Administration Guide

SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 15

Administration Guide
SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 15

Covers system administration tasks like maintaining, monitoring and customizing

an initially installed system.

Publication Date: November 30, 2018

SUSE LLC
10 Canal Park Drive
Suite 200
Cambridge MA 02141
USA
https://www.suse.com/documentation

Copyright © 2006– 2018 SUSE LLC and contributors. All rights reserved.

Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free
Documentation License, Version 1.2 or (at your option) version 1.3; with the Invariant Section being this
copyright notice and license. A copy of the license version 1.2 is included in the section entitled “GNU
Free Documentation License”.

For SUSE trademarks, see http://www.suse.com/company/legal/ . All other third-party trademarks are the
property of their respective owners. Trademark symbols (®, ™ etc.) denote trademarks of SUSE and its
affiliates. Asterisks (*) denote third-party trademarks.

All information found in this book has been compiled with utmost attention to detail. However, this does
not guarantee complete accuracy. Neither SUSE LLC, its affiliates, the authors nor the translators shall be
held liable for possible errors or the consequences thereof.
 Contents

About This Guide xvii

I COMMON TASKS 1

1 Bash and Bash Scripts 2

1.1 What is “The Shell”? 2
Knowing the Bash Configuration Files 2 • The Directory Structure 4

1.2 Writing Shell Scripts 8

1.3 Redirecting Command Events 9

1.4 Using Aliases 10

1.5 Using Variables in Bash 10

Using Argument Variables 12 • Using Variable Substitution 12

1.6 Grouping and Combining Commands 13

1.7 Working with Common Flow Constructs 14

The if Control Command 14 • Creating Loops with the for Command 15

1.8 For More Information 15

2 sudo 16
2.1 Basic sudo Usage 16
Running a Single Command 16 • Starting a Shell 17 • Environment
Variables 18

2.2 Configuring sudo 18

Editing the Configuration Files 19 • Basic sudoers Configuration
Syntax 19 • Rules in sudoers 21

2.3 Common Use Cases 22

Using sudo without root Password 23 • Using sudo with X.Org
Applications 24

iii Administration Guide

 2.4 More Information 24

3 YaST Online Update 25

3.1 The Online Update Dialog 26

3.2 Installing Patches 27

3.3 Automatic Online Update 28

4 YaST 30
4.1 Advanced Key Combinations 30

5 YaST in Text Mode 32

5.1 Navigation in Modules 33

5.2 Advanced Key Combinations 35

5.3 Restriction of Key Combinations 35

5.4 YaST Command Line Options 36

Installing Packages from the Command Line 36 • Starting Individual
Modules 36 • Command Line Parameters of YaST Modules 37

6 Managing Software with Command Line Tools 63

6.1 Using Zypper 63
General Usage 63 • Installing and Removing Software with
Zypper 64 • Updating Software with Zypper 69 • Identifying
Processes and Services Using Deleted Files 73 • Managing Repositories
with Zypper 74 • Querying Repositories and Packages with
Zypper 77 • Showing Life Cycle Information 78 • Configuring
Zypper 79 • Troubleshooting 79 • Zypper Rollback Feature on Btrfs File
System 80 • For More Information 80

6.2 RPM—the Package Manager 80

Verifying Package Authenticity 81 • Managing Packages: Install,
Update, and Uninstall 81 • Delta RPM Packages 83 • RPM
Queries 83 • Installing and Compiling Source Packages 86 • Compiling
RPM Packages with build 88 • Tools for RPM Archives and the RPM
Database 89

iv Administration Guide
 7 System Recovery and Snapshot Management with
Snapper 90
7.1 Default Setup 90
Types of Snapshots 91 • Directories That Are Excluded from
Snapshots 92 • Customizing the Setup 93

7.2 Using Snapper to Undo Changes 97

Undoing YaST and Zypper Changes 98 • Using Snapper to Restore
Files 103

7.3 System Rollback by Booting from Snapshots 105

Snapshots after Rollback 107 • Accessing and Identifying Snapshot Boot
Entries 108 • Limitations 109

7.4 Creating and Modifying Snapper Configurations 110

Managing Existing Configurations 112

7.5 Manually Creating and Managing Snapshots 115

Snapshot Metadata 115 • Creating Snapshots 117 • Modifying Snapshot
Metadata 118 • Deleting Snapshots 119

7.6 Automatic Snapshot Clean-Up 120

Cleaning Up Numbered Snapshots 121 • Cleaning Up Timeline
Snapshots 122 • Cleaning Up Snapshot Pairs That Do Not
Differ 124 • Cleaning Up Manually Created Snapshots 124 • Adding Disk
Quota Support 125

7.7 Frequently Asked Questions 126

8 Remote Access with VNC 128

8.1 The vncviewer Client 128
Connecting Using the vncviewer CLI 128 • Connecting Using the vncviewer
GUI 129 • Notification of Unencrypted Connections 129

8.2 Remmina: the Remote Desktop Client 129

Installation 129 • Main Window 130 • Adding Remote
Sessions 130 • Starting Remote Sessions 132 • Editing, Copying, and
Deleting Saved Sessions 133 • Running Remote Sessions from the Command
Line 133

v Administration Guide
 8.3 One-time VNC Sessions 134
Available Configurations 135 • Initiating a One-time VNC
Session 136 • Configuring One-time VNC Sessions 136

8.4 Persistent VNC Sessions 137

VNC Session Initiated Using vncserver 137 • VNC Session Initiated Using
vncmanager 139

8.5 Encrypted VNC Communication 142

9 File Copying with RSync 145

9.1 Conceptual Overview 145

9.2 Basic Syntax 145

9.3 Copying Files and Directories Locally 146

9.4 Copying Files and Directories Remotely 147

9.5 Configuring and Using an Rsync Server 147

9.6 For More Information 150

II BOOTING A LINUX SYSTEM 151

10 Introduction to the Booting Process 152

10.1 Terminology 152

10.2 The Linux Boot Process 153

The Initialization and Boot Loader Phase 153 • The Kernel
Phase 154 • The init on initramfs Phase 157 • The systemd Phase 159

11 UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) 160

11.1 Secure Boot 160
Implementation on SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 161 • MOK (Machine
Owner Key) 163 • Booting a Custom Kernel 164 • Using Non-Inbox
Drivers 166 • Features and Limitations 167

11.2 For More Information 168

vi Administration Guide
 12 The Boot Loader GRUB 2 169
12.1 Main Differences between GRUB Legacy and GRUB 2 169

12.2 Configuration File Structure 169

The File /boot/grub2/grub.cfg 170 • The File /etc/default/
grub 171 • Scripts in /etc/grub.d 174 • Mapping between BIOS
Drives and Linux Devices 175 • Editing Menu Entries during the Boot
Procedure 176 • Setting a Boot Password 177

12.3 Configuring the Boot Loader with YaST 178

Boot Loader Location and Boot Code Options 180 • Adjusting the Disk
Order 181 • Configuring Advanced Options 182

12.4 Differences in Terminal Usage on IBM Z 184

Limitations 184 • Key Combinations 185

12.5 Helpful GRUB 2 Commands 187

12.6 More Information 188

13 The systemd Daemon 189

13.1 The systemd Concept 189
What Is systemd 189 • Unit File 190

13.2 Basic Usage 191

Managing Services in a Running System 191 • Permanently Enabling/
Disabling Services 193

13.3 System Start and Target Management 195

Targets Compared to Runlevels 195 • Debugging System Start-
Up 198 • System V Compatibility 201

13.4 Managing Services with YaST 202

13.5 Customization of systemd 203

Customizing Unit Files 203 • Creating “Drop-in” Files 205 • Creating
Custom Targets 205

vii Administration Guide

 13.6 Advanced Usage 206
Cleaning Temporary Directories 206 • System
Log 207 • Snapshots 207 • Loading Kernel Modules 207 • Performing
Actions before Loading a Service 208 • Kernel Control Groups
(cgroups) 209 • Terminating Services (Sending Signals) 210 • Debugging
Services 211

13.7 More Information 212

III SYSTEM 213

14 32-Bit and 64-Bit Applications in a 64-Bit System

Environment 214
14.1 Runtime Support 214

14.2 Kernel Specifications 215

15 journalctl: Query the systemd Journal 216

15.1 Making the Journal Persistent 216

15.2 journalctl Useful Switches 217

15.3 Filtering the Journal Output 218

Filtering Based on a Boot Number 218 • Filtering Based on Time
Interval 218 • Filtering Based on Fields 219

15.4 Investigating systemd Errors 220

15.5 Journald Configuration 221

Changing the Journal Size Limit 221 • Forwarding the Journal to /dev/
ttyX 221 • Forwarding the Journal to Syslog Facility 222

15.6 Using YaST to Filter the systemd Journal 222

15.7 Viewing Logs in GNOME 223

16 update-alternatives: Managing Multiple Versions of

Commands and Files 224
16.1 Overview 224

viii Administration Guide

 16.2 Use Cases 226

16.3 Getting an Overview of Alternatives 226

16.4 Viewing Details on Specific Alternatives 226

16.5 Setting the Default Version of Alternatives 227

16.6 Installing Custom Alternatives 228

16.7 Defining Dependent Alternatives 229

17 Basic Networking 232

17.1 IP Addresses and Routing 235
IP Addresses 235 • Netmasks and Routing 235

17.2 IPv6—The Next Generation Internet 237

Advantages 238 • Address Types and Structure 239 • Coexistence of IPv4
and IPv6 243 • Configuring IPv6 244 • For More Information 245

17.3 Name Resolution 245

17.4 Configuring a Network Connection with YaST 247

Configuring the Network Card with YaST 247

17.5 NetworkManager 258

NetworkManager and wicked 258 • NetworkManager Functionality and
Configuration Files 259 • Controlling and Locking Down NetworkManager
Features 260

17.6 Configuring a Network Connection Manually 260

The wicked Network Configuration 260 • Configuration Files 267 • Testing
the Configuration 278 • Unit Files and Start-Up Scripts 281

17.7 Setting Up Bonding Devices 282

Hotplugging of Bonding Slaves 285

17.8 Setting Up Team Devices for Network Teaming 286

Use Case: Load Balancing with Network Teaming 289 • Use Case: Failover
with Network Teaming 290 • Use Case: VLAN over Team Device 291

ix Administration Guide
 18 Printer Operation 294
18.1 The CUPS Workflow 295

18.2 Methods and Protocols for Connecting Printers 296

18.3 Installing the Software 296

18.4 Network Printers 297

18.5 Configuring CUPS with Command Line Tools 298

18.6 Printing from the Command Line 299

18.7 Special Features in SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 300

CUPS and Firewall 300 • Browsing for Network Printers 300 • PPD Files in
Various Packages 301

18.8 Troubleshooting 301

Printers without Standard Printer Language Support 302 • No
Suitable PPD File Available for a PostScript Printer 302 • Network
Printer Connections 303 • Defective Printouts without Error
Message 305 • Disabled Queues 305 • CUPS Browsing: Deleting Print
Jobs 306 • Defective Print Jobs and Data Transfer Errors 306 • Debugging
CUPS 307 • For More Information 307

19 Graphical User Interface 308

19.1 X Window System 308

19.2 Installing and Configuring Fonts 308

Showing Installed Fonts 310 • Viewing Fonts 310 • Querying
Fonts 310 • Installing Fonts 311 • Configuring the Appearance of
Fonts 312

19.3 GNOME Configuration for Administrators 321

The dconf System 321 • System-wide Configuration 321 • More
Information 322

20 Accessing File Systems with FUSE 323

20.1 Configuring FUSE 323

x Administration Guide
 20.2 Mounting an NTFS Partition 323

20.3 For More Information 324

21 Managing Kernel Modules 325

21.1 Listing Loaded Modules with lsmod and modinfo 325

21.2 Adding and Removing Kernel Modules 326

Loading Kernel Modules Automatically on Boot 326 • Blacklisting Kernel
Modules with modprobe 327

22 Dynamic Kernel Device Management with udev 329

22.1 The /dev Directory 329

22.2 Kernel uevents and udev 329

22.3 Drivers, Kernel Modules and Devices 330

22.4 Booting and Initial Device Setup 330

22.5 Monitoring the Running udev Daemon 331

22.6 Influencing Kernel Device Event Handling with udev Rules 332
Using Operators in udev Rules 334 • Using Substitutions in udev
Rules 335 • Using udev Match Keys 336 • Using udev Assign Keys 337

22.7 Persistent Device Naming 338

22.8 Files used by udev 339

22.9 For More Information 340

23 Live Patching the Linux Kernel Using kGraft 341

23.1 Advantages of kGraft 341

23.2 Low-level Function of kGraft 342

23.3 Installing kGraft Patches 343

Activation of SLE Live Patching 343 • Updating System 343

23.4 Patch Lifecycle 344

23.5 Removing a kGraft Patch 344

xi Administration Guide
 23.6 Stuck Kernel Execution Threads 345

23.7 The kgr Tool 345

23.8 Scope of kGraft Technology 345

23.9 Scope of SLE Live Patching 346

23.10 Interaction with the Support Processes 346

24 Special System Features 347

24.1 Information about Special Software Packages 347
The bash Package and /etc/profile 347 • The cron
Package 348 • Stopping Cron Status Messages 349 • Log Files:
Package logrotate 349 • The locate Command 349 • The ulimit
Command 350 • The free Command 351 • Man Pages and Info
Pages 351 • Selecting Man Pages Using the man Command 351 • Settings
for GNU Emacs 352

