Package and System Management Tools for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server and openSUSE

By Dobrin Dobrev

The purpose of this page is to point out some tools for package and system management specific to SUSE Linux Enterprise Server and openSUSE.

This page is linked from the images which run SUSE in a cloud provider environment so some prior Linux experience is assumed.

Install Additional Software

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server and openSUSE use zypper for package management and YaST for system administration.

Full description of zypper commands.

Best usage is under root. Some of the most popular uses are:

To search for nmap: zypper search nmap

To install nmap: sudo zypper in nmap

To list repositories: zypper lr

To list updates : zypper lu

To patch the system: zypper patch

There are many more zypper commands in addition to this short list. Explore a full description of zypper commands, or type zypper -h

System Management

The system management tool YaST can be run as yast from the command line. To run YaST, you must be root. More information can be found here:
http://en.opensuse.org/YaST_Software_Management

In case you need to install YaST after you have already set up the image, run this from the command line:

zypper install --type pattern yast2_basis

Once installed, just type yast as root to see this screen: (click image to enlarge)

Cloud-Specific Info

Microsoft Azure

• SUSE Linux Enterprise Server on Microsoft Azure
• SUSE Linux Enterprise Server on Microsoft Azure Quickstart (Azure quickstart document)
• To build and deploy your customized SUSE images with SUSE Studio
• Two-minute video tutorial on SUSE Studio for Azure
• Specifics of SLES on Azure.
• SUSE image requirements on Azure
• How to Prepare a Linux VM for Azure

Amazon EC2

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server launched on Amazon EC2 in August 2010. Follow the links below to deploy a SUSE image on Amazon and for more information.

• Run SUSE on Amazon
• Amazon EC2 running SUSE Linux Enterprise Server blog post