SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability 15 SP6 (prerelease)

Release Notes

Abstract

SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability is an enterprise-level clustering
solution to implement highly available Linux clusters and eliminate single
points of failure. This document provides a high-level overview of features,
capabilities, and limitations of SUSE Linux Enterprise High
Availability 15 SP6 (prerelease), and highlights important product updates.

This product will be released in June 2024. The latest version of these release
notes is always available at https://www.suse.com/releasenotes. Drafts of the
general documentation can be found at https://susedoc.github.io/doc-sleha/main.

Publication Date: 2024-04-17, Version: 15.6.20240417

1 About the release notes
2 SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability
3 Modules, Extensions, and Related Products
4 Changes affecting all architectures
5 Installation and Upgrade
6 Cluster
7 High-Availability Tools
8 Storage
9 Removed and Deprecated Features and Packages
10 Obtaining source code
11 Legal notices
A Changelog for 15 SP6 (prerelease)
    A.1 2023-10-19

1 About the release notes

These Release Notes are identical across all architectures, and the most recent
version is always available online at https://www.suse.com/releasenotes.

Entries are only listed once but they can be referenced in several places if
they are important and belong to more than one section.

Release notes usually only list changes that happened between two subsequent
releases. Certain important entries from the release notes of previous product
versions are repeated. To make these entries easier to identify, they contain a
note to that effect.

However, repeated entries are provided as a courtesy only. Therefore, if you
are skipping one or more service packs, check the release notes of the skipped
service packs as well. If you are only reading the release notes of the current
release, you could miss important changes.

2 SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability

SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability 15 SP6 (prerelease) is an
industry-leading open source high availability clustering system. It is
designed to virtually eliminate unplanned downtime, be easy to use and be
deployed in both physical and virtual environments. Also included are geo
clustering capabilities, designed to manage cluster servers in data centers
anywhere in the world. High availability clustering helps to minimize data loss
due to corruption or failure by protecting your data assets using your existing
IT infrastructure.

High availability clustering is used to automate application and data recovery.
You can use our flexible, policy-driven clustering solution to implement highly
available Linux clusters and eliminate single points of failure. Your servers
are continuously monitored, and when a fault or failure occurs, the workload is
transferred from one server to another, or the application is automatically
restarted on a known working system. This helps you maintain business
continuity and minimize unplanned downtime.

2.1 What Is New?

2.1.1 General Changes in Codestream 15

SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability 15 introduces many innovative changes
compared to SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability 12. The most important
changes are listed below.

2.1.2 Changes in 15 SP6 (prerelease)

SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability 15 SP6 (prerelease) introduces changes
compared to SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability SP5. The most important
changes are listed below.

2.1.3 Changes in the Base Product

In addition to these release notes, make sure to also review the release notes
for the base product, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP6 (prerelease). They
are published at https://www.suse.com/releasenotes/x86_64/SUSE-SLES/15-SP6
(these release notes are identical across all supported hardware
architectures).

2.2 Important Sections of This Document

If you are upgrading from a previous SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability
release, you should review at least the following sections:

  o Section 2.5, "Support statement for SUSE Linux Enterprise High
    Availability"

  o Section 5.2, "Upgrade-Related Notes"

2.3 Documentation and other information

2.3.1 Available on the product media

  o Read the READMEs on the media.

  o Get the detailed change log information about a particular package from the
    RPM (where FILENAME.rpm is the name of the RPM):

    rpm --changelog -qp FILENAME.rpm

  o Check the ChangeLog file in the top level of the installation medium for a
    chronological log of all changes made to the updated packages.

  o Find more information in the docu directory of the installation medium of
    SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability 15 SP6 (prerelease). This directory
    includes PDF versions of the SUSE Linux Enterprise High
    Availability 15 SP6 (prerelease) Installation Quick Start Guide.