24.2 Virtual Consoles 353

24.3 Keyboard Mapping 353

24.4 Language and Country-Specific Settings 354

Some Examples 355 • Locale Settings in ~/.i18n 356 • Settings for
Language Support 356 • For More Information 357

25 Using NetworkManager 358

25.1 Use Cases for NetworkManager 358

25.2 Enabling or Disabling NetworkManager 358

25.3 Configuring Network Connections 359

Managing Wired Network Connections 361 • Managing Wireless
Network Connections 361 • Enabling Wireless Captive Portal
Detection 362 • Configuring Your Wi-Fi/Bluetooth Card as an Access
Point 362 • NetworkManager and VPN 362

25.4 NetworkManager and Security 364

User and System Connections 364 • Storing Passwords and
Credentials 365 • Firewall Zones 365

xii Administration Guide

 25.5 Frequently Asked Questions 366

25.6 Troubleshooting 368

25.7 For More Information 368

26 Power Management 370

26.1 Power Saving Functions 370

26.2 Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) 371

Controlling the CPU Performance 372 • Troubleshooting 372

26.3 Rest for the Hard Disk 374

26.4 Troubleshooting 375

CPU Frequency Does Not Work 375

26.5 For More Information 375

27 VM Guest 376
27.1 Adding and Removing CPUs 376

28 Persistent Memory 377

28.1 Introduction 377

28.2 Terms 378

28.3 Use Cases 380

PMEM with DAX 380 • PMEM with BTT 381

28.4 Tools for Managing Persistent Memory 381

28.5 Setting Up Persistent Memory 383

Viewing Available NVDIMM Storage 383 • Configuring the Storage as a
Single PMEM Namespace with DAX 384 • Creating a PMEM Namespace with
BTT 386

28.6 For More Information 387

xiii Administration Guide

 IV SERVICES 389

29 Time Synchronization with NTP 390

29.1 Configuring an NTP Client with YaST 390
NTP Daemon Start 391 • Type of the Configuration
Source 392 • Configure Time Servers 392

29.2 Manually Configuring NTP in the Network 393

29.3 Configure chronyd at Runtime Using chronyc 394

29.4 Dynamic Time Synchronization at Runtime 394

29.5 Setting Up a Local Reference Clock 395

29.6 Clock Synchronization to an External Time Reference (ETR) 396

30 Sharing File Systems with NFS 397

30.1 Overview 397

30.2 Installing NFS Server 398

30.3 Configuring Clients 398

Importing File Systems with YaST 398 • Importing File Systems
Manually 399 • Parallel NFS (pNFS) 401

30.4 For More Information 402

31 Samba 403
31.1 Terminology 403

31.2 Installing a Samba Server 404

31.3 Configuring a Samba Server 405

31.4 Configuring Clients 405

Configuring a Samba Client with YaST 405

31.5 Samba as Login Server 405

31.6 Advanced Topics 406

Transparent File Compression on Btrfs 407 • Snapshots 408

xiv Administration Guide

 31.7 For More Information 416

32 On-Demand Mounting with Autofs 417

32.1 Installation 417

32.2 Configuration 417

The Master Map File 417 • Map Files 419

32.3 Operation and Debugging 420

Controlling the autofs Service 420 • Debugging the Automounter
Problems 421

32.4 Auto-Mounting an NFS Share 421

32.5 Advanced Topics 423

/net Mount Point 423 • Using Wild Cards to Auto-Mount
Subdirectories 423 • Auto-Mounting CIFS File System 424

V TROUBLESHOOTING 425

33 Help and Documentation 426

33.1 Documentation Directory 426
SUSE Manuals 427 • Package Documentation 427

33.2 Man Pages 428

33.3 Info Pages 429

33.4 Online Resources 430

34 Gathering System Information for Support 432

34.1 Displaying Current System Information 432

34.2 Collecting System Information with Supportconfig 433

Creating a Service Request Number 433 • Upload Targets 434 • Creating
a Supportconfig Archive with YaST 434 • Creating a Supportconfig
Archive from Command Line 436 • Understanding the Output of
supportconfig 437 • Common Supportconfig Options 438 • Overview of
the Archive Content 439

xv Administration Guide
 34.3 Submitting Information to Global Technical Support 443

34.4 Analyzing System Information 445

SCA Command Line Tool 445 • SCA Appliance 447 • Developing Custom
Analysis Patterns 458

34.5 Gathering Information during the Installation 458

34.6 Support of Kernel Modules 459

Technical Background 460 • Working with Unsupported Modules 460

34.7 For More Information 461

35 Common Problems and Their Solutions 462

35.1 Finding and Gathering Information 462

35.2 Boot Problems 465

The GRUB 2 Boot Loader Fails to Load 465 • No Login or Prompt
Appears 466 • No Graphical Login 466 • Root Btrfs Partition Cannot Be
Mounted 467 • Force Checking Root Partitions 467

35.3 Login Problems 467

Valid User Name and Password Combinations Fail 468 • Valid User Name
and Password Not Accepted 469 • Login to Encrypted Home Partition
Fails 471 • Login Successful but GNOME Desktop Fails 472

35.4 Network Problems 472

NetworkManager Problems 476

35.5 Data Problems 477

Managing Partition Images 477 • Using the Rescue System 478

A Documentation Updates 485

A.1 SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 15 SP0 485
November 2018 485 • September 2018 485 • August 2018 485

B An Example Network 487

C GNU Licenses 488

C.1 GNU Free Documentation License 488

xvi Administration Guide

About This Guide
This guide is intended for use by professional network and system administrators during the
operation of SUSE® Linux Enterprise. As such, it is solely concerned with ensuring that SUSE
Linux Enterprise is properly configured and that the required services on the network are avail-
able to allow it to function properly as initially installed. This guide does not cover the process
of ensuring that SUSE Linux Enterprise offers proper compatibility with your enterprise's appli-
cation software or that its core functionality meets those requirements. It assumes that a full
requirements audit has been done and the installation has been requested, or that a test instal-
lation for such an audit has been requested.
This guide contains the following:

Support and Common Tasks

SUSE Linux Enterprise offers a wide range of tools to customize various aspects of the
system. This part introduces a few of them.

System
Learn more about the underlying operating system by studying this part. SUSE Linux En-
terprise supports several hardware architectures and you can use this to adapt your own
applications to run on SUSE Linux Enterprise. The boot loader and boot procedure infor-
mation assists you in understanding how your Linux system works and how your own
custom scripts and applications may blend in with it.

Services
SUSE Linux Enterprise is designed to be a network operating system. SUSE® Linux Enter-
prise Desktop includes client support for many network services. It integrates well into
heterogeneous environments including MS Windows clients and servers.

Mobile Computers
Laptops, and the communication between mobile devices like PDAs, or cellular phones
and SUSE Linux Enterprise need some special attention. Take care for power conservation
and for the integration of different devices into a changing network environment. Also get
in touch with the background technologies that provide the needed functionality.

Troubleshooting
Provides an overview of finding help and additional documentation when you need more
information or want to perform specific tasks. There is also a list of the most frequent
problems with explanations of how to x them.

xvii SLED 15
1 Available Documentation

Note: Online Documentation and Latest Updates

Documentation for our products is available at http://www.suse.com/documentation/ ,
where you can also nd the latest updates, and browse or download the documentation
in various formats.

In addition, the product documentation is usually available in your installed system under /
usr/share/doc/manual .

The following documentation is available for this product:

Article “Installation Quick Start”

This Quick Start guides you step-by-step through the installation of SUSE® Linux Enter-
prise Desktop 15.

Book “Deployment Guide”

Shows how to install single or multiple systems and how to exploit the product inher-
ent capabilities for a deployment infrastructure. Choose from various approaches, ranging
from a local installation or a network installation server to a mass deployment using a
remote-controlled, highly-customized, and automated installation technique.

Administration Guide
Covers system administration tasks like maintaining, monitoring and customizing an ini-
tially installed system.

Book “Security Guide”

Introduces basic concepts of system security, covering both local and network security
aspects. Shows how to use the product inherent security software like AppArmor or the
auditing system that reliably collects information about any security-relevant events.

Book “System Analysis and Tuning Guide”

An administrator's guide for problem detection, resolution and optimization. Find how to
inspect and optimize your system by means of monitoring tools and how to efficiently
manage resources. Also contains an overview of common problems and solutions and of
additional help and documentation resources.

Book “GNOME User Guide”

xviii Available Documentation SLED 15

 Introduces the GNOME desktop of SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop. It guides you through
using and configuring the desktop and helps you perform key tasks. It is intended mainly
for end users who want to make efficient use of GNOME as their default desktop.

2 Feedback
Several feedback channels are available:

Bugs and Enhancement Requests

For services and support options available for your product, refer to http://www.suse.com/
support/ .
Help for openSUSE is provided by the community. Refer to https://en.opensuse.org/Por-
tal:Support for more information.
To report bugs for a product component, go to https://scc.suse.com/support/requests ,
log in, and click Create New.

User Comments
We want to hear your comments about and suggestions for this manual and the other doc-
umentation included with this product. Use the User Comments feature at the bottom of
each page in the online documentation or go to http://www.suse.com/documentation/feed-
back.html and enter your comments there.

Mail
For feedback on the documentation of this product, you can also send a mail to doc-
team@suse.com . Make sure to include the document title, the product version and the
publication date of the documentation. To report errors or suggest enhancements, provide
a concise description of the problem and refer to the respective section number and page
(or URL).

3 Documentation Conventions
The following notices and typographical conventions are used in this documentation:

/etc/passwd : directory names and le names

PLACEHOLDER : replace PLACEHOLDER with the actual value

xix Feedback SLED 15

 PATH : the environment variable PATH

ls , --help : commands, options, and parameters

user : users or groups

package name : name of a package

Alt , Alt – F1 : a key to press or a key combination; keys are shown in uppercase as on
a keyboard

File, File Save As: menu items, buttons

Dancing Penguins (Chapter Penguins, ↑Another Manual): This is a reference to a chapter in

another manual.

Commands that must be run with root privileges. Often you can also prefix these com-
mands with the sudo command to run them as non-privileged user.

root # command
tux > sudo command

Commands that can be run by non-privileged users.

tux > command

Notices

Warning: Warning Notice

Vital information you must be aware of before proceeding. Warns you about security
issues, potential loss of data, damage to hardware, or physical hazards.

Important: Important Notice

Important information you should be aware of before proceeding.

Note: Note Notice

Additional information, for example about differences in software versions.

xx Documentation Conventions SLED 15

 Tip: Tip Notice
Helpful information, like a guideline or a piece of practical advice.

4 About the Making of This Documentation

This documentation is written in SUSEDoc, a subset of DocBook 5 (http://www.docbook.org) .
The XML source les were validated by jing (see https://code.google.com/p/jing-trang/ ),
processed by xsltproc , and converted into XSL-FO using a customized version of Norman
Walsh's stylesheets. The final PDF is formatted through FOP from Apache Software Foundation
(https://xmlgraphics.apache.org/fop) . The open source tools and the environment used to build
this documentation are provided by the DocBook Authoring and Publishing Suite (DAPS). The
project's home page can be found at https://github.com/openSUSE/daps .
The XML source code of this documentation can be found at https://github.com/SUSE/doc-sle .

xxi About the Making of This Documentation SLED 15

I Common Tasks

1 Bash and Bash Scripts 2

2 sudo 16

3 YaST Online Update 25

4 YaST 30

5 YaST in Text Mode 32

6 Managing Software with Command Line Tools 63

7 System Recovery and Snapshot Management with Snapper 90

8 Remote Access with VNC 128

9 File Copying with RSync 145

1 Bash and Bash Scripts

Today, many people use computers with a graphical user interface (GUI) like
GNOME. Although GUIs offer many features, they're limited when performing au-
tomated task execution. Shells complement GUIs well, and this chapter gives an
overview of some aspects of shells, in this case the Bash shell.

1.1 What is “The Shell”?

Traditionally, the shell is Bash (Bourne again Shell). When this chapter speaks about “the shell”
it means Bash. There are more shells available (ash, csh, ksh, zsh, …), each employing different
features and characteristics. If you need further information about other shells, search for shell
in YaST.

1.1.1 Knowing the Bash Configuration Files

A shell can be invoked as an:

1. Interactive login shell. This is used when logging in to a machine, invoking Bash with the
--login option or when logging in to a remote machine with SSH.

2. “Ordinary” interactive shell. This is normally the case when starting xterm, konsole,
gnome-terminal or similar tools.

