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Version revision history

  • December 2021: 4.2.4 release

  • October 27th, 2021: 4.2.3 release

  • September 20th, 2021: 4.2.2 release

  • August 12th, 2021: 4.2.1 release

  • June 21st, 2021: 4.2 GA

About SUSE Manager Proxy 4.2

SUSE Manager Proxy provides mirroring proxy support for large and distributed environments.

Operation of the proxy is completely transparent. The SUSE Manager Proxy looks like a managed client to SUSE Manager Server, and like a server to the managed clients. Managed clients talk to the Proxy only, and the Proxy in turn communicates to the SUSE Manager Server.

All software packages that pass the SUSE Manager Proxy are cached and subsequent client requests for these packages are resolved from the cache.

System requirements

SUSE Manager Proxy is available for x86_64 architecture only. We recommend you have at least 8 GB main memory, and approximately 50 GB of disk space per distribution or channel.

Consider additional disk space required for storing images for retail terminals.

For more details on system requirements, see the Installation Guide on https://documentation.suse.com/suma/4.2/.

SUSE Manager Proxy distribution

SUSE Manager Proxy 4.2 is provided through SUSE Customer Center and can be installed with the unified installer for SUSE Linux Enterprise 15 SP3.

Installation and setup

Installation of SUSE Manager Proxy 4.2 is done with the SUSE Manager Server 4.2 Web interface.

For more details on installing and configuring SUSE Manager Proxy 4.2, see the Installation Guide on https://documentation.suse.com/suma/4.2/.

Upgrade from previous version

To upgrade an existing SUSE Manager Proxy 4.1 or 4.0 system to SUSE Manager Proxy 4.2, you can do an in-place upgrade, or you can set up a new system to replace the old one.

For more information about upgrading, see the Upgrade Guide on https://documentation.suse.com/suma/4.2/.

SUSE Manager Server versions

SUSE Manager Proxy 4.2 works only with SUSE Manager 4.2 Server.

SUSE Manager Server 4.2 works with SUSE Manager Proxy 4.0 and SUSE Manager Proxy 4.1 but only for migration purposes. The product is not intended to be used in a mixed-version scenario in production.

Major changes since SUSE Manager Proxy 4.2 GA

Features and changes

Version 4.2.4

New product enabled
  • SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP2 LTSS

CentOS 8 support

CentOS 8 will be End of Life on 31st December 2021, and with that the SUSE Manager support for this product will end as well.

Please refer to support section for more information.

Monitoring - Prometheus Blackbox exporter

SUSE Manager 4.2.4 comes with the Blackbox exporter, which allows blackbox probing of endpoints over HTTP, HTTPS, DNS, TCP, and ICMP. Please note that it needs to be installed next to the Prometheus server and not on the clients. Prometheus formula has been extended to configure blackbox exporter.

The package prometheus-blackbox_exporter has been added as recommended for the Proxy.

Version 4.2.3

Monitoring Formulas

One of the limitations of the current formulas is that they are listed against every client, even if the supported packages are not available for that OS version or service pack. While we are continuously focused on improving the formulas, for now, starting with the monitoring formulas it will be mentioned in docs if applying those formulas would actually work in the case of a particular client.

In 4.2.2, we made the Prometheus package available for SUSE Manager Proxy and Retail Branch Server but that is not the case with Grafana.

  • Prometheus is available for the client tools for SLE12/SLE15/openSUSE15/SUSE Manager proxy/Retail Branch Server

  • Grafana is available for the client tools for SLE12/SLE15/openSUSE15

Version 4.2.2

Prometheus available for SUSE Manager Proxy and Retail Branch Server

From this version, the Prometheus package will also be available for SUSE Manager Proxy and Retail Branch Server. In case you plan to use the branch server or proxy as a monitoring server with Prometheus, be aware that Prometheus demands additional hardware resources.

Ansible

The Ansible package will also be available for SUSE Manager Proxy and Retail Branch Server, which makes it possible to use SUSE Manager Proxy and Retail Branch Server as Ansible control Node.

When making SUSE Manager Proxy or Retail Branch Server an Ansible control Node, the extra load can affect the performance of this critical component. Bad performance of the Branch Server can further affect attached clients.

