Release Notes for SUSE LINUX Enterprise Point of Service 10 for x86

Overview

• General Information: An overview of the most important changes in SLEPOS 10 SSP2, compared to SLEPOS 10.
• Installation Procedure: An outline of the recommended SLEPOS 10 SSP2 installation procedure.
• Creating Images with Image Creator and KIWI: Basic usage of Image Creator and KIWI.
• Using poscopytool.pl application: Copying SLED and SLEPOS media to image server.
• Building special images

General Information

Changes in SLEPOS 10 SSP2

• All code has been migrated to the SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 SP2 code base.
• The name of the product has changed to SUSE Linux Enterprise Point of Service 10 SSP2. When creating new entries in Bugzilla the product is under the Classification (Product Line): SUSE Linux Enterprise Point of Service under the new name.

Installation Procedure

To install SLEPOS 10 SSP2, you need only the SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 SP 2 installation media and the SLEPOS Add-On media.

SLEPOS 10 SSP2 is 32bit only software. It should be installed on 32bit version of SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 SP2 only.

1. Start installing SLES 10 SP 2 in the usual way, until in the Installation Mode YaST asks you whether you want to install add-on products. Check Include Add-On Products from Separate Media and click Next.
2. On page Add-On Product Installation, click Add. Choose CD and click Next. Insert the SLEPOS 10 SSP2 media into the optical drive as requested and then click Continue to confirm.
3. The add-on media is now added. Click Next to proceed with the installation as usual, until you reach the Server Pattern Selection (YaST Package Manager).
4. In the Server Pattern Selection window you have a simplified Pattern Selection menu (Admin, Branch or Image Server) with a Detailed Selection option. (In Detailed Selection you can combine different patterns or you can select single packages in the traditional YaST Package Manager mode).
5. In the Server Pattern Selection window, several main patterns are provided that allow you to install the components of the SLEPOS system. Select the patterns according to the roles of the computer that you are installing:
   • SLEPOS Admin Server: Choose this pattern to install a SLEPOS Administration Server.
   • SLEPOS Branch Server: Choose this pattern to install a SLEPOS Branch Server.
   • SLEPOS Image Server: Choose this pattern to install a SLEPOS Image Server.
   • SLEPOS Image Descriptions: This pattern is a dependency for the SLEPOS Image Server and is installed automatically.
6. Proceed with the installation as usual.

Creating Images with Image Creator and KIWI

SLEPOS uses KIWI as the main tool for creating Point of Service system images. You can find the KIWI documentation in the kiwi package, as a PDF file: /usr/share/doc/packages/kiwi/kiwi.pdf. To simplify creating and managing image configurations and building images, Image Creator has been developed.

SLEPOS contains several image configuration templates. All those configurations have default set of package sources (rpm repositories). These sources should be created first with poscopytool application. This default procedure is the same as in NLPOS9. However you can override these settings when you creating your own images and define your own set of repositories. Be sure to always provide SLED10 SP2 i386 and SLEPOS10 SSP2 i386 sources (see poscopytool)

Image Creator

To build an image with Image Creator, perform the following steps:

1. In the YaST Control Center, click Miscellaneous > Image Creator. The Image Creator window appears.
2. Click Add to start creating an image configuration.
3. Enter a name for the image configuration in the Kiwi Configuration.
4. Select Base on Template and choose the image template you want to use.
5. Select the image type you want to create using the Image Type list box. The selected image type determines the type of booting and the files that KIWI will create.
6. You can leave the Output Directory setting as it is, as a reasonable default directory is already selected.
7. If necessary, modify the list of package repositories that will be used for creating the image. (See poscopytool.)
8. Click Next to proceed with creating the image configuration. Image Creator now downloads the repository metadata. This action may take some time.
9. After the Image Configuration window appears, click Finish to proceed with creating the image, using the default settings.
10. Click Yes to save the image configuration and start building the image. (If you click No, only the image configuration is saved and no image is built.)
11. KIWI now starts building the image.

KIWI

If the KIWI running within Image Creator fails or you need some special settings, you can try to build an image from the command line. Image Creator just creates a configuration for KIWI, and this configuration is stored as a directory path with the following form: /var/lib/SLEPOS/system/kiwi_configuration_name.
The kiwi_configuration_name is the name you entered in the Kiwi Configuration field in Image Creator.

To build previously created image, perform the following steps:

1. Enter the following command:

   kiwi -p /var/lib/SLEPOS/system/image-name

   This command creates the directory structure for the system inside the image, and in one of the last lines of its output, it informs you about the location of the log file (in the form of /tmp/kiwi.random_identifier). The other important information is the path to the directory structure that has been just built. Look for a line starting with Initializing image system on: and copy this path into the command at step 3.

2. Create a directory for the resulting image and associated files. A good option is to store the resulting files into the same directory that Image Creator would use:

   mkdir /var/lib/SLEPOS/images/kiwi_configuration_name

3. You can now build the image into this directory using the prepared directory structure with the following command:

   kiwi -c kiwi-prepared_directory_structure -d directory_from_step_2

   Again, if KIWI fails, it reports where is the error log available. Please attach this log to the bug report. Also keep the following in mind:

   • YaST and Image Creator must not be running when building images with KIWI, otherwise KIWI will fail.
   • If KIWI seems to be stuck, try to open the screen log file using tail -f or tail -F. Look for the screen log file name in the line starting with Set root log:.
   • If you cannot build the image configured with Image Creator even from the command line, copy the original template as it is from /usr/share/kiwi/image/SLEPOS into another directory (/var/lib/SLEPOS/system/another_directory). This should always work. If not, please file a bug report.

poscopytool.pl

poscopytool.pl is an application for copying SLED and SLEPOS media to the Image Server. The application is located in /usr/sbin/. Please use poscopytool.pl --help for quick information or use documentation for detailed help.

To copy CD or DVD media perform the following steps:

1. Insert SLED 10 SP2 i386 DVD into the drive
2. Run command poscopytool.pl --source /media/dvd
3. Press enter and follow the instructions on the screen, wait until the CD or DVD is copied and insert the next one.
4. At the end you should have SLED and SLEPOS copied.

Note for experienced users: you do not need to insert the real DVD/CD, you can just mount them using the following command:
mount -o loop /path/to/file.iso /media/dvd

Building SLED-based images with the newest packages from our support pages

1. Start creating the image with Image Creator and close Image Creator without actually building the image (click No when asked if you want to build the image in the very last step)
2. Using Nautilus go to the directory where Image Creator placed the image you created (Image Creator always shows you where it places the images you build). It should be something like : /var/lib/SLEPOS/system/IMAGE_NAME
3. In this folder you should find a sub-folder called "repo"
4. Download the latest SLED 10 SP2 kernel from the Novell Update pages : http://support.novell.com/linux/psdb/i386SLEDESKTOP10SP2.html
5. Place the kernel in the above /var/lib/SLEPOS/system/IMAGE_NAME/repo folder
6. Start again Image Creator
7. Choose the project you started but did not build and click EDIT
8. Make sure the folder /var/lib/SLEPOS/system/IMAGE_NAME/repo is still in the sources from which the image should be built
9. Finalize the building of the image with Image Creator

Providing feedback to our products

In case of encountering a bug please report it through your support contact.

Your SUSE Linux Enterprise Team

Mon Apr 12 15:01:07 UTC 2010