3. Non-interactive shell. This is used when invoking a shell script at the command line.

Depending on the type of shell you use, different configuration les will be read. The following
tables show the login and non-login shell configuration les.

TABLE 1.1: BASH CONFIGURATION FILES FOR LOGIN SHELLS

File Description

/etc/profile Do not modify this le, otherwise your modi-

fications may be destroyed during your next
update!

2 What is “The Shell”? SLED 15

 File Description

/etc/profile.local Use this le if you extend /etc/profile

/etc/profile.d/ Contains system-wide configuration les for

specific programs

~/.profile Insert user specific configuration for login

shells here

Note that the login shell also sources the configuration les listed under Table 1.2, “Bash Config-
uration Files for Non-Login Shells”.

TABLE 1.2: BASH CONFIGURATION FILES FOR NON-LOGIN SHELLS

/etc/bash.bashrc Do not modify this le, otherwise your modi-

fications may be destroyed during your next
update!

/etc/bash.bashrc.local Use this le to insert your system-wide modi-

fications for Bash only

~/.bashrc Insert user specific configuration here

Additionally, Bash uses some more les:

TABLE 1.3: SPECIAL FILES FOR BASH

File Description

~/.bash_history Contains a list of all commands you have

typed

~/.bash_logout Executed when logging out

~/.alias User defined aliases of frequently used com-

mands. See man 1 alias for more details
about defining aliases.

3 Knowing the Bash Configuration Files SLED 15

1.1.2 The Directory Structure
The following table provides a short overview of the most important higher-level directories that
you nd on a Linux system. Find more detailed information about the directories and important
subdirectories in the following list.
TABLE 1.4: OVERVIEW OF A STANDARD DIRECTORY TREE

Directory Contents

/ Root directory—the starting point of the directory tree.

/bin Essential binary les, such as commands that are needed by both
the system administrator and normal users. Usually also contains the
shells, such as Bash.

/boot Static les of the boot loader.

/dev Files needed to access host-specific devices.

/etc Host-specific system configuration les.

/home Holds the home directories of all users who have accounts on the
system. However, root 's home directory is not located in /home
but in /root .

/lib Essential shared libraries and kernel modules.

/media Mount points for removable media.

/mnt Mount point for temporarily mounting a le system.

/opt Add-on application software packages.

/root Home directory for the superuser root .

/sbin Essential system binaries.

/srv Data for services provided by the system.

/tmp Temporary les.

/usr Secondary hierarchy with read-only data.

4 The Directory Structure SLED 15

Directory Contents

/var Variable data such as log les.

/windows Only available if you have both Microsoft Windows* and Linux in-
stalled on your system. Contains the Windows data.

The following list provides more detailed information and gives some examples of which les
and subdirectories can be found in the directories:

/bin
Contains the basic shell commands that may be used both by root and by other users.
These commands include ls , mkdir , cp , mv , rm and rmdir . /bin also contains Bash,
the default shell in SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop.

/boot
Contains data required for booting, such as the boot loader, the kernel, and other data that
is used before the kernel begins executing user-mode programs.

/dev
Holds device les that represent hardware components.

/etc
Contains local configuration les that control the operation of programs like the X Window
System. The /etc/init.d subdirectory contains LSB init scripts that can be executed
during the boot process.

/home/USERNAME
Holds the private data of every user who has an account on the system. The les located
here can only be modified by their owner or by the system administrator. By default, your
e-mail directory and personal desktop configuration are located here in the form of hidden
les and directories, such as .gconf/ and .config .

Note: Home Directory in a Network

Environment
If you are working in a network environment, your home directory may be mapped
to a directory in the le system other than /home .

5 The Directory Structure SLED 15

/lib
Contains the essential shared libraries needed to boot the system and to run the commands
in the root le system. The Windows equivalent for shared libraries are DLL les.

/media
Contains mount points for removable media, such as CD-ROMs, ash disks, and digital
cameras (if they use USB). /media generally holds any type of drive except the hard disk of
your system. When your removable medium has been inserted or connected to the system
and has been mounted, you can access it from here.

/mnt
This directory provides a mount point for a temporarily mounted le system. root may
mount le systems here.

/opt
Reserved for the installation of third-party software. Optional software and larger add-on
program packages can be found here.

/root
Home directory for the root user. The personal data of root is located here.

/run
A tmpfs directory used by systemd and various components. /var/run is a symbolic link
to /run .

/sbin
As the s indicates, this directory holds utilities for the superuser. /sbin contains the bi-
naries essential for booting, restoring and recovering the system in addition to the binaries
in /bin .

/srv
Holds data for services provided by the system, such as FTP and HTTP.

/tmp
This directory is used by programs that require temporary storage of les.

Important: Cleaning up /tmp at Boot Time

Data stored in /tmp is not guaranteed to survive a system reboot. It depends, for
example, on settings made in /etc/tmpfiles.d/tmp.conf .

6 The Directory Structure SLED 15

/usr
/usr has nothing to do with users, but is the acronym for Unix system resources. The
data in /usr is static, read-only data that can be shared among various hosts compliant
with the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard (FHS). This directory contains all application
programs including the graphical desktops such as GNOME and establishes a secondary
hierarchy in the le system. /usr holds several subdirectories, such as /usr/bin , /usr/
sbin , /usr/local , and /usr/share/doc .

/usr/bin
Contains generally accessible programs.

/usr/sbin
Contains programs reserved for the system administrator, such as repair functions.

/usr/local
In this directory the system administrator can install local, distribution-independent ex-
tensions.

/usr/share/doc
Holds various documentation les and the release notes for your system. In the manual
subdirectory nd an online version of this manual. If more than one language is installed,
this directory may contain versions of the manuals for different languages.
Under packages nd the documentation included in the software packages installed on
your system. For every package, a subdirectory /usr/share/doc/packages/PACKAGE-
NAME is created that often holds README les for the package and sometimes examples,
configuration les or additional scripts.
If HOWTOs are installed on your system /usr/share/doc also holds the howto subdi-
rectory in which to nd additional documentation on many tasks related to the setup and
operation of Linux software.

/var
Whereas /usr holds static, read-only data, /var is for data which is written during system
operation and thus is variable data, such as log les or spooling data. For an overview of
the most important log les you can nd under /var/log/ , refer to Table 35.1, “Log Files”.

/windows
Only available if you have both Microsoft Windows and Linux installed on your system.
Contains the Windows data available on the Windows partition of your system. Whether
you can edit the data in this directory depends on the le system your Windows partition

7 The Directory Structure SLED 15

 uses. If it is FAT32, you can open and edit the les in this directory. For NTFS, SUSE Linux
Enterprise Desktop also includes write access support. However, the driver for the NTFS-3g
le system has limited functionality.

1.2 Writing Shell Scripts

Shell scripts provide a convenient way to perform a wide range of tasks: collecting data, search-
ing for a word or phrase in a text and other useful things. The following example shows a small
shell script that prints a text:

EXAMPLE 1.1: A SHELL SCRIPT PRINTING A TEXT

#!/bin/sh 1

# Output the following line: 2

echo "Hello World" 3

1 The rst line begins with the Shebang characters ( #! ) which indicate that this le is a
script. The interpreter, specified after the Shebang, executes the script. In this case, the
specified interpreter is /bin/sh .
2 The second line is a comment beginning with the hash sign. We recommend that you com-
ment difficult lines. With proper commenting, you can remember the purpose and function
of the line. Also, other readers will hopefully understand your script. Commenting is con-
sidered good practice in the development community.
3 The third line uses the built-in command echo to print the corresponding text.

Before you can run this script, there are a few prerequisites:

1. Every script should contain a Shebang line (as in the example above). If the line is missing,
you need to call the interpreter manually.

2. You can save the script wherever you want. However, it is a good idea to save it in a
directory where the shell can nd it. The search path in a shell is determined by the
environment variable PATH . Usually a normal user does not have write access to /usr/
bin . Therefore it is recommended to save your scripts in the users' directory ~/bin/ . The
above example gets the name hello.sh .

3. The script needs executable permissions. Set the permissions with the following command:

tux > chmod +x ~/bin/hello.sh

8 Writing Shell Scripts SLED 15

If you have fulfilled all of the above prerequisites, you can execute the script in the following
ways:

1. As Absolute Path. The script can be executed with an absolute path. In our case, it is ~/
bin/hello.sh .

2. Everywhere. If the PATH environment variable contains the directory where the script is
located, you can execute the script with hello.sh .

1.3 Redirecting Command Events

Each command can use three channels, either for input or output:

Standard Output. This is the default output channel. Whenever a command prints some-
thing, it uses the standard output channel.

Standard Input. If a command needs input from users or other commands, it uses this
channel.

Standard Error. Commands use this channel for error reporting.

To redirect these channels, there are the following possibilities:

Command > File

Saves the output of the command into a le, an existing le will be deleted. For example,
the ls command writes its output into the le listing.txt :

tux > ls > listing.txt

Command >> File

Appends the output of the command to a le. For example, the ls command appends its
output to the le listing.txt :

tux > ls >> listing.txt

Command < File

Reads the le as input for the given command. For example, the read command reads in
the content of the le into the variable:

tux > read a < foo

9 Redirecting Command Events SLED 15

Command1 | Command2
Redirects the output of the left command as input for the right command. For example,
the cat command outputs the content of the /proc/cpuinfo le. This output is used by
grep to filter only those lines which contain cpu :

tux > cat /proc/cpuinfo | grep cpu

Every channel has a le descriptor: 0 (zero) for standard input, 1 for standard output and 2 for
standard error. It is allowed to insert this le descriptor before a < or > character. For example,
the following line searches for a le starting with foo , but suppresses its errors by redirecting
it to /dev/null :

tux > find / -name "foo*" 2>/dev/null

1.4 Using Aliases

An alias is a shortcut definition of one or more commands. The syntax for an alias is:

alias NAME=DEFINITION

For example, the following line defines an alias lt that outputs a long listing (option -l ), sorts
it by modification time ( -t ), and prints it in reverse sorted order ( -r ):

tux > alias lt='ls -ltr'

To view all alias definitions, use alias . Remove your alias with unalias and the corresponding
alias name.

1.5 Using Variables in Bash

A shell variable can be global or local. Global variables, or environment variables, can be ac-
cessed in all shells. In contrast, local variables are visible in the current shell only.
To view all environment variables, use the printenv command. If you need to know the value
of a variable, insert the name of your variable as an argument:

tux > printenv PATH

10 Using Aliases SLED 15

A variable, be it global or local, can also be viewed with echo :

tux > echo $PATH

To set a local variable, use a variable name followed by the equal sign, followed by the value:

tux > PROJECT="SLED"

Do not insert spaces around the equal sign, otherwise you get an error. To set an environment
variable, use export :

tux > export NAME="tux"

To remove a variable, use unset :

tux > unset NAME

The following table contains some common environment variables which can be used in you
shell scripts:

TABLE 1.5: USEFUL ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES

HOME the home directory of the current user

HOST the current host name

LANG when a tool is localized, it uses the language

from this environment variable. English can
also be set to C

PATH the search path of the shell, a list of directo-

ries separated by colon

PS1 specifies the normal prompt printed before

each command

PS2 specifies the secondary prompt printed when

you execute a multi-line command

PWD current working directory

USER the current user

11 Using Variables in Bash SLED 15

1.5.1 Using Argument Variables
For example, if you have the script foo.sh you can execute it like this:

tux > foo.sh "Tux Penguin" 2000

To access all the arguments which are passed to your script, you need positional parameters.
These are $1 for the rst argument, $2 for the second, and so on. You can have up to nine
parameters. To get the script name, use $0 .
The following script foo.sh prints all arguments from 1 to 4:

#!/bin/sh
echo \"$1\" \"$2\" \"$3\" \"$4\"

If you execute this script with the above arguments, you get:

"Tux Penguin" "2000" "" ""

1.5.2 Using Variable Substitution

Variable substitutions apply a pattern to the content of a variable either from the left or right
side. The following list contains the possible syntax forms:

${VAR#pattern}
removes the shortest possible match from the left:

tux > file=/home/tux/book/book.tar.bz2

tux > echo ${file#*/}
home/tux/book/book.tar.bz2

${VAR##pattern}
removes the longest possible match from the left:

tux > file=/home/tux/book/book.tar.bz2

tux > echo ${file##*/}
book.tar.bz2

${VAR%pattern}
removes the shortest possible match from the right:

tux > file=/home/tux/book/book.tar.bz2

12 Using Argument Variables SLED 15

 tux > echo ${file%.*}
/home/tux/book/book.tar

${VAR%%pattern}
removes the longest possible match from the right:

tux > file=/home/tux/book/book.tar.bz2

tux > echo ${file%%.*}
/home/tux/book/book

${VAR/pattern_1/pattern_2}
substitutes the content of VAR from the PATTERN_1 with PATTERN_2 :

tux > file=/home/tux/book/book.tar.bz2

tux > echo ${file/tux/wilber}
/home/wilber/book/book.tar.bz2

1.6 Grouping and Combining Commands

Shells allow you to concatenate and group commands for conditional execution. Each command
returns an exit code which determines the success or failure of its operation. If it is 0 (zero) the
command was successful, everything else marks an error which is specific to the command.
The following list shows, how commands can be grouped:

Command1 ; Command2
executes the commands in sequential order. The exit code is not checked. The following
line displays the content of the le with cat and then prints its le properties with ls
regardless of their exit codes:

tux > cat filelist.txt ; ls -l filelist.txt

Command1 && Command2

runs the right command, if the left command was successful (logical AND). The following
line displays the content of the le and prints its le properties only, when the previous
command was successful (compare it with the previous entry in this list):

tux > cat filelist.txt && ls -l filelist.txt

Command1 || Command2

13 Grouping and Combining Commands SLED 15

 runs the right command, when the left command has failed (logical OR). The following
line creates only a directory in /home/wilber/bar when the creation of the directory in
/home/tux/foo has failed:

tux > mkdir /home/tux/foo || mkdir /home/wilber/bar

funcname(){ ... }
creates a shell function. You can use the positional parameters to access its arguments. The
following line defines the function hello to print a short message:

tux > hello() { echo "Hello $1"; }

You can call this function like this:

tux > hello Tux

which prints:

Hello Tux

1.7 Working with Common Flow Constructs

To control the ow of your script, a shell has while , if , for and case constructs.