2.3.2 Online documentation

  o For the most up-to-date version of the documentation for SUSE Linux
    Enterprise High Availability 15 SP6 (prerelease), see https://
    susedoc.github.io/doc-sleha/main (draft version).

  o Find a collection of White Papers in the SUSE Linux Enterprise High
    Availability Resource Library at https://www.suse.com/products/server#
    resources.

2.4 Support and life cycle

SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability is backed by award-winning support from
SUSE, an established technology leader with a proven history of delivering
enterprise-quality support services.

SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability 15 has a 13-year life cycle, with 10
years of General Support and 3 years of Extended Support. The current version
(SP6) will be fully maintained and supported until 6 months after the release
of SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability 15 SP7.

If you need additional time to design, validate and test your upgrade plans,
Long Term Service Pack Support can extend the support duration. You can buy an
additional 12 to 36 months in twelve month increments. This means, you receive
a total of 3 to 5 years of support per Service Pack.

For more information, check our Support Policy page https://www.suse.com/
support/policy.html or the Long Term Service Pack Support Page https://
www.suse.com/support/programs/long-term-service-pack-support.html.

2.5 Support statement for SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability

To receive support, you need an appropriate subscription with SUSE. For more
information, see https://www.suse.com/support/?id=
SUSE_Linux_Enterprise_High_Availability_Extension.

The following definitions apply:

L1

    Problem determination, which means technical support designed to provide
    compatibility information, usage support, ongoing maintenance, information
    gathering and basic troubleshooting using available documentation.

L2

    Problem isolation, which means technical support designed to analyze data,
    reproduce customer problems, isolate problem area and provide a resolution
    for problems not resolved by Level 1 or prepare for Level 3.

L3

    Problem resolution, which means technical support designed to resolve
    problems by engaging engineering to resolve product defects which have been
    identified by Level 2 Support.

For contracted customers and partners, SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability
is delivered with L3 support for all packages, except for the following:

  o Technology Previews, see Section 2.6, "Technology Previews"

  o Sound, graphics, fonts and artwork

  o Packages that require an additional customer contract, see Section 2.5.2,
    "Software requiring specific contracts"

  o Some packages shipped as part of the module Workstation Extension are
    L2-supported only

  o Packages with names ending in -devel (containing header files and similar
    developer resources) will only be supported together with their main
    packages.

SUSE will only support the usage of original packages. That is, packages that
are unchanged and not recompiled.

2.5.1 General support

To learn about supported features and limitations, refer to the following
sections in this document:

2.5.2 Software requiring specific contracts

Certain software delivered as part of SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability
may require an external contract. Check the support status of individual
packages using the RPM metadata that can be viewed with rpm, zypper, or YaST.

Major packages and groups of packages affected by this are:

  o PostgreSQL (all versions, including all subpackages)

2.5.3 Software under GNU AGPL

SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability 15 SP6 (prerelease) (and the SUSE Linux
Enterprise modules) includes the following software that is shipped only under
a GNU AGPL software license:

  o Ghostscript (including subpackages)

SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability 15 SP6 (prerelease) (and the SUSE Linux
Enterprise modules) includes the following software that is shipped under
multiple licenses that include a GNU AGPL software license:

  o MySpell dictionaries and LightProof

  o ArgyllCMS

2.6 Technology Previews

Technology previews are packages, stacks, or features delivered by SUSE to
provide glimpses into upcoming innovations. Technology previews are included
for your convenience to give you a chance to test new technologies within your
environment. We would appreciate your feedback! If you test a technology
preview, contact your SUSE representative and let them know about your
experience and use cases. Your input is helpful for future development.

Technology previews come with the following limitations:

  o Technology previews are still in development. Therefore, they may be
    functionally incomplete, unstable, or in other ways not suitable for
    production use.

  o Technology previews are not supported.

  o Technology previews may only be available for specific hardware
    architectures. Details and functionality of technology previews are subject
    to change. As a result, upgrading to subsequent releases of a technology
    preview may be impossible and require a fresh installation.

  o Technology previews can be removed from a product at any time. This may be
    the case, for example, if SUSE discovers that a preview does not meet the
    customer or market needs, or does not comply with enterprise standards.

