Registering SUSE Linux Enterprise Server with Expanded Support Clients

This section contains information about registering traditional and Salt clients running SUSE Linux Enterprise Server with Expanded Support (Expanded Support) operating systems. Expanded Support clients are based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux or CentOS. They are sometimes also called SLESES, RES or Red Hat Expanded Support.

The Expanded Support software channels provided by SUSE only provide updates to packages, they do not provide the packages themselves. To register Expanded Support clients, you need to register the Expanded Support Product (outlined below) to create the necessary base channel, then import any required Red Hat or CentOS packages as custom child channels. You must obtain the initial packages directly from Red Hat or CentOS before you can apply the updates provided by the Expanded Support software channels.

You are responsible for arranging access to Red Hat or CentOS base media repositories and installation media.

You must obtain support from SUSE for all your Expanded Support systems.

Traditional clients are not available on Expanded Support 8. Expanded Support 8 clients are only supported as Salt clients.

1. Add Software Channels

For Expanded Support clients, some required packages are contained on the Red Hat Enterprise Linux or CentOS installation media. You must have these packages installed before you can register a Expanded Support client.

The Expanded Support product is provided by SUSE Customer Center. This also includes the client tools package.

Before you register Expanded Support clients to your SUSE Manager Server, you need to add the required software channels, and synchronize them.

You need to select two different sets of channels, one for Expanded Support and the other for the Client Tools.

You need an activation key associated with the correct Expanded Support channels. For more information about activation keys, see Activation Keys.

The products you need for this procedure are:

Table 1. ES Products - WebUI
OS Version Product Name

Expanded Support 6

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server with Expanded Support 6 x86_64

Expanded Support 7

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server with Expanded Support 7 x86_64

Expanded Support 8

RHEL or SLES ES or CentOS 8 Base and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server with Expanded Support 8 x86_64

Expanded Support 6 is now at end-of-life, and the ISO images provided in the repository are out of date. Bootstrapping new Expanded Support 6 clients using these packages will fail. If you need to bootstrap new Red Hat 6 clients, follow the troubleshooting procedure in Troubleshooting Clients.

SUSE Manager requires tools channels that contain additional software. This procedure creates these tools channels:

Table 2. ES Tools Channels
OS Version Base Channel Tools Channel

Expanded Support 6

RHEL Expanded Support 6

RES6-SUSE-Manager-Tools x86_64

Expanded Support 7

RHEL Expanded Support 7

RES7-SUSE-Manager-Tools x86_64

Expanded Support 8

RHEL or SLES ES or CentOS 8 Base

RES8-Manager-Tools-Pool for x86_64 and RES8-Manager-Tools-Updates for x86_64

Expanded Support 6 is now at end-of-life, and the ISO images provided in the repository are out of date. Bootstrapping new Expanded Support 6 clients using these packages will fail. If you need to bootstrap new Expanded Support 6 clients, follow the troubleshooting procedure in Troubleshooting Clients.
Procedure: Adding Software Channels

  1. In the SUSE Manager Web UI, navigate to Admin  Setup Wizard  Products.

  2. Locate the appropriate products for your client operating system and architecture using the search bar, and check the appropriate product. This will automatically check all mandatory channels. Also all recommended channels are checked as long as the include recommended toggle is turned on. Click the arrow to see the complete list of related products, and ensure that any extra products you require are checked.

  3. Click Add Products and wait until the products have finished synchronizing.

The AppStream repository provides modular packages. This results in the SUSE Manager Web UI showing incorrect package information. You cannot perform package operations such as installing or upgrading directly from modular repositories using the Web UI or API.

You can use the AppStream filter with content lifecycle management (CLM) to transform modular repositories into regular repositories. Make sure to include python:3.6 using an AppStream filter if you want to use spacecmd on the clients.

Alternatively, you can use Salt states to manage modular packages on Salt clients, or use the dnf command on the client. For more information about CLM, see Content Lifecycle Management.

1.1. Add Base Media

The base Expanded Support channel does not contain any packages, because SUSE does not provide Red Hat Enterprise Linux or CentOS base media. You need to obtain base media from Red Hat or CentOS, which you can add as a child channel to the Expanded Support parent channel. To ensure you have all the packages you need, use a full DVD image, not a minimal or JeOS image.