1.7.1 The if Control Command

The if command is used to check expressions. For example, the following code tests whether
the current user is Tux:

if test $USER = "tux"; then

echo "Hello Tux."
else
echo "You are not Tux."
fi

The test expression can be as complex or simple as possible. The following expression checks
if the le foo.txt exists:

if test -e /tmp/foo.txt ; then

echo "Found foo.txt"

14 Working with Common Flow Constructs SLED 15

fi

The test expression can also be abbreviated in square brackets:

if [ -e /tmp/foo.txt ] ; then
echo "Found foo.txt"
fi

Find more useful expressions at https://bash.cyberciti.biz/guide/If..else..fi .

1.7.2 Creating Loops with the for Command

The for loop allows you to execute commands to a list of entries. For example, the following
code prints some information about PNG les in the current directory:

for i in *.png; do
ls -l $i
done

1.8 For More Information

Important information about Bash is provided in the man pages man bash . More about this
topic can be found in the following list:

http://tldp.org/LDP/Bash-Beginners-Guide/html/index.html —Bash Guide for Beginners

http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Bash-Prog-Intro-HOWTO.html —BASH Programming - Introduc-

tion HOW-TO

http://tldp.org/LDP/abs/html/index.html —Advanced Bash-Scripting Guide

http://www.grymoire.com/Unix/Sh.html —Sh - the Bourne Shell

15 Creating Loops with the for Command SLED 15

2 sudo
Many commands and system utilities need to be run as root to modify les and/or perform
tasks that only the super user is allowed to. For security reasons and to avoid accidentally
running dangerous commands, it is generally advisable not to log in directly as root . Instead,
it is recommended to work as a normal, unprivileged user and use the sudo command to run
commands with elevated privileges.
On SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop, sudo is configured by default to work similarly to su. How-
ever, sudo offers the possibility to allow users to run commands with privileges of any other
user in a highly configurable manner. This can be used to assign roles with specific privileges to
certain users and groups. It is for example possible to allow members of the group users to run
a command with the privileges of wilber . Access to the command can be further restricted by,
for example, forbidding to specify any command options. While su always requires the root
password for authentication with PAM, sudo can be configured to authenticate with your own
credentials. This increases security by not having to share the root password. For example,
you can allow members of the group users to run a command frobnicate as wilber , with
the restriction that no arguments are specified. This can be used to assign roles with specific
abilities to certain users and groups.

2.1 Basic sudo Usage

sudo is simple to use, yet very powerful.

2.1.1 Running a Single Command

Logged in as normal user, you can run any command as root by adding sudo before it. It will
prompt for the root password and, if authenticated successfully, run the command as root :

tux > id -un 1

tux
tux > sudo id -un
root's password: 2

root
tux > id -un
tux 3

tux > sudo id -un

4

16 Basic sudo Usage SLED 15

root

1 The id -un command prints the login name of the current user.
2 The password is not shown during input, neither as clear text nor as bullets.
3 Only commands started with sudo are run with elevated privileges. If you run the same
command without the sudo prefix, it is run with the privileges of the current user again.
4 For a limited amount of time, you do not need to enter the root password again.

Tip: I/O Redirection

I/O redirection does not work as you would probably expect:

tux > sudo echo s > /proc/sysrq-trigger

bash: /proc/sysrq-trigger: Permission denied
tux > sudo cat < /proc/1/maps
bash: /proc/1/maps: Permission denied

Only the echo / cat binary is run with elevated privileges, while the redirection is per-
formed by the user's shell with user privileges. You can either start a shell like in Sec-
tion 2.1.2, “Starting a Shell” or use the dd utility instead:

echo s | sudo dd of=/proc/sysrq-trigger

sudo dd if=/proc/1/maps | cat

2.1.2 Starting a Shell

Having to add sudo before every command can be cumbersome. While you could specify a
shell as a command sudo bash , it is recommended to rather use one of the built-in mechanisms
to start a shell:

sudo -s (<command>)
Starts a shell specified by the SHELL environment variable or the target user's default shell.
If a command is given, it is passed to the shell (with the -c option), else the shell is run
in interactive mode.

tux:~ > sudo -i

root's password:
root:/home/tux # exit

17 Starting a Shell SLED 15

 tux:~ >

sudo -i (<command>)
Like -s , but starts the shell as login shell. This means that the shell's start-up les ( .pro-
file etc.) are processed and the current working directory is set to the target user's home
directory.

tux:~ > sudo -i

root's password:
root:~ # exit
tux:~ >

2.1.3 Environment Variables

By default, sudo does not propagate environment variables:

tux > ENVVAR=test env | grep ENVVAR

ENVVAR=test
tux > ENVVAR=test sudo env | grep ENVVAR
root's password:
1

tux >

1 The empty output shows that the environment variable ENVVAR did not exist in the context
of the command run with sudo .
This behavior can be changed by the env_reset option, see Table 2.1, “Useful Flags and Options”.

2.2 Configuring sudo

sudo is a very flexible tool with extensive configuration.

Note: Locked yourself out of sudo

If you accidentally locked yourself out of sudo , use su - and the root password to get
a root shell. To x the error, run visudo .

18 Environment Variables SLED 15

2.2.1 Editing the Configuration Files
The main policy configuration le for sudo is /etc/sudoers . As it is possible to lock yourself
out of the system because of errors in this le, it is strongly recommended to use visudo for
editing. It will prevent simultaneous changes to the opened le and check for syntax errors
before saving the modifications.
Despite its name, you can also use editors other than vi by setting the EDITOR environment
variable, for example:

sudo EDITOR=/usr/bin/nano visudo

However, the /etc/sudoers le itself is supplied by the system packages and modifications
may break on updates. Therefore, it is recommended to put custom configuration into les in
the /etc/sudoers.d/ directory. Any le in there is automatically included. To create or edit
a le in that subdirectory, run:

sudo visudo -f /etc/sudoers.d/NAME

Alternatively with a different editor (for example nano ):

sudo EDITOR=/usr/bin/nano visudo -f /etc/sudoers.d/NAME

Note: Ignored Files in /etc/sudoers.d

The #includedir command in /etc/sudoers , used for /etc/sudoers.d , ignores les
that end in ~ (tilde) or contain a . (dot).

For more information on the visudo command, run man 8 visudo .

2.2.2 Basic sudoers Configuration Syntax

In the sudoers configuration les, there are two types of options: strings and ags. While strings
can contain any value, ags can be turned either ON or OFF. The most important syntax con-
structs for sudoers configuration les are:

# Everything on a line after a # gets ignored 1

Defaults !insults # Disable the insults flag 2

Defaults env_keep += "DISPLAY HOME" # Add DISPLAY and HOME to env_keep

19 Editing the Configuration Files SLED 15

tux ALL = NOPASSWD: /usr/bin/frobnicate, PASSWD: /usr/bin/journalctl 3

1 There are two exceptions: #include and #includedir are normal commands. Followed
by digits, it specifies a UID.
2 Remove the ! to set the specified ag to ON.
3 See Section 2.2.3, “Rules in sudoers”.

TABLE 2.1: USEFUL FLAGS AND OPTIONS

Option name Description Example

targetpw This ag controls whether Defaults targetpw # Turn

targetpw flag ON
the invoking user is required
to enter the password of the
target user (ON) (for example
root ) or the invoking user
(OFF).

rootpw If set, sudo will prompt for Defaults !rootpw # Turn

rootpw flag OFF
the root password instead
of the target user's or the one
of user that invoked the com-
mand. The default is OFF.

env_reset If set, sudo constructs a min- Defaults env_reset # Turn

env_reset flag ON
imal environment with only
TERM , PATH , HOME , MAIL ,
SHELL , LOGNAME , USER ,
USERNAME , and SUDO_* set.
Additionally, variables list-
ed in env_keep get import-
ed from the calling environ-
ment. The default is ON.

env_keep List of environment variables # Set env_keep to contain

EDITOR and PROMPT
to keep when the env_reset
Defaults env_keep = "EDITOR
ag is ON. PROMPT"
Defaults env_keep +=
"JRE_HOME" # Add JRE_HOME

20 Basic sudoers Configuration Syntax SLED 15

Option name Description Example
Defaults env_keep -=
"JRE_HOME" # Remove
JRE_HOME

env_delete List of environment variables # Set env_delete to contain

EDITOR and PROMPT
to remove when the env_re-
Defaults env_delete =
set ag is OFF. "EDITOR PROMPT"
Defaults env_delete +=
"JRE_HOME" # Add JRE_HOME
Defaults env_delete -
= "JRE_HOME" # Remove
JRE_HOME

The Defaults token can also be used to create aliases for a collection of users, hosts, and
commands. Furthermore, it is possible to apply an option only to a specific set of users.
For detailed information about the /etc/sudoers configuration le, consult man 5 sudoers .

2.2.3 Rules in sudoers

Rules in the sudoers configuration can be very complex, so this section will only cover the basics.
Each rule follows the basic scheme ( [] marks optional parts):

#Who Where As whom Tag What

User_List Host_List = [(User_List)] [NOPASSWD:|PASSWD:] Cmnd_List

SYNTAX FOR SUDOERS RULES

User_List
One or more (separated by , ) identifiers: Either a user name, a group in the format
%GROUPNAME or a user ID in the format #UID . Negation can be performed with a ! prefix.

Host_List
One or more (separated by , ) identifiers: Either a (fully qualified) host name or an IP ad-
dress. Negation can be performed with a ! prefix. ALL is the usual choice for Host_List .

NOPASSWD:|PASSWD:

21 Rules in sudoers SLED 15

 The user will not be prompted for a password when running commands matching CMDSPEC
after NOPASSWD: .
PASSWD is the default, it only needs to be specified when both are on the same line:

tux ALL = PASSWD: /usr/bin/foo, NOPASSWD: /usr/bin/bar

Cmnd_List
One or more (separated by , ) specifiers: A path to an executable, followed by allowed
arguments or nothing.

/usr/bin/foo # Anything allowed

/usr/bin/foo bar # Only "/usr/bin/foo bar" allowed
/usr/bin/foo "" # No arguments allowed

ALL can be used as User_List , Host_List , and Cmnd_List .

A rule that allows tux to run all commands as root without entering a password:

tux ALL = NOPASSWD: ALL

A rule that allows tux to run systemctl restart apache2 :

tux ALL = /usr/bin/systemctl restart apache2

A rule that allows tux to run wall as admin with no arguments:

tux ALL = (admin) /usr/bin/wall ""

Warning: Dangerous constructs

Constructs of the kind

ALL ALL = ALL

must not be used without Defaults targetpw , otherwise anyone can run commands
as root .

2.3 Common Use Cases

Although the default configuration is often sufficient for simple setups and desktop environ-
ments, custom configurations can be very useful.

22 Common Use Cases SLED 15

2.3.1 Using sudo without root Password
In cases with special restrictions (“user X can only run command Y as root ”) it is not possible.
In other cases, it is still favorable to have some kind of separation. By convention, members of
the group wheel can run all commands with sudo as root.

1. Add yourself to the wheel group

If your user account is not already member of the wheel group, add it by running sudo
usermod -a -G wheel USERNAME and logging out and in again. Verify that the change
was successful by running groups USERNAME .

2. Make authentication with the invoking user's password the default.

Create the le /etc/sudoers.d/userpw with visudo (see Section 2.2.1, “Editing the Con-
figuration Files”) and add:

Defaults !targetpw

3. Select a new default rule.

Depending on whether you want users to re-enter their passwords, uncomment the specific
line in /etc/sudoers and comment out the default rule.