3 Modules, Extensions, and Related Products

This section comprises information about modules and extensions for SUSE Linux
Enterprise High Availability 15 SP6 (prerelease). Modules and extensions add
parts or functionality to the system.

3.1 Modules in the SLE 15 SP6 (prerelease) Product Line

The SLE 15 SP6 (prerelease) product line is made up of modules that contain
software packages. Each module has a clearly defined scope. Modules differ in
their life cycles and update timelines.

The modules available within the product line based on SUSE Linux Enterprise
15 SP6 (prerelease) at the release of SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability
15 SP6 (prerelease) are listed in the Modules and Extensions Quick Start at
https://susedoc.github.io/doc-sle/main/html/SLES-modulesquick/ (draft version).

Not all SLE modules are available with a subscription for SUSE Linux Enterprise
High Availability 15 SP6 (prerelease) itself (see the column Available for).

For information about the availability of individual packages within modules,
see https://scc.suse.com/packages.

3.2 Available Extensions

Extensions add extra functionality to the system and require their own
registration key, usually at additional cost. Usually, extensions have their
own release notes documents that are available from https://www.suse.com/
releasenotes.

The following extensions are available for SUSE Linux Enterprise High
Availability 15 SP6 (prerelease):

  o SUSE Linux Enterprise Live Patching: https://www.suse.com/products/
    live-patching

  o SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability: https://www.suse.com/products/
    highavailability

Additionally, there is the following extension which is not covered by SUSE
support agreements, available at no additional cost and without an extra
registration key:

  o SUSE Package Hub: https://packagehub.suse.com/

3.3 Derived and Related Products

This sections lists derived and related products. Usually, these products have
their own release notes documents that are available from https://www.suse.com/
releasenotes.

  o SUSE Linux Enterprise JeOS: https://www.suse.com/products/server/jeos

  o SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop: https://www.suse.com/products/desktop

  o SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications: https://www.suse.com/
    products/sles-for-sap

  o SUSE Linux Enterprise for High-Performance Computing: https://www.suse.com/
    products/server/hpc

  o SUSE Linux Enterprise Real Time: https://www.suse.com/products/realtime

  o SUSE Manager: https://www.suse.com/products/suse-manager

4 Changes affecting all architectures

Information in this section applies to all architectures supported by SUSE
Linux Enterprise High Availability 15 SP6 (prerelease).

5 Installation and Upgrade

SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability can be deployed in several ways:

  o Physical machine

  o Virtual host

  o Virtual machine

  o System containers

  o Application containers

5.1 Installation

This section includes information related to the initial installation of SUSE
Linux Enterprise High Availability 15 SP6 (prerelease). Make sure to also
review the respective section of the release notes for the base product, SUSE
Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP6 (prerelease) which are published at https://
www.suse.com/releasenotes/x86_64/SUSE-SLES/15-SP6.

Important

Important: Installation Documentation

The following release notes contain additional notes regarding the installation
of SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability. However, they do not document the
installation procedure itself.

For installation documentation, see the Installation and Setup Quick Start at
https://susedoc.github.io/doc-sleha/main/SLE-HA-install-quick (draft version)
and the Geo Clustering Quick Start at https://susedoc.github.io/doc-sleha/main/
SLE-HA-geo-quick (draft version).

5.2 Upgrade-Related Notes

This section includes upgrade-related information for SUSE Linux Enterprise
High Availability 15 SP6 (prerelease). Make sure to also review the respective
section of the release notes for the base product, SUSE Linux Enterprise
Server 15 SP6 (prerelease) which are published at https://www.suse.com/
releasenotes/x86_64/SUSE-SLES/15-SP6.

Important

Important: Upgrade Documentation

The following release notes contain additional notes regarding the upgrade of
SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability. However, they do not document the
upgrade procedure itself.