You can use SUSE Manager custom channels to set up the Red Hat Enterprise Linux or CentOS media. All packages on the base media must be mirrored into a child channel.

You can freely choose the names for the channels.

Procedure: Creating Custom Channels

  1. On the SUSE Manager Server Web UI, navigate to Software  Manage  Channels.

  2. Click Create Channel and set the appropriate parameters for the channels.

  3. In the Parent Channel field, select the appropriate base channel.

  4. Click Create Channel.

  5. Repeat for all channels you need to create. There should be one custom channel for each custom repository.

You can check that you have created all the appropriate channels and repositories, by navigating to Software  Channel List  All.

For Red Hat 8 clients, add both the Base and AppStream channels. You require packages from both channels. If you do not add both channels, you cannot create the bootstrap repository, due to missing packages.

If you are using modular channels, you must enable the Python 3.6 module stream on the client. If you do not provide Python 3.6, the installation of the spacecmd package will fail.

Procedure: Adding Base Media to Custom Channels

  1. On the SUSE Manager Server, at the command prompt, as root, copy the base media image to the /tmp/ directory.

  2. Create a directory to contain the media content. Replace <os_name> with either sleses6, sleses7, or sleses8:

    mkdir -p /srv/www/htdocs/pub/<os_name>

  3. Mount the image:

    mount -o loop /tmp/<iso_filename> /srv/www/htdocs/pub/<os_name>

  4. Import the packages into the child channel you created earlier:

    spacewalk-repo-sync -c <channel-label> -u file:///srv/www/htdocs/pub/<os_name>/<repopath>/

1.1.1. OPTIONAL: Add Base Media from a Content URL

Alternatively, if you have access to a content URL provided by Red Hat CDN or CentOS, you can create a custom repository to mirror the packages.

The details you need for this procedure are:

Table 3. ES Custom Repository Settings
Option Parameter

Repository URL

The content URL provided by Red Hat CDN or CentOS

Has Signed Metadata?

Uncheck all Red Hat Enterprise repositories

SSL CA Certificate

redhat-uep (Red Hat only)

SSL Client Certificate

Entitlement-Cert-date (Red Hat only)

SSL Client Key

Entitlement-Key-date (Red Hat only)
Procedure: Creating Custom Repositories

  1. On the SUSE Manager Server Web UI, navigate to Software  Manage  Repositories.

  2. Click Create Repository and set the appropriate parameters for the repository.

  3. Click Create Repository.

  4. Repeat for all repositories you need to create.

When you have created all the channels, you can associate them with the repositories you created:

Procedure: Associating Channels with Repositories

  1. On the SUSE Manager Server Web UI, navigate to Software  Manage  Channels, and click the channel to associate.

  2. Navigate to the Repositories tab, and check the repository to associate with this channel.

  3. Click Update Repositories to associate the channel and the repository.

  4. Repeat for all channels and repositories you need to associate.

  5. OPTIONAL: Navigate to the Sync tab to set a recurring schedule for synchronization of this repository.

  6. Click Sync Now to begin synchronization immediately.

2. Check Synchronization Status

Procedure: Checking Synchronization Progress from the Web UI

  1. In the SUSE Manager Web UI, navigate to Admin  Setup Wizard and select the Products tab. This dialog displays a completion bar for each product when they are being synchronized.

  2. Alternatively, you can navigate to Software  Manage  Channels, then click the channel associated to the repository. Navigate to the Repositories tab, then click Sync and check Sync Status.

Procedure: Checking Synchronization Progress from the Command Prompt

  1. At the command prompt on the SUSE Manager Server, as root, use the tail command to check the synchronization log file:

    tail -f /var/log/rhn/reposync/<channel-label>.log

  2. Each child channel generates its own log during the synchronization progress. You need to check all the base and child channel log files to be sure that the synchronization is complete.

The Expanded Support channels can be very large. The initial channel synchronization can sometimes take up to several hours.

When the initial synchronization is complete, we recommended you clone the channel before you work with it. This gives you a backup of the original synchronization data.

3. Register Expanded Support Clients

Your Expanded Support clients are now ready to be registered.

For more information on registering your clients, see Client Registration Overview.

To register and use SUSE Linux Enterprise Server with Expanded Support 6 clients, you need to configure the SUSE Manager Server to support older types of SSL encryption. For more information about how to resolve this error, see Registering Older Clients at Troubleshooting Clients.