## Uncomment to allow members of group wheel to execute any command

# %wheel ALL=(ALL) ALL

## Same thing without a password

# %wheel ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: ALL

4. Make the default rule more restrictive

Comment out or remove the allow-everything rule in /etc/sudoers :

ALL ALL=(ALL) ALL # WARNING! Only use this together with 'Defaults targetpw'!

Warning: Dangerous rule in sudoers

Do not forget this step, otherwise any user can execute any command as root !

5. Test the configuration

Try to run sudo as member and non-member of wheel .

tux:~ > groups

users wheel

23 Using sudo without root Password SLED 15

 tux:~ > sudo id -un
tux's password:
root
wilber:~ > groups
users
wilber:~ > sudo id -un
wilber is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.

2.3.2 Using sudo with X.Org Applications

When starting graphical applications with sudo , you will encounter the following error:

tux > sudo xterm

xterm: Xt error: Can't open display: %s
xterm: DISPLAY is not set

YaST will pick the ncurses interface instead of the graphical one.
To use X.Org in applications started with sudo , the environment variables DISPLAY and XAU-
THORITY need to be propagated. To configure this, create the le /etc/sudoers.d/xorg , (see
Section 2.2.1, “Editing the Configuration Files”) and add the following line:

Defaults env_keep += "DISPLAY XAUTHORITY"

If not set already, set the XAUTHORITY variable as follows:

export XAUTHORITY=~/.Xauthority

Now X.Org applications can be run as usual:

sudo yast2

2.4 More Information

A quick overview about the available command line switches can be retrieved by sudo --help .
An explanation and other important information can be found in the man page: man 8 sudo ,
while the configuration is documented in man 5 sudoers .

24 Using sudo with X.Org Applications SLED 15

3 YaST Online Update

SUSE offers a continuous stream of software security updates for your product. By default, the
update applet is used to keep your system up-to-date. Refer to Book “Deployment Guide”, Chap-
ter 13 “Installing or Removing Software”, Section 13.5 “The GNOME Software Updater” for further infor-
mation on the update applet. This chapter covers the alternative tool for updating software
packages: YaST Online Update.
The current patches for SUSE® Linux Enterprise Desktop are available from an update software
repository. If you have registered your product during the installation, an update repository
is already configured. If you have not registered SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop, you can do
so by starting the Product Registration in YaST. Alternatively, you can manually add an update
repository from a source you trust. To add or remove repositories, start the Repository Manager
with Software Software Repositories in YaST. Learn more about the Repository Manager in Book
“Deployment Guide”, Chapter  13 “Installing or Removing Software”, Section  13.4 “Managing Software
Repositories and Services”.

Note: Error on Accessing the Update Catalog

If you are not able to access the update catalog, this might be because of an expired
subscription. Normally, SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop comes with a one-year or three-
year subscription, during which you have access to the update catalog. This access will
be denied after the subscription ends.
If an access to the update catalog is denied, you will see a warning message prompting
you to visit the SUSE Customer Center and check your subscription. The SUSE Customer
Center is available at https://scc.suse.com// .

SUSE provides updates with different relevance levels:

Security Updates
Fix severe security hazards and should always be installed.

Recommended Updates
Fix issues that could compromise your computer.

Optional Updates
Fix non-security relevant issues or provide enhancements.

25 SLED 15
3.1 The Online Update Dialog
To open the YaST Online Update dialog, start YaST and select Software Online Update. Alterna-
tively, start it from the command line with yast2 online_update .
The Online Update window consists of four sections.

FIGURE 3.1: YAST ONLINE UPDATE

The Summary section on the left lists the available patches for SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop.
The patches are sorted by security relevance: security , recommended , and optional . You
can change the view of the Summary section by selecting one of the following options from Show
Patch Category:

Needed Patches (default view)

Non-installed patches that apply to packages installed on your system.

Unneeded Patches
Patches that either apply to packages not installed on your system, or patches that have
requirements which have already have been fulfilled (because the relevant packages have
already been updated from another source).

All Patches
All patches available for SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop.

26 The Online Update Dialog SLED 15

Each list entry in the Summary section consists of a symbol and the patch name. For an overview
of the possible symbols and their meaning, press Shift – F1 . Actions required by Security
and Recommended patches are automatically preset. These actions are Autoinstall, Autoupdate
and Autodelete.
If you install an up-to-date package from a repository other than the update repository, the
requirements of a patch for this package may be fulfilled with this installation. In this case a
check mark is displayed in front of the patch summary. The patch will be visible in the list until
you mark it for installation. This will in fact not install the patch (because the package already
is up-to-date), but mark the patch as having been installed.
Select an entry in the Summary section to view a short Patch Description at the bottom left corner
of the dialog. The upper right section lists the packages included in the selected patch (a patch
can consist of several packages). Click an entry in the upper right section to view details about
the respective package that is included in the patch.

3.2 Installing Patches

The YaST Online Update dialog allows you to either install all available patches at once or
manually select the desired patches. You may also revert patches that have been applied to the
system.
By default, all new patches (except optional ones) that are currently available for your system
are already marked for installation. They will be applied automatically once you click Accept or
Apply. If one or multiple patches require a system reboot, you will be notified about this before
the patch installation starts. You can then either decide to continue with the installation of the
selected patches, skip the installation of all patches that need rebooting and install the rest, or
go back to the manual patch selection.

PROCEDURE 3.1: APPLYING PATCHES WITH YAST ONLINE UPDATE

1. Start YaST and select Software Online Update.

2. To automatically apply all new patches (except optional ones) that are currently avail-
able for your system, click Apply or Accept.

3. First modify the selection of patches that you want to apply:

a. Use the respective filters and views that the interface provides. For details, refer to
Section 3.1, “The Online Update Dialog”.

27 Installing Patches SLED 15

 b. Select or deselect patches according to your needs and wishes by right-clicking the
patch and choosing the respective action from the context menu.

Important: Always Apply Security Updates

Do not deselect any security -related patches without a very good reason.
These patches x severe security hazards and prevent your system from being
exploited.

c. Most patches include updates for several packages. To change actions for single pack-
ages, right-click a package in the package view and choose an action.

d. To confirm your selection and apply the selected patches, proceed with Apply or
Accept.

4. After the installation is complete, click Finish to leave the YaST Online Update. Your system
is now up-to-date.

3.3 Automatic Online Update

YaST also offers the possibility to set up an automatic update with daily, weekly or monthly
schedule. To use the respective module, you need to install the yast2-online-update-con-
figuration package rst.

By default, updates are downloaded as delta RPMs. Since rebuilding RPM packages from delta
RPMs is a memory- and processor-intensive task, certain setups or hardware configurations
might require you to disable the use of delta RPMs for the sake of performance.
Some patches, such as kernel updates or packages requiring license agreements, require user
interaction, which would cause the automatic update procedure to stop. You can configure to
skip patches that require user interaction.

PROCEDURE 3.2: CONFIGURING THE AUTOMATIC ONLINE UPDATE

1. After installation, start YaST and select Software Online Update Configuration.
Alternatively, start the module with yast2  online_update_configuration from the
command line.

2. Activate Automatic Online Update.

28 Automatic Online Update SLED 15

 3. Choose the update interval: Daily, Weekly, or Monthly.

4. To automatically accept any license agreements, activate Agree with Licenses.

5. Sometimes patches may require the attention of the administrator, for example when
restarting critical services. For example, this might be an update for Docker Open Source
Engine that requires all containers to be restarted. Before these patches are installed, the
user is informed about the consequences and is asked to confirm the installation of the
patch. Such patches are called “Interactive Patches”.
When installing patches automatically, it is assumed that you have accepted the installa-
tion of interactive patches. If you rather prefer to review these patches before they get
installed, select Skip Interactive Patches. In this case, interactive patches will be skipped
during automated patching. Make sure to periodically run a manual online update, to
check whether interactive patches are waiting to be installed.

6. To automatically install all packages recommended by updated packages, activate Include

Recommended Packages.

7. To disable the use of delta RPMs (for performance reasons), deactivate Use Delta RPMs.

8. To filter the patches by category (such as security or recommended), activate Filter by Cat-
egory and add the appropriate patch categories from the list. Only patches of the selected
categories will be installed. Others will be skipped.

9. Confirm your configuration with OK.

The automatic online update does not automatically restart the system afterward. If there are
package updates that require a system reboot, you need to do this manually.

29 Automatic Online Update SLED 15

4 YaST

YaST is the installation and configuration tool for SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop. It has a graph-
ical interface and the capability to customize your system quickly during and after the installa-
tion. It can be used to set up hardware, configure the network, system services, and tune your
security settings.

4.1 Advanced Key Combinations

YaST has a set of advanced key combinations.

Print Screen

Take and save a screenshot. May not be available when YaST is running under some desk-
top environments.

Shift – F4
Enable/disable the color palette optimized for vision impaired users.

Shift – F7
Enable/disable logging of debug messages.

Shift – F8
Open a le dialog to save log les to a non-standard location.

Ctrl – Shift – Alt – D

Send a DebugEvent. YaST modules can react to this by executing special debugging actions.
The result depends on the specific YaST module.

Ctrl – Shift – Alt – M

Start/stop macro recorder.

Ctrl – Shift – Alt – P

Replay macro.

Ctrl – Shift – Alt – S

Show style sheet editor.

Ctrl – Shift – Alt – T

Dump widget tree to the log le.

30 Advanced Key Combinations SLED 15

Ctrl – Shift – Alt – X
Open a terminal window (xterm). Useful for installation process via VNC.

Ctrl – Shift – Alt – Y

Show widget tree browser.

31 Advanced Key Combinations SLED 15

5 YaST in Text Mode

This section is intended for system administrators and experts who do not run an X server on
their systems and depend on the text-based installation tool. It provides basic information about
starting and operating YaST in text mode.
YaST in text mode uses the ncurses library to provide an easy pseudo-graphical user interface.
The ncurses library is installed by default. The minimum supported size of the terminal emulator
in which to run YaST is 80x25 characters.

FIGURE 5.1: MAIN WINDOW OF YAST IN TEXT MODE

When you start YaST in text mode, the YaST control center appears (see Figure 5.1). The main
window consists of three areas. The left frame features the categories to which the various
modules belong. This frame is active when YaST is started and therefore it is marked by a
bold white border. The active category is selected. The right frame provides an overview of
the modules available in the active category. The bottom frame contains the buttons for Help
and Quit.
When you start the YaST control center, the category Software is selected automatically. Use ↓

and ↑ to change the category. To select a module from the category, activate the right frame
with → and then use ↓ and ↑ to select the module. Keep the arrow keys pressed to scroll
through the list of available modules. After selecting a module, press Enter to start it.

32 SLED 15
Various buttons or selection elds in the module contain a highlighted letter (yellow by default).
Use Alt – highlighted_letter to select a button directly instead of navigating there with →| .
Exit the YaST control center by pressing Alt – Q or by selecting Quit and pressing Enter .

Tip: Refreshing YaST Dialogues

If a YaST dialog gets corrupted or distorted (for example, while resizing the window),
press Ctrl – L to refresh and restore its contents.

5.1 Navigation in Modules

The following description of the control elements in the YaST modules assumes that all function
keys and Alt key combinations work and are not assigned to different global functions. Read
Section 5.3, “Restriction of Key Combinations” for information about possible exceptions.

Navigation among Buttons and Selection Lists

Use →| to navigate among the buttons and frames containing selection lists. To navigate
in reverse order, use Alt – →| or Shift – →| combinations.

Navigation in Selection Lists

Use the arrow keys ( ↑ and ↓ ) to navigate among the individual elements in an active
frame containing a selection list. If individual entries within a frame exceed its width,
use Shift – → or Shift – ← to scroll horizontally to the right and left. Alternatively, use
Ctrl – E or Ctrl – A . This combination can also be used if using → or ← results in
changing the active frame or the current selection list, as in the control center.

Buttons, Radio Buttons, and Check Boxes

To select buttons with empty square brackets (check boxes) or empty parentheses (radio
buttons), press Space or Enter . Alternatively, radio buttons and check boxes can be
selected directly with Alt – highlighted_letter . In this case, you do not need to confirm
with Enter . If you navigate to an item with →| , press Enter to execute the selected
action or activate the respective menu item.

Function Keys

33 Navigation in Modules SLED 15

 The function keys ( F1 ... F12 ) enable quick access to the various buttons. Available
function key combinations ( FX ) are shown in the bottom line of the YaST screen. Which
function keys are actually mapped to which buttons depend on the active YaST module,
because the different modules offer different buttons (Details, Info, Add, Delete, etc.). Use
F10 for Accept, OK, Next, and Finish. Press F1 to access the YaST help.

Using Navigation Tree in ncurses Mode

Some YaST modules use a navigation tree in the left part of the window to select configu-
ration dialogues. Use the arrow keys ( ↑ and ↓ ) to navigate in the tree. Use Space to
open or close tree items. In ncurses mode, Enter must be pressed after a selection in the
navigation tree to show the selected dialog. This is an intentional behavior to save time
consuming redraws when browsing through the navigation tree.

