Disconnected Setup with RMT or SMT (DMZ)
When it is not possible to connect SUSE Manager directly or via a proxy to the Internet, a disconnected setup in combination with RMT or SMT is the recommended solution.
In this scenario, RMT or SMT stays in an “external” network with a connection to SUSE Customer Center and synchronizes the software channels and repositories on a removable storage medium. Then you can separate the storage medium from RMT or SMT, and mount it locally on your SUSE Manager server to read the updated data.
Offline Usage Scenario
SMT and RMT are not made for server cascades. SUSE Manager always connects to SMT or RMT in an offline or disconnected scenario. |
The successor of SMT and currently runs on the following systems:
-
SUSE Linux Enterprise 15 (when available)
-
Temporarily (for testing only): 12 SP2, and 12 SP3
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Not officially supported: openSUSE Leap 42.2, Leap 42.3, and openSUSE Tumbleweed
RMT allows you to provision updates for all of your devices running a product based on SUSE Linux Enterprise 12 SPx and later as well as openSUSE Leap.
The predecessor of RMT and is no longer actively developed. It runs on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 SPx and allows you to provision updates for products based on SUSE Linux Enterprise 12 SPx and earlier. You will still need it, if you want to update SUSE Linux Enterprise 11 clients.
Repository Management Tool (RMT) and Disconnected Setup (DMZ)
The following procedure will guide you through using RMT. It will work best with a dedicated RMT instance per SUSE Manager .
-
Configure RMT in the external network with SCC. For details about configuring RMT, see the official guide (when available).
-
Preparation work:
Run
rmt-cli sync
to download available products and repositories data for your organization from SCC.Run
rmt-cli products list --all
to see the list of products that are available for your organization.Run
rmt-cli repos list --all
to see the list of all repositories available. -
With
rmt-cli repos enable
enable repositories you want to mirror. -
With
rmt-cli products enable
enable products. For example, to enable SLES _15:rmt-cli product enable sles/15/x86_64
-
-
Using RMT, mirror all required repositories.
-
Get the required JSON responses from SCC and save them as files at the specified path (for example,
/mnt/usb
).Write Permissions for RMT UserThe directory being written to must be writeable for the same user as the rmt service. The rmt user setting is defined in thecli
section of/etc/rmt.conf
.Enter:
rmt-cli export data /mnt/usb
-
Export settings about repositories to mirror to the specified path (in this case,
/mnt/usb
); this command will create arepos.json
file there:rmt-cli export settings /mnt/usb
-
Mirror the repositories according to the settings in the
repos.json
file to the specified path (in this case,/mnt/usb
).rmt-cli export repos /mnt/usb
-
Unmount the storage medium and carry it securely to your SUSE Manager server.
On the SUSE Manager server, continue with Updating Repositories on SUSE Manager From Storage Media.
{rmtool} (SMT) and Disconnected Setup (DMZ)
The following procedure will guide you through using SMT.
-
Configure SMT in the external network with SCC. For details about configuring SMT with SUSE Linux Enterprise 12, see https://www.suse.com/documentation/sles-12/book_smt/data/book_smt.html.
-
Using SMT, mirror all required repositories.
-
Create a “database replacement file” (for example,
/tmp/dbrepl.xml
).smt-sync --createdbreplacementfile /tmp/dbrepl.xml
-
Mount a removable storage medium such as an external hard disk or USB flash drive.
-
Export the data to the mounted medium:
smt-sync --todir /media/disk/ smt-mirror --dbreplfile /tmp/dbrepl.xml --directory /media/disk \ --fromlocalsmt -L /var/log/smt/smt-mirror-export.log
Write Permissions for SMT UserThe directory being written to must be writeable for the same user as the smt daemon (user=smt). The smt user setting is defined in/etc/smt.conf
. You can check if the correct user is specified via the following command:
egrep '^smtUser' /etc/smt.conf
+
+
.Keeping the Disconnected Server Up-to-date
NOTE: smt-sync
also exports your subscription data.
To keep SUSE Manager
up-to-date with your subscriptions, you must frequently import and export this data.
+
-
Unmount the storage medium and carry it securely to your SUSE Manager server.
On the SUSE Manager server, continue with Updating Repositories on SUSE Manager From Storage Media.
Updating Repositories on SUSE Manager From Storage Media
This procedure will show you how to update the repositories on the SUSE Manager server from the storage media.
-
Mount the storage medium on your SUSE Manager server (for example, at
/media/disk
). -
Specify the local path on the SUSE Manager server in
/etc/rhn/rhn.conf
:server.susemanager.fromdir = /media/disk
This setting is mandatory for SUSE Customer Center and
mgr-sync
. -
Restart Tomcat:
systemctl restart tomcat
-
Before performing another operation on the server execute a full sync:
mgr-sync refresh # SCC (fromdir in rhn.conf required!)
-
mgr-sync
can now be executed normally:mgr-sync list channels mgr-sync add channel channel-label
Data CorruptionThe disk must always be available at the same mount point. To avoid data corruption, do not trigger a sync, if the storage medium is not mounted. If you have already added a channel from a local repository path, you will not be able to change its URL to point to a different path afterwards.
Up-to-date data is now available on your SUSE Manager server and is ready for updating client systems. According to your maintenance windows or update schedule refresh the data on the storage medium with RMT or SMT.
Refreshing Data on the Storage Medium
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On your SUSE Manager server, unmount the storage medium and carry it to your RMT or SMT.
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On your RMT or SMT system, continue with the synchronization step.
Data CorruptionThe storage medium must always be available at the same mount point. To avoid data corruption, do not trigger a sync if the storage medium is not mounted.
This concludes using RMT or SMT with SUSE Manager .