SUSE Manager in
the Public Cloud
Contents
1 Instance Requirements ... 2 2 Setup ... 3 3 Registration of Cloned Systems ... 6 SUSE Manager delivers best-in-class Linux server management capabilities. For de-tailed information about the product please refer to the SUSE Manager [https:// www.suse.com/documentation/suse_manager] documentation.
The SUSE Manager images published by SUSE in select Public Cloud environments are provided as Bring Your Own Subscription (BYOS) images and need to be regis-tered with the customer center. After an instance is launched SUSE Manager needs to be set up and configured following the procedure in the SUSE Manager documenta-tion.
1 Instance Requirements
Select an instance size that meets the system requirements as documented in the SUSE Manager documentation.
• Minimal main memory: >12G
• FQDN (Full Qualified Domain Name) resolution must be provided, such that hostname -f works. Especially if instances are planned to run in a VPC (Virtual Private Cloud) environment, the configuration of the DNS (Domain Name Resolu-tion) service is important. In a VPC you have complete control over your virtual net-working environment, which on the other hand requires to customize basic services first, refer to the cloud service provider documentation for detailed instructions.
ternal virtual disk. The details of this setup are provided in the Using Separate Stor-age Volume section.
Storing the database and the repositories on an external virtual disk ensures that the data is not lost should the instance need to be terminated for some reason.
Please ensure that the selected instance type matches the requirements listed above. Al-though we recommend that the database and the repositories are stored on a separate device it is still recommended to set the root volume size of the instance to 20G.
2 Setup
1 Run an instance of the SUSE Manager image as published by SUSE
The images are identifiable by the suse, manager, server, byos keywords in each public cloud environment.
The SUSE Manager instance must run in a network access restricted environment such as the private subnet of a VPC or with an appropriate firewall setting such that it can only be accessed by machines in the IP ranges you use. A generally accessible SUSE Manager instance violates the terms of the SUSE Manager EULA. Access to the web interface of SUSE Manager requires https.
2 Setup the hostname as follows:
SUSE Manager requires a stable and reliable hostname and does not take kindly to host name changes.
1. Set the hostname to a name of your choice
hostname instance-host-name
2. Disable hostname setup in the dhcp configuration file: /etc/syscon fig/network/dhcp
DHCLIENT_SET_HOSTNAME="no"
3. Let the hostname resolve to the instance external IP address
echo "IP-address instance-host-name" >> /etc/hosts
4. The current value for the external IP-address can be obtained from the public cloud Web console or from within a terminal session as follows:
• Obtain external IP-address from within Amazon EC2 instance
nslookup $(ec2metadata --public-hostname)
• Obtain external IP-address from within Google Compute Engine instance
gcemetadata --query instance --external-ip
• Obtain external IP-address from within Microsoft Azure instance
azuremetadata --external-ip
3 Run YaST as follows:
After the instance is launched and the external storage is attached and prepared ac-cording to Using Separate Storage Volume begin with the setup of SUSE Manager. The steps that follow do not differ from the documentation in the SUSE Manager [https://www.suse.com/documentation/suse_manager] guide.
sudo /sbin/yast2 susemanager_setup
if you are prompted with a message that there is not enough space available for the setup of SUSE Manager, verify that your root volume is at least 20GB and double check that the instructions in Using Separate Storage Volume had the desired ef-fects.
4 After the completion of the YaST setup for SUSE Manager the application is
prop-erly configured and functional. The setup process created an administrator user with following user name:
User name: admin
Table 1: Account credentials for admin user
Amazon EC2 Google Compute
En-gine Microsoft Azure
Instance-ID Instance-ID Instance-Name
-suma
• Obtain instance id from within Amazon EC2 instance
ec2metadata --instance-id
• Obtain instance id from within Google Compute Engine instance
gcemetadata --query instance --id
• Obtain instance name from within Microsoft Azure instance
azuremetadata --instance-name
After logging in through the SUSE Manager Web UI change the default password.
2.1 Using Separate Storage Volume
We recommend that the repositories and the database for SUSE Manager be stored on a virtual storage device. This best practice will avoid data loss in cases where the SUSE Manager instance may need to be terminated. These steps must be performed prior to running the YaST SUSE Manager setup procedure.
1 Provision a disk device in the public cloud environment, refer to the cloud service
provider documentation for detailed instructions. The size of the disk is dependent on the number of distributions and channels you intend to manage with SUSE Man-ager. For sizing information refer to SUSE Manager sizing examples [https:// www.suse.com/support/kb/doc.php?id=7015050]. A rule of thumb
is 25 GB per distribution per channel.
2 Once attached the device appears as Unix device node in your instance. For the
fol-lowing command to work this device node name is required. In many cases the at-tached storage appears as /dev/sdb. In order to check which disk devices exists on your system, call the following command:
hwinfo --disk | grep -E "Device File:"
3 With the device name at hand the process of re-linking the directories in the
filesys-tem SUSE Manager uses to store data is handled by the suma-storage script. In the following example we use /dev/sdb as the device name.
sudo /usr/bin/suma-storage /dev/sdb
After the call all database and repository files used by SUSE Manager are moved to the newly created xfs based storage. The xfs partition is mounted below the path / manager_storage.
4 Create an entry in /etc/fstab (optional)
Different cloud frameworks treat the attachment of external storage devices differ-ently at instance boot time. Please refer to the cloud environment documentation for guidance about the fstab entry.
If your cloud framework recommends to add an fstab entry, add the following line to the /etc/fstab file.
/dev/sdb1 /manager_storage xfs defaults 1 1
3 Registration of Cloned Systems
Cloud environments generally support the creation of new images from a running in-stance. Images created using this functionality are clones and contain data that will have the effect that SUSE Manager will treat both systems as if they were only 1 sys-tem. In order to let SUSE Manager handle instances of cloned images as a new regis-tration apply the procedure outlined on the following wiki to an instance of the cloned image.http://wiki.novell.com/index.php/SUSE_Manager/ Register_Clones