Selecting Software in the Software Installation Module

Use the filters on the left side to limit the amount of displayed packages. Installed packages
are marked with the letter i . To change the status of a package, press Space or Enter .
Alternatively, use the Actions menu to select the needed status change (install, delete,
update, taboo or lock).

FIGURE 5.2: THE SOFTWARE INSTALLATION MODULE

34 Navigation in Modules SLED 15

5.2 Advanced Key Combinations
YaST in text mode has a set of advanced key combinations.

Shift – F1
List advanced hotkeys.

Shift – F4
Change color schema.

Ctrl –\
Quit the application.

Ctrl –L
Refresh screen.

Ctrl –D F1

List advanced hotkeys.

Ctrl –D Shift –D
Dump dialog to the log le as a screenshot.

Ctrl –D Shift –Y
Open YDialogSpy to see the widget hierarchy.

5.3 Restriction of Key Combinations

If your window manager uses global Alt combinations, the Alt combinations in YaST might
not work. Keys like Alt or Shift can also be occupied by the settings of the terminal.

Replacing Alt with Esc

Alt shortcuts can be executed with Esc instead of Alt . For example, Esc – H replaces
Alt – H . (First press Esc , then press H .)

Backward and Forward Navigation with Ctrl – F and Ctrl –B

If the Alt and Shift combinations are occupied by the window manager or the terminal,
use the combinations Ctrl – F (forward) and Ctrl – B (backward) instead.

Restriction of Function Keys

35 Advanced Key Combinations SLED 15

 The function keys ( F1 ... F12 ) are also used for functions. Certain function keys might
be occupied by the terminal and may not be available for YaST. However, the Alt key
combinations and function keys should always be fully available on a pure text console.

5.4 YaST Command Line Options

Besides the text mode interface, YaST provides a pure command line interface. To get a list of
YaST command line options, enter:

tux > sudo yast -h

5.4.1 Installing Packages from the Command Line

If you know the package name and the package is provided by any of your active installation
repositories, you can use the command line option -i to install the package:

tux > sudo yast -i package_name

or

tux > sudo yast --install -i package_name

package_name can be a single short package name (for example gvim ) installed with depen-
dency checking, or the full path to an RPM package which is installed without dependency
checking.
If you need a command line based software management utility with functionality beyond what
YaST provides, consider using Zypper. This utility uses the same software management library
that is also the foundation for the YaST package manager. The basic usage of Zypper is covered
in Section 6.1, “Using Zypper”.

5.4.2 Starting Individual Modules

To save time, you can start individual YaST modules directly. To start a module, enter:

tux > sudo yast module_name

View a list of all module names available on your system with yast -l or yast --list . Start
the network module, for example, with yast lan .

36 YaST Command Line Options SLED 15

5.4.3 Command Line Parameters of YaST Modules
To use YaST functionality in scripts, YaST provides command line support for individual mod-
ules. Not all modules have command line support. To display the available options of a module,
enter:

tux > sudo yast module_name help

If a module does not provide command line support, it is started in a text mode and the following
message appears:

This YaST module does not support the command line interface.

The following sections describe all YaST modules with command line support, together with a
brief explanation of all their commands and available options.

5.4.3.1 Common YaST Module Commands

All YaST modules support the following commands:

help
Lists all the module's supported commands together with their description:

tux > sudo yast lan help

longhelp
Same as help , but adds a detailed list of each command's options together with their
description:

tux > sudo yast lan longhelp

xmlhelp
Same as longhelp , but the output is structured as an XML document and redirected to
a le:

tux > sudo yast lan xmlhelp xmlfile=/tmp/yast_lan.xml

interactive
If you need to spend more time querying a module's settings, run the interactive mode.
The YaST shell opens, where you can enter all the module's commands without the sudo
yast ... prefix. To leave the interactive mode, enter exit .

37 Command Line Parameters of YaST Modules SLED 15

5.4.3.2 yast add-on

Adds a new add-on product from the specified path:

tux > sudo yast add-on http://server.name/directory/Lang-AddOn-CD1/

You can use the following protocols to specify the source path: http:// ftp:// nfs:// disk:// cd://
or dvd://.

5.4.3.3 yast audit-laf

Displays and configures the Linux Audit Framework. Refer to the Book “Security Guide” for more
details. yast audit-laf accepts the following commands:

set
Sets an option:

tux > sudo yast audit-laf set log_file=/tmp/audit.log

For a complete list of options, run yast audit-laf set help .

show
Displays settings of an option:

tux > sudo yast audit-laf show diskspace

space_left: 75
space_left_action: SYSLOG
admin_space_left: 50
admin_space_left_action: SUSPEND
action_mail_acct: root
disk_full_action: SUSPEND
disk_error_action: SUSPEND

For a complete list of options, run yast audit-laf show help .

5.4.3.4 yast dhcp-server

Manages the DHCP server and configures its settings. yast dhcp-server accepts the following
commands:

disable

38 Command Line Parameters of YaST Modules SLED 15

 Disables the DHCP server service.

enable
Enables the DHCP server service.

host
Configures settings for individual hosts.

interface
Specifies to which network interface to listen to:

tux > sudo yast dhcp-server interface current

Selected Interfaces: eth0
Other Interfaces: bond0, pbu, eth1

For a complete list of options, run yast dhcp-server interface help .

options
Manages global DHCP options. For a complete list of options, run yast dhcp-server
options help .

status
Prints the status of the DHCP service.

subnet
Manages the DHCP subnet options. For a complete list of options, run yast dhcp-server
subnet help .

5.4.3.5 yast dns-server

Manages the DNS server configuration. yast dns-server accepts the following commands:

acls
Displays access control list settings:

tux > sudo yast dns-server acls show

ACLs:
-----
Name Type Value
----------------------------
any Predefined
localips Predefined
localnets Predefined

39 Command Line Parameters of YaST Modules SLED 15

 none Predefined

dnsrecord
Configures zone resource records:

tux > sudo yast dnsrecord add zone=example.org query=office.example.org type=NS

value=ns3

For a complete list of options, run yast dns-server dnsrecord help .

forwarders
Configures DNS forwarders:

tux > sudo yast dns-server forwarders add ip=10.0.0.100

tux > sudo yast dns-server forwarders show
[...]
Forwarder IP
------------
10.0.0.100

For a complete list of options, run yast dns-server forwarders help .

host
Handles 'A' and its related 'PTR' record at once:

tux > sudo yast dns-server host show zone=example.org

For a complete list of options, run yast dns-server host help .

logging
Configures logging settings:

tux > sudo yast dns-server logging set updates=no transfers=yes

For a complete list of options, run yast dns-server logging help .

mailserver
Configures zone mail servers:

tux > sudo yast dns-server mailserver add zone=example.org mx=mx1 priority=100

For a complete list of options, run yast dns-server mailserver help .

nameserver

40 Command Line Parameters of YaST Modules SLED 15

 Configures zone name servers:

tux > sudo yast dns-server nameserver add zone=example.com ns=ns1

For a complete list of options, run yast dns-server nameserver help .

soa
Configures the start of authority (SOA) record:

tux > sudo yast dns-server soa set zone=example.org serial=2006081623 ttl=2D3H20S

For a complete list of options, run yast dns-server soa help .

startup
Manages the DNS server service:

tux > sudo yast dns-server startup atboot

For a complete list of options, run yast dns-server startup help .

transport
Configures zone transport rules. For a complete list of options, run yast dns-server
transport help .

zones
Manages DNS zones:

tux > sudo yast dns-server zones add name=example.org zonetype=master

For a complete list of options, run yast dns-server zones help .

5.4.3.6 yast disk

Prints information about all disks or partitions. The only supported command is list followed
by either of the following options:

disks
Lists all configured disks in the system:

tux > sudo yast disk list disks

Device | Size | FS Type | Mount Point | Label | Model
---------+------------+---------+-------------+-------+-------------

41 Command Line Parameters of YaST Modules SLED 15

 /dev/sda | 119.24 GiB | | | | SSD 840
/dev/sdb | 60.84 GiB | | | | WD1003FBYX-0

partitions
Lists all partitions in the system:

tux > sudo yast disk list partitions

Device | Size | FS Type | Mount Point | Label | Model
---------------+------------+---------+-------------+-------+------
/dev/sda1 | 1.00 GiB | Ext2 | /boot | |
/dev/sdb1 | 1.00 GiB | Swap | swap | |
/dev/sdc1 | 698.64 GiB | XFS | /mnt/extra | |
/dev/vg00/home | 580.50 GiB | Ext3 | /home | |
/dev/vg00/root | 100.00 GiB | Ext3 | / | |
[...]

5.4.3.7 yast firewall

Displays information about the firewall settings. yast firewall accepts the following com-
mands:

broadcast
Displays settings of broadcast packets.

disable
Disables firewall.

enable
Enables firewall.

interfaces
Displays the configuration related to network interfaces.

logging
Displays the logging settings.

masqredirect
Redirects requests to masqueraded IP.

masquerade
Displays the masquerading settings.

services

42 Command Line Parameters of YaST Modules SLED 15

 Displays information about allowed services, ports, and protocols.

startup
Displays start-up settings.

summary
Displays firewall configuration summary.

zones
Lists known firewall zones.

5.4.3.8 yast ftp-server

Configures FTP server settings. yast ftp-server accepts the following options:

SSL, SSLv2, SSLv3, TLS

Controls secure connections via SSL up to SSL version 3, and TLS. SSL options are valid
for the vsftpd only.

tux > sudo yast ftp-server SSLv2 enable

tux > sudo yast ftp-server TLS disable

access
Configures access permissions:

tux > sudo yast ftp-server access authen_only

For a complete list of options, run yast ftp-server access help .

anon_access
Configures access permissions for anonymous users:

tux > sudo yast ftp-server anon_access can_upload

For a complete list of options, run yast ftp-server anon_access help .

anon_dir
Specifies the directory for anonymous users. The directory must already exist on the server:

tux > sudo yast ftp-server anon_dir set_anon_dir=/srv/ftp

For a complete list of options, run yast ftp-server anon_dir help .

43 Command Line Parameters of YaST Modules SLED 15

chroot
Controls change root environment (chroot):

tux > sudo yast ftp-server chroot enable

tux > sudo yast ftp-server chroot disable

idle-time
Sets the maximum idle time in minutes before FTP server terminates the current connec-
tion:

tux > sudo yast ftp-server idle-time set_idle_time=15

logging
Controls whether to save the log messages into a log le:

tux > sudo yast ftp-server logging enable

tux > sudo yast ftp-server logging disable

max_clients
Specifies the maximum number of concurrently connected clients:

tux > sudo yast ftp-server max_clients set_max_clients=1500

max_clients_ip
Specifies the maximum number of concurrently connected clients via IP:

tux > sudo yast ftp-server max_clients_ip set_max_clients=20

max_rate_anon
Specifies the maximum data transfer rate permitted for anonymous clients (KB/s):

tux > sudo yast ftp-server max_rate_anon set_max_rate=10000

max_rate_authen
Specifies the maximum data transfer rate permitted for locally authenticated users (KB/s):

tux > sudo yast ftp-server max_rate_authen set_max_rate=10000

port_range
Specifies the port range for passive connection replies:

tux > sudo yast ftp-server port_range set_min_port=20000 set_max_port=30000

44 Command Line Parameters of YaST Modules SLED 15

 For a complete list of options, run yast ftp-server port_range help .

show
Displays FTP server settings.

startup
Controls the FTP start-up method:

tux > sudo yast ftp-server startup atboot

For a complete list of options, run yast ftp-server startup help .

umask
Specifies the le umask for authenticated:anonymous users:

tux > sudo yast ftp-server umask set_umask=177:077

welcome_message
Specifies the text to display when someone connects to the FTP server:

tux > sudo yast ftp-server welcome_message set_message="hello everybody"

5.4.3.9 yast http-server

Configures the HTTP server (Apache2). yast http-server accepts the following commands:

configure
Configures the HTTP server host settings:

tux > sudo yast http-server configure host=main servername=www.example.com \

serveradmin=admin@example.com

For a complete list of options, run yast http-server configure help .

hosts
Configures virtual hosts:

tux > sudo yast http-server hosts create servername=www.example.com \

serveradmin=admin@example.com documentroot=/var/www

For a complete list of options, run yast http-server hosts help .

45 Command Line Parameters of YaST Modules SLED 15

listen
Specifies the ports and network addresses where the HTTP server should listen:

tux > sudo yast http-server listen add=81

tux > sudo yast http-server listen list
Listen Statements:
==================
:80
:81
tux > sudo yast http-server delete=80

For a complete list of options, run yast http-server listen help .

mode
Enables or disables the wizard mode:

tux > sudo yast http-server mode wizard=on

modules
Controls the Apache2 server modules:

tux > sudo yast http-server modules enable=php5,rewrite

tux > sudo yast http-server modules disable=ssl
tux > sudo http-server modules list
[...]
Enabled rewrite
Disabled ssl
Enabled php5
[...]

