Support

For services and support options available for your product, see https://www.suse.com/support/.

To open a service request, you need a SUSE subscription registered at SUSE Customer Center. Go to https://scc.suse.com/support/requests, log in, and click Create New.

Bug Reports

Report issues with the documentation at https://bugzilla.suse.com/.

To simplify this process, click the Report an issue icon next to a headline in the HTML version of this document. This preselects the right product and category in Bugzilla and adds a link to the current section. You can start typing your bug report right away.

A Bugzilla account is required.

Contributions

To contribute to this documentation, click the Edit source document icon next to a headline in the HTML version of this document. This will take you to the source code on GitHub, where you can open a pull request.

A GitHub account is required.

Note: Edit source document only available for English

The Edit source document icons are only available for the English version of each document. For all other languages, use the Report an issue icons instead.

For more information about the documentation environment used for this documentation, see the repository's README https://github.com/SUSE/doc-sle/blob/master/README.adoc.

Mail

You can also report errors and send feedback concerning the documentation to <doc-team@suse.com>. Include the document title, the product version, and the publication date of the document. Additionally, include the relevant section number and title (or provide the URL) and provide a concise description of the problem.

4 Documentation Conventions #

The following notices and typographical conventions are used in this documentation:

/etc/passwd: directory names and file names
PLACEHOLDER: replace PLACEHOLDER with the actual value
PATH: the environment variable PATH
ls, --help: commands, options, and parameters
user: users or groups
package name : name of a package
Alt, Alt–F1: a key to press or a key combination; keys are shown in uppercase as on a keyboard
File, File › Save As: menu items, buttons
AMD/Intel This paragraph is only relevant for the AMD64/Intel 64 architecture. The arrows mark the beginning and the end of the text block.
IBM Z, POWER This paragraph is only relevant for the architectures z Systems and POWER. The arrows mark the beginning and the end of the text block.
Dancing Penguins (Chapter Penguins, ↑Another Manual): This is a reference to a chapter in another manual.
Commands that must be run with root privileges. Often you can also prefix these commands with the sudo command to run them as non-privileged user.
```
root # command
tux > sudo command
```
Commands that can be run by non-privileged users.
```
tux > command
```
Notices
Warning: Warning Notice
Vital information you must be aware of before proceeding. Warns you about security issues, potential loss of data, damage to hardware, or physical hazards.
Important: Important Notice
Important information you should be aware of before proceeding.
Note: Note Notice
Additional information, for example about differences in software versions.
Tip: Tip Notice
Helpful information, like a guideline or a piece of practical advice.