Hardware Requirements

This table outlines hardware and software requirements for the SUSE Manager Server and Proxy, on x86-64 and ppc64le architecture.

For IBM Z hardware requirements, see Installing on IBM Z.

For SUSE Manager for Retail hardware requirements, see Retail Requirements.

1. Server Hardware Requirements

SUSE Manager Server stores packages in the /var/spacewalk/ directory. Repository synchronization fails if this directory runs out of disk space. You can estimate how much space the /var/spacewalk/ directory requires based on the clients and repositories you plan to mirror.

For more information about filesystem and partitioning details, see Storage Devices and Permissions.

Table 1. Server Hardware Requirements for x86-64 Architecture
Hardware Details Recommendation

CPU

-

Minimum 4 dedicated 64-bit CPU cores (x86-64)

RAM

Test or Base Installation

Minimum 16 GB

Production Server

Minimum 32 GB

Disk Space

/ (root directory)

Minimum 40 GB

/var/lib/pgsql

Minimum 50 GB

/var/spacewalk

Minimum storage required: 100 GB (this will be verified by the implemented check)

* 50 GB for each SUSE product and Package Hub

* 360 GB for each Red Hat product

/var/cache

Minimum 10 GB. Add 100 MB per SUSE product, 1 GB per Red Hat or other product. Double the space if the server is an ISS Master.

Swap space

3 GB
Table 2. Server Hardware Requirements for IBM POWER8 or POWER9 Architecture
Hardware Details Recommendation

CPU

Minimum 4 dedicated cores

RAM

Test or Base Installation

Minimum 16 GB

Production Server

Minimum 32 GB

Disk Space

/ (root directory)

Minimum 100 GB

/var/lib/pgsql

Minimum 50 GB

/var/spacewalk

Minimum storage required: 100 GB (this will be verified by the implemented check)

* 50 GB for each SUSE product and Package Hub

* 360 GB for each Red Hat product

/var/cache

Minimum 10 GB. Add 100 MB per SUSE product, 1 GB per Red Hat or other product. Double the space if the server is an ISS Master.

Swap space

3 GB

SUSE Manager performance depends on hardware resources, network bandwidth, latency between clients and server, etc.

Based on the experience and different deployments that are in use, the advice for optimal performance of SUSE Manager Server with an adequate number of proxies is to not exceed 10,000 clients per single server. It is highly recommended to move to the Hub setup and involve consultancy when you have more than 10,000 clients. Even with fine-tuning and an adequate number of proxies, such a large number of clients can lead to performance issues.

For more information about managing a large number of clients, see Using Multiple Servers to Manage Large Scale Deployments.

2. Proxy Hardware Requirements

Table 3. Proxy Hardware Requirements
Hardware Details Recommendation

CPU

Minimum 2 dedicated 64-bit CPU cores

RAM

Test Server

Minimum 2 GB

Production Server

Minimum 8 GB

Disk Space

/ (root directory)

Minimum 40 GB

/srv

Minimum 100 GB

/var/cache (Squid)

Minimum 100 GB

SUSE Manager Proxy caches packages in the /var/cache/ directory. If there is not enough space available in /var/cache/, the proxy will remove old, unused packages and replace them with newer packages.

As a result of this behavior:

  • The larger /var/cache/ directory is on the proxy, the less traffic there will be between it and the SUSE Manager Server.

  • By making the /var/cache/ directory on the proxy the same size as /var/spacewalk/ on the SUSE Manager Server, you avoid a large amount of traffic after the first synchronization.

  • The /var/cache/ directory can be small on the SUSE Manager Server compared to the proxy. For a guide to size estimation, see the Server Hardware Requirements section.

3. Storage Devices and Permissions

We recommend that the repositories and the database for SUSE Manager are stored on separate storage devices. This will help to avoid data loss. You must set up the storage devices before you run the YaST SUSE Manager setup procedure.

SUSE Manager requires three different volumes:

  • Database volume: /var/lib/pgsql

  • Channel volume: /var/spacewalk

  • Cache: /var/cache

We recommend you use XFS as the filesystem type for all volumes. Additionally, for on-premise installations, consider using logical volume management (LVM) to manage the disks. The size of the disk for repositories storage is dependent on the number of distributions and channels you intend to manage with SUSE Manager. See the tables in this section for guides to estimate the size required.

On your SUSE Manager Server, use this command to find all available storage devices:

hwinfo --disk | grep -E "Device File:"

Use the lsblk command to see the name and size of each device.

Use the suma-storage command with the device names to set up the external disks as the locations for the database and repositories:

suma-storage <channel_devicename> [<database_devicename>]

The external storage volumes are set up as XFS partitions mounted at /manager_storage and /pgsql_storage.

It is possible to use the same storage device for both channel data and the database. This is not recommended, as growing channel repositories might fill up the storage, which poses a risk to database integrity. Using separate storage devices may also increase performance. If you want to use a single storage device, run suma-storage with a single device name parameter.

If you are installing a proxy, the suma-storage command only takes a single device name parameter and will set up the external storage location as the Squid cache.

When you create disk partitions for the SUSE Manager Server and Proxy, ensure you set the permissions correctly.

For /var/lib/pgsql:

  • Owner: Read, Write, Execute

  • Group: Read, Execute

  • User: None

For /var/spacewalk:

  • Owner: Read, Write, Execute

  • Group: Read, Write, Execute

  • User: Read, Execute

Check the permissions with this command:

ls -l /var/lib/pgsql /var/spacewalk

The output should look like this:

drwxr-x--- 1 postgres postgres /var/lib/pgsql
drwxrwxr-x 1 wwwrun   www      /var/spacewalk

If required, change the permissions with these commands:

chmod 750 /var/lib/pgsql
chmod 775 /var/spacewalk

And owners with:

chown postgres:postgres /var/lib/pgsql
chown wwwrun:www /var/spacewalk