Package Hub repositories in SUSE Linux Enterprise 15

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15

It is unclear what the different Package Hub repositories are for:

   SUSE-PackageHub-15-SP6-Pool
   SUSE-PackageHub-15-SP6-Backports-Pool
   SLE-Module-Packagehub-Subpackages15-SP6-Pool
   SLE-Module-Packagehub-Subpackages15-SP6-Updates

It can also be difficult to locate which of the PackageHub repositories contains a specific package.

In the following text, OBS is an acronym for the community accessible Open Build Service. IBS is an acronym for SUSE's Internal Build Service, which is not accessible to the community.

Package Hub consists largely of community-maintained packages which have to be built in the OBS, however, because the packages in PackageHub come from different sources  (OBS and IBS), they are placed in different repositories.

In many cases, the community-maintained packages depend on other packages that are built in the IBS, yet not shipped in any SUSE product. So the IBS-built binaries go into  Subpackages and the OBS-built packages go into Backports. Together, they form Package Hub.

PackageHub-Pool only includes the release package for the Package Hub 'product', which is signed with the official package signing key from  SUSE (IBS). This release package is only maintained by SUSE.

PackageHub-Backports-Pool includes all the packages from OBS (which is the majority of Package Hub packages) and is shared with the openSUSE Leap project. These packages are signed with the openSUSE Backports project signing key.

Subpackages includes packages from SLE (IBS) that are not released in other SLE products, but they are necessary to fulfill  the runtime dependency for the packages from PackageHub-Backports-Pool (OBS).


As regards locating which Package Hub repository contains a specific package, the easiest way to do this is to register the Package Hub extension on a SLES 15 installation (using YaST or SUSEConnect) and then use zypper to install or search for the target package:

e.g. Using SUSEConnect:

            #  SUSEConnect -p PackageHub/15.6/x86_64
            #  zypper ref
            #  zypper se -s <package>
            #  zypper in <package>

An alternative method of finding which repository contains a specific package, would be to use the 'find' command on an installation running RMT that is configured to synchronize the Package Hub repositories:

myrmtserver:/var/lib/rmt/public/repo/SUSE # find . -iname "package-name*"

Lack of other public facing documentation providing the information contained in this publication.

Repositories added and enabled when the PackageHub extension is registered (SLES15 SP6 used as example):

   SUSE-PackageHub-15-SP6-Pool
   SUSE-PackageHub-15-SP6-Backports-Pool
   SLE-Module-Packagehub-Subpackages15-SP6-Pool
   SLE-Module-Packagehub-Subpackages15-SP6-Updates

Repositories added but not enabled when the PackageHub extension is registered  (SLES15 SP6 used as example):

   SLE-Module-Packagehub-Subpackages15-SP6-Debuginfo-Pool
   SLE-Module-Packagehub-Subpackages15-SP6-Debuginfo-Updates
   SLE-Module-Packagehub-Subpackages15-SP6-Source-Pool
   SUSE-PackageHub-15-SP6-Backports-Debuginfo

RMT synchronization locations for main repositories (SLES15 SP6 used as example):

SUSE-PackageHub-15-SP6-Pool           > .../Backports/SLE-15-SP6_x86_64/product/
SUSE-PackageHub-15-SP6-Backports-Pool > .../Backports/SLE-15-SP6_x86_64/standard/
SLE-Module-Packagehub-Subpackages15-SP6-Updates > .../Updates/SLE-Module-Packagehub-Subpackages/15-SP6/x86_64/update/
SLE-Module-Packagehub-Subpackages15-SP6-Pool    > .../Products/SLE-Module-Packagehub-Subpackages/15-SP6/x86_64/product/

The above directories are all pre-pended by:   /usr/share/rmt/public/repo/SUSE