Migrate SUSE Linux Enterprise Point of Service 11 to SUSE Manager for Retail

This section describes migrating from an existing SUSE Linux Enterprise Point of Service 11 installation to a new SUSE Manager installation. You can perform this migration all at once by creating a data dump in a single file, and then moving it to the new server.

Alternatively, you can perform the migration in stages by creating a data dump for each branch, and moving them to the new server one by one. Importing and deploying the converted data can also be done in one or multiple steps, depending on your environment.

1. Migration with Complete Data Dump

In this procedure, you create a single data dump in an XML file, convert it to YAML, and migrate it to the new infrastructure all at once.

  1. Install the SUSE Manager for Retail server 4.3. For more information, see Install with the Unified Installer.

  2. On the SLEPOS Admin server export all the data stored in LDAP to an XML file. Run this command as an administrator:

    posAdmin --export --type xml --file dumpfile.xml

    The resulting dumpfile.xml file will contain global information, with parts about images, hardware and its partitioning, and the description of the branch servers with networking data, services, and attached terminals.

  3. Move the XML file to the newly created SUSE Manager server, and convert it to YAML:

    retail_migration dumpfile.xml retail.yml

  4. Review the generated YAML file (retail.yml) and adjust it as necessary. Consider HWTYPE group naming and image name and version changes in the partitioning data. Group names must not exceed the 56 character limit. You can shorten the names as needed, and the image names must match the images in SUSE Manager. The --save-mapping option can help you with this task.

    Also check whether there are duplicate MAC addresses of the terminals in the generated YAML file. Choose which entry you want to keep. If there are duplicate MAC addresses, importing the YAML file will fail.

    SUSE Linux Enterprise Point of Service images will not be migrated. You must rebuild the images using the OS image building functionality. For more information about building images, see Image building and management.

  5. Import the complete data (YAML) with:

    retail_yaml --from-yaml retail.yml

    You can see statistical data while the import is in progress. Check the results in the Web UI by navigating to Systems  System List  All and find empty profiles. To see the groups for the hardware configuration, branches, servers, and terminals, navigate to Systems  Groups.

To finalize the branch server migration, you must install the branch server machines as Salt clients and bootstrap them as proxies. For more information about proxy installation, see Retail Installation. For more information about using an activation key to assign the required channels, see Set Up the SUSE Manager for Retail Environment. After onboarded to SUSE Manager, the branch servers machines are connected with the empty profiles (by FQDN), and so they will get the Retail configuration.

After all the branches are migrated, shutdown and remove the old SLEPOS Admin Server.

2. Migration with Branch by Branch Data Dump

In this procedure, you migrate the SLEPOS infrastructure and the branches one by one, first exporting and then importing.

  1. Install the SUSE Manager for Retail server 4.3 For more information, see Install with the Unified Installer.

  2. On every branch server:

    posAdmin --export --type xml --file dumpfile.xml

    These dumps will contain only the LDAP data of the branch, and any global data.

  3. Similarily, you can export the LDAP data of every branch if you run the command on the Admin server with the branch credentials explicitly specified:

    posAdmin --export --type xml --file dumpfile.xml --user $branch_dn \
    --password $password

    For background information about SLEPOS branch server configuration, see https://documentation.suse.com/sle-pos/11-SP3/html/SLEPOS-guide/cha.slepos_branchserv.html.

  4. Review the generated YAML file (retail.yml) and adjust it as necessary. Consider HWTYPE group naming and image name and version changes in the partitioning data. You can shorten the names as needed, and the image names must match the images in SUSE Manager. The --save-mapping option can help you with this task.

  5. Check whether there are duplicate MAC addresses of the terminals in the generated YAML file. Choose which entry you want to keep. As long as there are duplicate MAC addresses, SUSE Manager will refuse importing the YAML file.

    SUSE Linux Enterprise Point of Service images will not be migrated. You must rebuild the images using the OS image building functionality. For more information about building images, see Image building and management.

The data can be imported branch by branch. For each branch perform the following steps:

  1. Run the import command for one branch after the other:

    retail_yaml --from-yaml retail.yml --branch <branch_name>

    Repeat the command for every branch.

  2. To finalize each branch server migration, you must install the branch server machine as a Salt-based client and bootstrap it as a proxy. For more information about proxy installation, see Installing and Registering. For more information about using an activation key to assign the required channels, see Configuring Server. After onboarded to SUSE Manager for Retail, the branch server machine is connected with the empty profile (by FQDN), and so it will get the Retail configuration.

  3. Apply Highstate on the branch server; this will happen automatically if Configuration File Deployment is enabled.

  4. Boot the terminals of the branch.

After all the branches are migrated, shut down and remove the old SLEPOS Admin Server.

3. Converting XML to YAML

When you perform a migration using one of the methods in this chapter, one of the steps takes the XML data dump file from SUSE Linux Enterprise Point of Service, and converts it to a YAML file for SUSE Manager for Retail. The tool that performs this conversion has additional features, which are outlined in this section.

To validate the XML file before conversion, and print any errors:

retail_migration dumpfile.xml

To write a mapping file called map.yml:

retail_migration dumpfile.xml  --save-mapping map.yml

The mapping file contains two dictionaries:

  1. images, which maps old SUSE Linux Enterprise Point of Service images to new images built in SUSE Manager.

  2. groups, which maps legacy SUSE Linux Enterprise Point of Service scCashRegister objects to SUSE Manager HWTYPE groups. Group names must not exceed the 56 character limit.

The mapping file should be edited as required for your environment.

To perform a conversion using a mapping file:

retail_migration dumpfile.xml  retail.yml --mapping map.yml

If you are performing a branch-by-branch migration, the resulting retail.yml file will contain a new version of SUSE Linux Enterprise Point of Service LDAP data. If you want to preserve any global changes in your SUSE Manager for Retail settings, remove the global hardware types from the resulting retail.yml file before importing it. Alternatively, you can import retail.yml using this command to import only the new systems and groups defined in the file, and leave any existing configuration settings untouched:

retail_yaml --only-new