Version 4.2.1

Bugfix release.

Patches

The SUSE Patch Finder is a simple online service to view released patches.

Version 4.2.4

patterns-suse-manager:

  • Add prometheus-blackbox_exporter as recommended for the Proxy

spacecmd:

  • Update translation strings

spacewalk-backend:

  • Reposync: replace architecture variables in mirror lists

  • Minor spec update.

  • Added RHN config parameter httpd_config_dir.

  • Avoid GPG errors messages in reposync caused by rpm not understanding signatures (bsc#1191538)

  • Improved the diskcheck script to return an exit value and to allow performing the check without sending notification

spacewalk-certs-tools:

  • Make bootstrap script to use bash when called with a different interpreter (bsc#1191656)

  • set key format to PEM when generating key for traditional clients push ssh (bsc#1189643)

spacewalk-client-tools:

  • Update translation strings

spacewalk-proxy:

spacewalk-web:

  • Implement using re-activation keys when bootstrapping with the Web UI

  • Disable the SPA engine for download links (bsc#1190964)

  • Fix CLM filter edit modal opening (bsc#1190867)

  • Display a warning in the login page if the available disk space on the server is running out

  • add Content Lifecycle Management filter for package provides

Version 4.2.3

patterns-suse-manager:

  • Virtualization-host-formula was renamed to virtualization-formulas

spacecmd:

  • Version 4.2.13-1

    • Update translation strings

    • configchannel_updatefile handles directory properly (bsc#1190512)

    • Add schedule_archivecompleted to mass archive actions (bsc#1181223)

    • Remove whoami from the list of unauthenticated commands (bsc#1188977)

spacewalk-backend:

  • Version 4.2.17-1

    • Update translations strings

    • handle download of metadata filesnames with checksums (bsc#1188315)

    • Sanitize cached filename for custom SSL certs used by reposync (bsc#1190751)

spacewalk-certs-tools:

  • Version 4.2.13-1

    • add GPG keys using apt-key on debian machines (bsc#1187998)

spacewalk-client-tools:

  • Version 4.2.14-1

    • Update translation strings

spacewalk-proxy:

  • Version 4.2.7-1

    • remove SSLProtocol configuration which should be done in the ssl configuration file

spacewalk-proxy-installer:

  • Version 4.2.7-1

    • use system default for SSLProtocol

spacewalk-web:

  • Version 4.2.23-1

    • Fix datetime format parsing with moment (bsc#1191348)

  • Version 4.2.22-1

    • Add 'Last build date' column to Content Lifecycle Management project list (jsc#PM-2644) (jsc#SUMA-61)

    • Fix 'Type' input in Content Lifecycle Management source edit form (bsc#1190820)

    • Add 'Flush cache' checkbox to Ansible playbook execution page (bsc#1190405)

    • Fix the VM creation and editing submit button action (bsc#1190602)

    • Improved timezone support

    • Enhance the default base channel help message (bsc#1171520)

Version 4.2.2

mgr-daemon:

  • Update translation strings

spacecmd:

  • Update translation strings

  • Make schedule_deletearchived to get all actions without display limit

  • Allow passing a date limit for schedule_deletearchived on spacecmd (bsc#1181223)

  • Use correct API endpoint in list_proxies (bsc#1188042)

  • Add schedule_deletearchived to bulk delete archived actions (bsc#1181223)

spacewalk-backend:

  • Update translation strings

  • Fix typo "verfication" instead of "verification"

spacewalk-certs-tools:

  • Prepare the bootstrap script generator for Rocky Linux 8

spacewalk-client-tools:

  • Update translation strings

spacewalk-proxy-installer:

  • Add new refresh_pattern to the squid.conf to fix a case where the repodata was invalid due to being cached (bsc#1186026)

spacewalk-web:

  • Don’t capitalize acronyms

  • Update translation strings

  • 'AppStreams with defaults' filter template in CLM

  • Add a link to OS image store dir in image list page

  • Link to CLM filter creation from system details page

  • Expose UEFI parameters in the VM creation/editing pages

  • Add virt-tuner templates to VM creation

  • Fix cleanup always being executed on delete system (bsc#1189011)