For upgrade documentation, see the Admin Guide at https://susedoc.github.io/
doc-sleha/main/html/SLE-HA-administration/ (draft version).

5.2.1 Make Sure the Current System Is Up-To-Date Before Upgrading

Upgrading the system is only supported from the most recent patch level. Make
sure the latest system updates are installed by either running zypper patch or
by starting the YaST module Online-Update. An upgrade on a system not fully
patched may fail.

5.2.2 Skipping Service Packs Requires LTSS

Skipping service packs during an upgrade is only supported if you have a Long
Term Service Pack Support contract. Otherwise you first need to upgrade to SP5
before upgrading to SP6.

5.3 For More Information

For more information, see Section 4, "Changes affecting all architectures" and
the sections relating to your respective hardware architecture.

6 Cluster

This section lists cluster-related information for SUSE Linux Enterprise High
Availability 15 SP6 (prerelease).

6.1 Improve the graceful shutdown for the whole cluster

There are several common use cases that might not result in a graceful shutdown
of the whole cluster:

 1. When a user takes down the cluster nodes one by one a diskless-sbd cluster,
    the nodes get fenced unexpectedly once the cluster is inquorate.

 2. In the dlm cluster, with the highly suggested configuration
    no-quorum-policy=freeze, the cluster shutdown will hang once the cluster is
    inquorate. A new option set_config of dlm_tools is expected to help this
    situation.

 3. To shutdown the normal cluster, the system admin often takes down the
    cluster nodes one by one. This might create unnecessary the resources
    migration chaos among nodes.

To help with some of these, a new --all options has been added to crmsh. The
--all option tries to simplify the procedure and to make it more smoothly and
reliable.

Warning

Warning

The --all option alone does not guarantee a graceful shutdown because the
unforeseeable resource stop-failure might happen at the application level,
which is out of the scope of the --all option. This means that users may need
to take additional steps to match their product expectation.

6.2 OCFS2 nocluster mount option has been added

Until now it was possible only to by bring up the whole OCFS2 cluster stack.

In SUSE Linux Enterprise HA 15 SP6 (prerelease), the nocluster mount option has
been added. This, for example, allows to access a OCFS2 file system on a
standalone server where it is not necessary to have a fully functional cluster
stack.

7 High-Availability Tools

This section list information related to the high-availability tools of SUSE
Linux Enterprise High Availability 15 SP6 (prerelease).

7.1 HAProxy legacy HTTP mode removal

HAProxy 2.1 has removed support for the legacy HTTP mode. It now supports the
Native HTTP Representation only, also known as HTX.

Here is the list of proxy keywords which were deprecated in version 2.0 and
that have been removed in version 2.4:

  o block

  o clitimeout

  o contimeout

  o option http-tunnel

  o option http-use-htx

  o redisp

  o redispatch

  o reqadd

  o reqallow

  o reqdel

  o reqdeny

  o reqiallow

  o reqidel

  o reqideny

  o reqipass

  o reqirep

  o reqitarpit

  o reqpass

  o reqrep

  o reqtarpit

  o rspadd

  o rspdel

  o rspdeny

  o rspidel

  o rspideny

  o rspirep

  o rsprep

  o srvtimeout

  o timeout clitimeout

  o timeout contimeout

  o timeout srvtimeout

  o transparent

You can run haproxy -c -f /path/to/haproxy.conf to see if you have any
incompatible or deprecated settings. To replace removed keywords:

  o block - use the new http-request deny instead

  o clitimeout - use timeout client instead

  o contimeout - use timeout connect, timeout queue, or timeout tarpit instead

  o option http-tunnel - this option has been removed because it cannot work in
    HTTP/2

  o option http-use-htx - this option has been removed because the support for
    legacy HTTP mode has been removed

  o redisp, redispatch, reqadd, reqallow, reqdel, reqdeny, reqiallow, reqidel,
    reqideny, reqipass, reqirep, reqitarpit, eqpass, reqrep, reqtarpit - these
    keywords need to be replaced by the http-request statement, see https://
    cbonte.github.io/haproxy-dconv/2.4/configuration.html#4.2-http-request