5.4.3.10 yast kdump

Configures kdump settings. For more information on kdump , refer to the Book “System Analysis
and Tuning Guide”, Chapter 17 “Kexec and Kdump”, Section 17.7 “Basic Kdump Configuration”. yast
kdump accepts the following commands:

copykernel
Copies the kernel into the dump directory.

customkernel
Specifies the kernel_string part of the name of the custom kernel. The naming scheme
is /boot/vmlinu[zx]-kernel_string[.gz] .

46 Command Line Parameters of YaST Modules SLED 15

 tux > sudo yast kdump customkernel kernel=kdump

For a complete list of options, run yast kdump customkernel help .

dumpformat
Specifies the (compression) format of the dump kernel image. Available formats are 'none',
'ELF', 'compressed', or 'lzo':

tux > sudo yast kdump dumpformat dump_format=ELF

dumplevel
Specifies the dump level number in the range from 0 to 31:

tux > sudo yast kdump dumplevel dump_level=24

dumptarget
Specifies the destination for saving dump images:

tux > sudo kdump dumptarget taget=ssh server=name_server port=22 \

dir=/var/log/dump user=user_name

For a complete list of options, run yast kdump dumptarget help .

immediatereboot
Controls whether the system should reboot immediately after saving the core in the kdump
kernel:

tux > sudo yast kdump immediatereboot enable

tux > sudo yast kdump immediatereboot disable

keepolddumps
Specifies how many old dump images are kept. Specify zero to keep them all:

tux > sudo yast kdump keepolddumps no=5

kernelcommandline
Specifies the command line that needs to be passed o to the kdump kernel:

tux > sudo yast kdump kernelcommandline command="ro root=LABEL=/"

kernelcommandlineappend
Specifies the command line that you need to append to the default command line string:

tux > sudo yast kdump kernelcommandlineappend command="ro root=LABEL=/"

47 Command Line Parameters of YaST Modules SLED 15

notificationcc
Specifies an e-mail address for sending copies of notification messages:

tux > sudo yast kdump notificationcc email="user1@example.com user2@example.com"

notificationto
Specifies an e-mail address for sending notification messages:

tux > sudo yast kdump notificationto email="user1@example.com user2@example.com"

show
Displays kdump settings:

tux > sudo yast kdump show

Kdump is disabled
Dump Level: 31
Dump Format: compressed
Dump Target Settings
target: file
file directory: /var/crash
Kdump immediate reboots: Enabled
Numbers of old dumps: 5

smtppass
Specifies the le with the plain text SMTP password used for sending notification messages:

tux > sudo yast kdump smtppass pass=/path/to/file

smtpserver
Specifies the SMTP server host name used for sending notification messages:

tux > sudo yast kdump smtpserver server=smtp.server.com

smtpuser
Specifies the SMTP user name used for sending notification messages:

tux > sudo yast kdump smtpuser user=smtp_user

startup
Enables or disables start-up options:

tux > sudo yast kdump startup enable alloc_mem=128,256

tux > sudo yast kdump startup disable

48 Command Line Parameters of YaST Modules SLED 15

5.4.3.11 yast keyboard
Configures the system keyboard for virtual consoles. It does not affect the keyboard settings in
graphical desktop environments, such as GNOME or KDE. yast keyboard accepts the following
commands:

list
Lists all available keyboard layouts.

set
Activates new keyboard layout setting:

tux > sudo yast keyboard set layout=czech

summary
Displays the current keyboard configuration.

5.4.3.12 yast lan

Configures network cards. yast lan accepts the following commands:

add
Configures a new network card:

tux > sudo yast lan add name=vlan50 ethdevice=eth0 bootproto=dhcp

For a complete list of options, run yast lan add help .

delete
Deletes an existing network card:

tux > sudo yast lan delete id=0

edit
Changes the configuration of an existing network card:

tux > sudo yast lan edit id=0 bootproto=dhcp

list
Displays a summary of network card configuration:

tux > sudo yast lan list

id name, bootproto

49 Command Line Parameters of YaST Modules SLED 15

 0 Ethernet Card 0, NONE
1 Network Bridge, DHCP

5.4.3.13 yast language

Configures system languages. yast language accepts the following commands:

list
Lists all available languages.

set
Specifies the main system languages and secondary languages as well:

tux > sudo yast language set lang=cs_CZ languages=en_US,es_ES no_packages

5.4.3.14 yast mail

Displays the configuration of the mail system:

tux > sudo yast mail summary

5.4.3.15 yast nfs

Controls the NFS client. yast nfs accepts the following commands:

add
Adds a new NFS mount:

tux > sudo yast nfs add spec=remote_host:/path/to/nfs/share file=/local/mount/point

For a complete list of options, run yast nfs add help .

delete
Deletes an existing NFS mount:

tux > sudo yast nfs delete spec=remote_host:/path/to/nfs/share file=/local/mount/

point

For a complete list of options, run yast nfs delete help .

edit

50 Command Line Parameters of YaST Modules SLED 15

 Changes an existing NFS mount:

tux > sudo yast nfs edit spec=remote_host:/path/to/nfs/share \

file=/local/mount/point type=nfs4

For a complete list of options, run yast nfs edit help .

list
Lists existing NFS mounts:

tux > sudo yast nfs list

Server Remote File System Mount Point Options
----------------------------------------------------------------
nfs.example.com /mnt /nfs/mnt nfs
nfs.example.com /home/tux/nfs_share /nfs/tux nfs

5.4.3.16 yast nfs-server

Configures the NFS server. yast nfs-server accepts the following commands:

add
Adds a directory to export:

tux > sudo yast nfs-server add mountpoint=/nfs/export hosts=*.allowed_hosts.com

For a complete list of options, run yast nfs-server add help .

delete
Deletes a directory from the NFS export:

tux > sudo yast nfs-server delete mountpoint=/nfs/export

set
Specifies additional parameters for the NFS server:

tux > sudo yast nfs-server set enablev4=yes security=yes

For a complete list of options, run yast nfs-server set help .

start
Starts the NFS server service:

tux > sudo yast nfs-server start

51 Command Line Parameters of YaST Modules SLED 15

stop
Stops the NFS server service:

tux > sudo yast nfs-server stop

summary
Displays a summary of the NFS server configuration:

tux > sudo yast nfs-server summary

NFS server is enabled
NFS Exports
* /mnt
* /home

NFSv4 support is enabled.

The NFSv4 domain for idmapping is localdomain.
NFS Security using GSS is enabled.

5.4.3.17 yast nis

Configures the NIS client. yast nis accepts the following commands:

configure
Changes global settings of a NIS client:

tux > sudo yast nis configure server=nis.example.com broadcast=yes

For a complete list of options, run yast nis configure help .

disable
Disables the NIS client:

tux > sudo yast nis disable

enable
Enables your machine as NIS client:

tux > sudo yast nis enable server=nis.example.com broadcast=yes automounter=yes

For a complete list of options, run yast nis enable help .

find

52 Command Line Parameters of YaST Modules SLED 15

 Shows available NIS servers for a given domain:

tux > sudo yast nis find domain=nisdomain.com

summary
Displays a configuration summary of a NIS client.

5.4.3.18 yast nis-server

Configures a NIS server. yast nis-server accepts the following commands:

master
Configures a NIS master server:

tux > sudo yast nis-server master domain=nisdomain.com yppasswd=yes

For a complete list of options, run yast nis-server master help .

slave
Configures a NIS slave server:

tux > sudo yast nis-server slave domain=nisdomain.com master_ip=10.100.51.65

For a complete list of options, run yast nis-server slave help .

stop
Stops a NIS server:

tux > sudo yast nis-server stop

summary
Displays a configuration summary of a NIS server:

tux > sudo yast nis-server summary

5.4.3.19 yast proxy

Configures proxy settings. yast proxy accepts the following commands:

authentication

53 Command Line Parameters of YaST Modules SLED 15

 Specifies the authentication options for proxy:

tux > sudo yast proxy authentication username=tux password=secret

For a complete list of options, run yast proxy authentication help .

enable, disable
Enables or disables proxy settings.

set
Changes the current proxy settings:

tux > sudo yast proxy set https=proxy.example.com

For a complete list of options, run yast proxy set help .

summary
Displays proxy settings.

5.4.3.20 yast rdp

Controls remote desktop settings. yast rdp accepts the following commands:

allow
Allows remote access to the server's desktop:

tux > sudo yast rdp allow set=yes

list
Displays the remote desktop configuration summary.

5.4.3.21 yast samba-client

Configures the Samba client settings. yast samba-client accepts the following commands:

configure
Changes global settings of Samba:

tux > sudo yast samba-client configure workgroup=FAMILY

isdomainmember

54 Command Line Parameters of YaST Modules SLED 15

 Verifies if the machine is a member of a domain:

tux > sudo yast samba-client isdomainmember domain=SMB_DOMAIN

joindomain
Makes the machine a member of a domain:

tux > sudo yast samba-client joindomain domain=SMB_DOMAIN user=username password=pwd

winbind
Enables or disables Winbind services (the winbindd daemon):

tux > sudo yast samba-client winbind enable

tux > sudo yast samba-client winbind disable

5.4.3.22 yast samba-server

Configures Samba server settings. yast samba-server accepts the following commands:

backend
Specifies the back-end for storing user information:

tux > sudo yast samba-server backend smbpasswd

For a complete list of options, run yast samba-server backend help .

configure
Configures global settings of the Samba server:

tux > sudo yast samba-server configure workgroup=FAMILY description='Home server'

For a complete list of options, run yast samba-server configure help .

list
Displays a list of available shares:

tux > sudo yast samba-server list

Status Type Name
==============================
Disabled Disk profiles
Enabled Disk print$
Enabled Disk homes

55 Command Line Parameters of YaST Modules SLED 15

 Disabled Disk groups
Enabled Disk movies
Enabled Printer printers

role
Specifies the role of the Samba server:

tux > sudo yast samba-server role standalone

For a complete list of options, run yast samba-server role help .

service
Enables or disables the Samba services ( smb and nmb ):

tux > sudo yast samba-server service enable

tux > sudo yast samba-server service disable

share
Manipulates a single Samba share:

tux > sudo yast samba-server share name=movies browseable=yes guest_ok=yes

For a complete list of options, run yast samba-server share help .

5.4.3.23 yast security

Controls the security level of the host. yast security accepts the following commands:

level
Specifies the security level of the host:

tux > sudo yast security level server

For a complete list of options, run yast security level help .

set
Sets the value of specific options:

tux > sudo yast security set passwd=sha512 crack=yes

For a complete list of options, run yast security set help .

summary

56 Command Line Parameters of YaST Modules SLED 15

 Displays a summary of the current security configuration:

sudoyast security summary

5.4.3.24 yast sound

Configures sound card settings. yast sound accepts the following commands:

add
Configures a new sound card. Without any parameters, the command adds the rst one
detected.

tux > sudo yast sound add card=0 volume=75

For a complete list of options, run yast sound add help .

channels
Lists available volume channels of a sound card:

tux > sudo yast sound channels card=0

Master 75
PCM 100

modules
Lists all available sound kernel modules:

tux > sudo yast sound modules

snd-atiixp ATI IXP AC97 controller (snd-atiixp)
snd-atiixp-modem ATI IXP MC97 controller (snd-atiixp-modem)
snd-virtuoso Asus Virtuoso driver (snd-virtuoso)
[...]

playtest
Plays a test sound on a sound card:

tux > sudo yast sound playtest card=0

remove
Removes a configured sound card:

tux > sudo yast sound remove card=0

57 Command Line Parameters of YaST Modules SLED 15

 tux > sudo yast sound remove all

set
Specifies new values for a sound card:

tux > sudo yast sound set card=0 volume=80

show
Displays detailed information about a sound card:

tux > sudo yast sound show card=0

Parameters of card 'ThinkPad X240' (using module snd-hda-intel):

align_buffer_size
Force buffer and period sizes to be multiple of 128 bytes.
bdl_pos_adj
BDL position adjustment offset.
beep_mode
Select HDA Beep registration mode (0=off, 1=on) (default=1).
Default Value: 0
enable_msi
Enable Message Signaled Interrupt (MSI)
[...]

summary
Prints a configuration summary for all sound cards on the system:

tux > sudo yast sound summary

volume
Specifies the volume level of a sound card:

sudoyast sound volume card=0 play

5.4.3.25 yast sysconfig

Controls the variables in les under /etc/sysconfig . yast sysconfig accepts the following
commands:

clear
Sets empty value to a variable:

tux > sudo yast sysconfig clear=POSTFIX_LISTEN

58 Command Line Parameters of YaST Modules SLED 15

 Tip: Variable in Multiple Files
If the variable is available in several les, use the VARIABLE_NAME $ FILE_NAME
syntax:

tux > sudo yast sysconfig clear=CONFIG_TYPE$/etc/sysconfig/mail

details
Displays detailed information about a variable:

tux > sudo yast sysconfig details variable=POSTFIX_LISTEN

Description:
Value:
File: /etc/sysconfig/postfix
Possible Values: Any value
Default Value:
Configuration Script: postfix
Description:
Comma separated list of IP's
NOTE: If not set, LISTEN on all interfaces

list
Displays summary of modified variables. Use all to list all variables and their values:

tux > sudo yast sysconfig list all

AOU_AUTO_AGREE_WITH_LICENSES="false"
AOU_ENABLE_CRONJOB="true"
AOU_INCLUDE_RECOMMENDS="false"
[...]

