System Groups

You can use system groups to make it easier to manage a large number of clients. Groups can be used to perform bulk actions on clients such as applying updates, configuration channels, salt states, or formulas.

You can organize clients into groups in any way that works for your environment. For example, you could organize clients on which operating system is installed, which physical location they are in, or the type of workload they are handling. Clients can be in any number of groups, so you can define your groups in different ways.

When you have clients organized into groups, you can perform updates on all clients in one or more groups, or on intersections between groups. For example, you can define one group for all clients with web server software, and another group for all SLES clients. You can then perform updates on all clients with web server software, or use the intersection between the groups, and update all SLES clients with web server software.

1. Create Groups

You need to create some groups before you can use them to organize your clients.

Procedure: Creating a New System Group

  1. In the SUSE Manager Web UI, navigate to Systems  System Groups.

  2. Click Create Group.

  3. Give your new group a name and a description.

  4. Click Create Group to save your group.

  5. Repeat for each group you require.

2. Add Clients to Groups

You can add individual clients to your groups, or add multiple clients at the same time.

Procedure: Adding A Single Client to a Group

  1. In the SUSE Manager Web UI, navigate to Systems  System List and click the name of the client to add.

  2. Navigate to the Groups  Join tab.

  3. Check the group to join and click Join Selected Groups.

Procedure: Adding Multiple Clients to a Group

  1. In the SUSE Manager Web UI, navigate to Systems  System Groups and click the name of the group to add clients to.

  2. Navigate to the Target systems tab.

  3. Check the clients to add and click Add Systems.

Procedure: Adding Multiple Clients to a Group with SSM

  1. In the SUSE Manager Web UI, navigate to Systems  System List and check each client to add, this adds the clients to the system set manager.

  2. Navigate to Systems  System Set Manager, and go to the Groups tab.

  3. Locate the group to join and check Add.

  4. Click Alter Membership.

  5. Click Confirm to join the clients to the selected group.

For more information about the system set manager, see System Set Manager.

You can see which clients are in a group by navigating to Systems  System Groups, clicking the name of the group, and navigating to the Systems tab.

3. Work with Groups

When you have your clients arranged into groups, you can use your groups to manage updates.

In the SUSE Manager Web UI, navigate to Systems  System Groups. The list shows an icon if there are updates available for any of the clients in the group. The list shows a question mark icon if checking the update status is disabled for any of the clients in the group. Click the icon to see more information about the updates available and to apply them to the clients.

You can also work with more than one group at a time. Select the groups you want to work with, and click Work with union to select every client in every selected group.

Alternatively, you can work on intersections of groups. Select two or more groups, and click Work with intersection to select only those clients that exist in all the selected groups. For example, you might have one group for all clients with web server software, and another group for all SLES clients. The intersection of these groups would be all SLES clients with web server software.