  o rspadd, rspdel, rspdeny, rspidel, rspideny, rspirep, rsprep - these
    keywords need to be replaced by the http-response statement, see https://
    cbonte.github.io/haproxy-dconv/2.4/configuration.html#4.2-http-response

  o srvtimeout - use timeout server instead

  o timeout clitimeout - use timeout client instead

  o timeout contimeout - use timeout connect instead

  o timeout srvtimeout - use timeout server instead

  o transparent - use option transparent instead

7.2 Relax-and-Recover (ReaR) 2.7

The rear27a package has been added.

For more information see the full changelog either online at https://github.com
/rear/rear/blob/rear-2.7/doc/rear-release-notes.txt or in the /usr/share/doc/
packages/rear27a/rear-release-notes.txt file.

Warning

Warning

Do not upgrade ReaR or change the software used by ReaR without also checking
that your existing disaster recovery procedure still works. See also the SUSE
support for Relax-and-Recover and Version upgrades with Relax-and-Recover
sections in https://en.opensuse.org/SDB:Disaster_Recovery.

8 Storage

This section list storage-related information for SUSE Linux Enterprise High
Availability 15 SP6 (prerelease).

8.1 defragfs.ocfs2 has been enabled

In SUSE Linux Enterprise HA 15 SP6 (prerelease), the online defragmenter for
the OCFS2 (Oracle Cluster Filesystem 2) filesystem, called defragfs.ocfs2, has
been enabled.

9 Removed and Deprecated Features and Packages

This section lists features and packages that got removed from SUSE Linux
Enterprise High Availability or will be removed in upcoming versions.

9.1 Removed Features and Packages

The following features and packages had been deprecated with a previous release
and have been removed with SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability 15 SP6 
(prerelease).

  o pssh has been removed. Use crm cluster run instead.

9.2 Deprecated Features and Packages

The following features and packages are deprecated and will be removed with a
future service pack of SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability.

9.2.1 Nagios-related plugins have been removed

The full list of removed packages is as follows:

  o monitoring-plugins-metadata

  o monitoring-plugins-mysql

  o monitoring-plugins-fping

  o monitoring-plugins-pgsql

  o monitoring-plugins-http

  o monitoring-plugins-tcp

  o monitoring-plugins-ldap

9.2.2 `ha-cluster-* commands have been deprecated

The implementation has been moved to crmsh:

  o ha-cluster-init is now crm cluster init

  o ha-cluster-remove is now crm cluster remove

  o ha-cluster-join is now crm cluster join

  o ha-cluster-geo-init is now crm cluster geo-init

  o ha-cluster-geo-join is now crm cluster geo-join

  o ha-cluster-geo-init-arbitrator is now crm cluster geo-init-arbitrator

9.2.3 hb_report CLI has been deprecated

The hb_report CLI part of crmsh has been deprecated and will be removed in the
future.

As a replacement, the next version of crmsh will improve its standard logging
capabilities.

10 Obtaining source code

This SUSE product includes materials licensed to SUSE under the GNU General
Public License (GPL). The GPL requires SUSE to provide the source code that
corresponds to the GPL-licensed material. The source code is available for
download at https://www.suse.com/download/sle-ha/ on Medium 2. For up to three
years after distribution of the SUSE product, upon request, SUSE will mail a
copy of the source code. Send requests by e-mail to sle_source_request@suse.com
. SUSE may charge a reasonable fee to recover distribution costs.

11 Legal notices

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Further, SUSE makes no representations or warranties with regard to any
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A Changelog for 15 SP6 (prerelease)

A.1 2023-10-19

  o Initial 15 SP6 (prerelease) release

A.1.1 New

  o Section 9.2.1, "Nagios-related plugins have been removed" (Jira)

(C) 2024 SUSE