  • Add support for Kiwi options

  • Fix virtualization guests to handle null HostInfo

  • Compare lowercase CPU arch with libvirt domain capabilities

  • Refresh JWT virtual console token before it expires

  • Handle virtual machines running on pacemaker cluster

susemanager-build-keys:

  • Add Debian 11

  • Add Rocky Linux 8

susemanager-tftpsync-recv:

  • Adapt configure-tftpsync.sh to work on machines with multiple IP’s (bsc#1189263)

Version 4.2.1

spacecmd:

  • Make spacecmd aware of retracted patches/packages

spacewalk-backend:

  • Fix rpm handling of empty package group and devicefiles tag (bsc#1186650)

  • Check if batch needs to be imported even after failure (bsc#1183151)

  • Show better error message when reposync failed

spacewalk-certs-tools:

  • Generate SSL private keys FIPS 140-2 compatible (bsc#1187593)

spacewalk-web:

  • Add option to run Ansible playbooks in 'test' mode

  • New filter template: Live patching based on a system

  • Fix bugged search in formula catalog

  • Convert Virtualization modal dialogs to react-modal

  • Update the version for the WebUI

uyuni-common-libs:

  • Handle broken RPM packages to prevent exceptions causing fails on repository synchronization (bsc#1186650)

Major Changes Since SUSE Manager Proxy 4.1

Salt 3002

Salt has been upgraded to upstream version 3002, plus a number of patches, backports and enhancements by SUSE, for the SUSE Manager Server, Proxy and Client Tools (where the client operating system supports Python 3.5+; otherwise Salt 3000 or 2016.11 are used).

We intend to regularly upgrade Salt to more recent versions.

For more details about changes in your manually-created Salt states, see the Salt 3002 upstream release notes.

SLES 15 SP3 JeOS as a Base System

The SUSE Manager 4.1 Proxy and Retail Branch Server can now be installed on top of SLES 15 SP3 JeOS edition.

Base System Upgrade

The base system was upgraded to SUSE Linux Enterprise 15 SP3.

Known issues

Proxy password

Do not use the '@' character in the SUSE Manager Proxy password, as it is not escaped correctly.

Single Sign On, API and CLI tools

Single Sign On can be used to authenticate in the Web UI but not with the API or CLI tools. This will be fixed in a future release of SUSE Manager.

Support

Support for CentOS 8

CentOS 8 will be End of Life on 31st December 2021, ending the SUSE Manager support for this product as well.

We recommend you to migrate your workload to CentOS 8 alternatives (AlmaLinux 8, Rocky Linux 8) as soon as possible so you can continue managing your infrastructure with SUSE Manager.

Please note "end of support" from the SUSE Manager side means these products and their client tools remain available in the SUSE Manager product tree and can still be added, mirrored and used. But in case they stop working at some point in time, support will only be provided as on a best-effort basis (which in general means if the issue can be reproduced with a supported operating system, it will be fixed; but if the issue is specific to the unsupported operating system, a fix should not be expected).

Future deprecation of the traditional stack

This version of SUSE Manager is compatible with Salt and traditional clients. SUSE will deprecate traditional clients and traditional proxies in the next SUSE Manager 4.3 release. The release that follows SUSE Manager 4.3 will not support traditional clients and traditional proxies, and is planned for 2023. We encourage all new deployments to use Salt clients and Salt proxies exclusively, and to migrate existing traditional clients and proxies to Salt.

Providing feedback

If you encounter a bug in any SUSE product, please report it through your SUSE Customer Service or Sales representatives.

You can also provide feedback using SUSE forums, or the upstream Uyuni Project community.

Resources

Latest product documentation: https://documentation.suse.com/suma/4.2/.

Technical product information for SUSE Manager: https://www.suse.com/products/suse-manager/

These release notes are available online: https://www.suse.com/releasenotes/

Visit https://www.suse.com for the latest Linux product news from SUSE.

Visit https://www.suse.com/download-linux/source-code.html for additional information on the source code of SUSE Linux Enterprise products.

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Thank you for using SUSE Manager Proxy and/or SUSE Manager Retail Branch Server in your business.

Your SUSE Manager Team.