set
Sets a value to a variable:

tux > sudo yast sysconfig set DISPLAYMANAGER=gdm

Tip: Variable in Multiple Files

If the variable is available in several les, use the VARIABLE_NAME $ FILE_NAME
syntax:

tux > sudo yast sysconfig set CONFIG_TYPE$/etc/sysconfig/mail=advanced

59 Command Line Parameters of YaST Modules SLED 15

5.4.3.26 yast tftp-server
Configures a TFTP server. yast tftp-server accepts the following commands:

directory
Specifies the directory of the TFTP server:

tux > sudo yast tftp-server directory path=/srv/tftp

tux > sudo yast tftp-server directory list
Directory Path: /srv/tftp

status
Controls the status of the TFTP server service:

tux > sudo yast tftp-server status disable

tux > sudo yast tftp-server status show
Service Status: false
tux > sudo yast tftp-server status enable

5.4.3.27 yast timezone

Configures the time zone. yast timezone accepts the following commands:

list
Lists all available time zones grouped by region:

tux > sudo yast timezone list

Region: Africa
Africa/Abidjan (Abidjan)
Africa/Accra (Accra)
Africa/Addis_Ababa (Addis Ababa)
[...]

set
Specifies new values for the time zone configuration:

tux > sudo yast timezone set timezone=Europe/Prague hwclock=local

summary
Displays the time zone configuration summary:

tux > sudo yast timezone summary

Current Time Zone: Europe/Prague

60 Command Line Parameters of YaST Modules SLED 15

 Hardware Clock Set To: Local time
Current Time and Date: Mon 12. March 2018, 11:36:21 CET

5.4.3.28 yast users

Manages user accounts. yast users accepts the following commands:

add
Adds a new user:

tux > sudo yast users add username=user1 password=secret home=/home/user1

For a complete list of options, run yast users add help .

delete
Deletes an existing user account:

tux > sudo yast users delete username=user1 delete_home

For a complete list of options, run yast users delete help .

edit
Changes an existing user account:

tux > sudo yast users edit username=user1 password=new_secret

For a complete list of options, run yast users edit help .

list
Lists existing users filtered by user type:

tux > sudo yast users list system

For a complete list of options, run yast users list help .

show
Displays details about a user:

tux > sudo yast users show username=wwwrun

Full Name: WWW daemon apache
List of Groups: www
Default Group: wwwrun
Home Directory: /var/lib/wwwrun

61 Command Line Parameters of YaST Modules SLED 15

 Login Shell: /sbin/nologin
Login Name: wwwrun
UID: 456

For a complete list of options, run yast users show help .

62 Command Line Parameters of YaST Modules SLED 15

6 Managing Software with Command Line Tools

This chapter describes Zypper and RPM, two command line tools for managing soft-
ware. For a definition of the terminology used in this context (for example, repos-
itory , patch , or update ) refer to Book “Deployment Guide”, Chapter 13 “Installing or
Removing Software”, Section 13.1 “Definition of Terms”.

6.1 Using Zypper

Zypper is a command line package manager for installing, updating and removing packages. It
also manages repositories. It is especially useful for accomplishing remote software management
tasks or managing software from shell scripts.

6.1.1 General Usage

The general syntax of Zypper is:

zypper [--global-options] COMMAND  [--command-options] [arguments]

The components enclosed in brackets are not required. See zypper help for a list of general
options and all commands. To get help for a specific command, type zypper help COMMAND .

Zypper Commands
The simplest way to execute Zypper is to type its name, followed by a command. For
example, to apply all needed patches to the system, use:

tux > sudo zypper patch

Global Options
Additionally, you can choose from one or more global options by typing them immediately
before the command:

tux > sudo zypper --non-interactive patch

In the above example, the option --non-interactive means that the command is run
without asking anything (automatically applying the default answers).

Command-Specific Options

63 Using Zypper SLED 15

 To use options that are specific to a particular command, type them immediately after the
command:

tux > sudo zypper patch --auto-agree-with-licenses

In the above example, --auto-agree-with-licenses is used to apply all needed patch-

es to a system without you being asked to confirm any licenses. Instead, license will be
accepted automatically.

Arguments
Some commands require one or more arguments. For example, when using the command
install , you need to specify which package or which packages you want to install:

tux > sudo zypper install mplayer

Some options also require a single argument. The following command will list all known
patterns:

tux > zypper search -t pattern

You can combine all of the above. For example, the following command will install the mc and
vim packages from the factory repository while being verbose:

tux > sudo zypper -v install --from factory mc vim

The --from option makes sure to keep all repositories enabled (for solving any dependencies)
while requesting the package from the specified repository.
Most Zypper commands have a dry-run option that does a simulation of the given command.
It can be used for test purposes.

tux > sudo zypper remove --dry-run MozillaFirefox

Zypper supports the global --userdata STRING option. You can specify a string with this
option, which gets written to Zypper's log les and plug-ins (such as the Btrfs plug-in). It can
be used to mark and identify transactions in log les.

tux > sudo zypper --userdata STRING patch

6.1.2 Installing and Removing Software with Zypper

To install or remove packages, use the following commands:

tux > sudo zypper install PACKAGE_NAME

64 Installing and Removing Software with Zypper SLED 15

sudo zypper remove PACKAGE_NAME

Warning: Do Not Remove Mandatory System

Packages
Do not remove mandatory system packages like glibc , zypper , kernel . If they are
removed, the system can become unstable or stop working altogether.

6.1.2.1 Selecting Which Packages to Install or Remove

There are various ways to address packages with the commands zypper install and zypper
remove .

By Exact Package Name

tux > sudo zypper install MozillaFirefox

By Exact Package Name and Version Number

tux > sudo zypper install MozillaFirefox-52.2

By Repository Alias and Package Name

tux > sudo zypper install mozilla:MozillaFirefox

Where mozilla is the alias of the repository from which to install.

By Package Name Using Wild Cards

You can select all packages that have names starting or ending with a certain string. Use
wild cards with care, especially when removing packages. The following command will
install all packages starting with “Moz”:

tux > sudo zypper install 'Moz*'

65 Installing and Removing Software with Zypper SLED 15

 Tip: Removing all -debuginfo Packages
When debugging a problem, you sometimes need to temporarily install a lot of -
debuginfo packages which give you more information about running processes.
After your debugging session finishes and you need to clean the environment, run
the following:

tux > sudo zypper remove '*-debuginfo'

By Capability
For example, to install a package without knowing its name, capabilities come in handy.
The following command will install the package MozillaFirefox :

tux > sudo zypper install firefox

By Capability, Hardware Architecture, or Version

Together with a capability, you can specify a hardware architecture and a version:

The name of the desired hardware architecture is appended to the capability after a
full stop. For example, to specify the AMD64/Intel 64 architectures (which in Zypper
is named x86_64 ), use:

tux > sudo zypper install 'firefox.x86_64'

Versions must be appended to the end of the string and must be preceded by an
operator: < (lesser than), <= (lesser than or equal), = (equal), >= (greater than or
equal), > (greater than).

tux > sudo zypper install 'firefox>=52.2'

You can also combine a hardware architecture and version requirement:

tux > sudo zypper install 'firefox.x86_64>=52.2'

By Path to the RPM file

You can also specify a local or remote path to a package:

tux > sudo zypper install /tmp/install/MozillaFirefox.rpm

tux > sudo zypper install http://download.example.com/MozillaFirefox.rpm

66 Installing and Removing Software with Zypper SLED 15

6.1.2.2 Combining Installation and Removal of Packages
To install and remove packages simultaneously, use the +/- modifiers. To install emacs and
simultaneously remove vim , use:

tux > sudo zypper install emacs -vim

To remove emacs and simultaneously install vim , use:

tux > sudo zypper remove emacs +vim

To prevent the package name starting with the - being interpreted as a command option, always
use it as the second argument. If this is not possible, precede it with -- :

tux > sudo zypper install -emacs +vim # Wrong

tux > sudo zypper install vim -emacs # Correct
tux > sudo zypper install -- -emacs +vim # Correct
tux > sudo zypper remove emacs +vim # Correct

6.1.2.3 Cleaning Up Dependencies of Removed Packages

If (together with a certain package), you automatically want to remove any packages that be-
come unneeded after removing the specified package, use the --clean-deps option:

tux > sudo zypper rm PACKAGE_NAME --clean-deps

6.1.2.4 Using Zypper in Scripts

By default, Zypper asks for a confirmation before installing or removing a selected package, or
when a problem occurs. You can override this behavior using the --non-interactive option.
This option must be given before the actual command ( install , remove , and patch ), as can
be seen in the following:

tux > sudo zypper --non-interactive install PACKAGE_NAME

This option allows the use of Zypper in scripts and cron jobs.

6.1.2.5 Installing or Downloading Source Packages

To install the corresponding source package of a package, use:

tux > zypper source-install PACKAGE_NAME

67 Installing and Removing Software with Zypper SLED 15

When executed as root , the default location to install source packages is /usr/src/packages/
and ~/rpmbuild when run as user. These values can be changed in your local rpm configura-
tion.
This command will also install the build dependencies of the specified package. If you do not
want this, add the switch -D :

tux > sudo zypper source-install -D PACKAGE_NAME

To install only the build dependencies use -d .

tux > sudo zypper source-install -d PACKAGE_NAME

Of course, this will only work if you have the repository with the source packages enabled in your
repository list (it is added by default, but not enabled). See Section 6.1.5, “Managing Repositories
with Zypper” for details on repository management.

A list of all source packages available in your repositories can be obtained with:

tux > zypper search -t srcpackage

You can also download source packages for all installed packages to a local directory. To down-
load source packages, use:

tux > zypper source-download

The default download directory is /var/cache/zypper/source-download . You can change it

using the --directory option. To only show missing or extraneous packages without down-
loading or deleting anything, use the --status option. To delete extraneous source packages,
use the --delete option. To disable deleting, use the --no-delete option.

6.1.2.6 Installing Packages from Disabled Repositories

Normally you can only install or refresh packages from enabled repositories. The --plus-con-
tent TAG option helps you specify repositories to be refreshed, temporarily enabled during the
current Zypper session, and disabled after it completes.
For example, to enable repositories that may provide additional -debuginfo or -debugsource
packages, use --plus-content debug . You can specify this option multiple times.
To temporarily enable such 'debug' repositories to install a specific -debuginfo package, use
the option as follows:

tux > sudo zypper --plus-content debug \

68 Installing and Removing Software with Zypper SLED 15

 install "debuginfo(build-id)=eb844a5c20c70a59fc693cd1061f851fb7d046f4"

The build-id string is reported by gdb for missing debuginfo packages.

6.1.2.7 Utilities
To verify whether all dependencies are still fulfilled and to repair missing dependencies, use:

tux > zypper verify

In addition to dependencies that must be fulfilled, some packages “recommend” other packages.
These recommended packages are only installed if actually available and installable. In case
recommended packages were made available after the recommending package has been installed
(by adding additional packages or hardware), use the following command:

tux > sudo zypper install-new-recommends

This command is very useful after plugging in a Web cam or Wi-Fi device. It will install drivers
for the device and related software, if available. Drivers and related software are only installable
if certain hardware dependencies are fulfilled.

6.1.3 Updating Software with Zypper

There are three different ways to update software using Zypper: by installing patches, by in-
stalling a new version of a package or by updating the entire distribution. The latter is achieved
with zypper dist-upgrade . Upgrading SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop is discussed in Book
“Upgrade Guide”, Chapter 1 “Upgrade Paths and Methods” .

6.1.3.1 Installing All Needed Patches

To install all officially released patches that apply to your system, run:

tux > sudo zypper patch

All patches available from repositories configured on your computer are checked for their rele-
vance to your installation. If they are relevant (and not classified as optional or feature ),
they are installed immediately. Note that the official update repository is only available after
registering your SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop installation.

69 Updating Software with Zypper SLED 15

If a patch that is about to be installed includes changes that require a system reboot, you will
be warned before.
The plain zypper patch command does not apply patches from third party repositories. To
update also the third party repositories, use the with-update command option as follows:

tux > sudo zypper patch --with update

To install also optional patches, use:

tux > sudo zypper patch --with-optional

To install all patches relating to a specific Bugzilla issue, use:

tux > sudo zypper patch --bugzilla=NUMBER

To install all patches relating to a specific CVE database entry, use:

tux > sudo zypper patch --cve=NUMBER

For example, to install a security patch with the CVE number CVE-2010-2713 , execute:

tux > sudo zypper patch --cve=CVE-2010-2713

To install only patches which affect Zypper and the package management itself, use:

tux > sudo zypper patch --updatestack-only

Bear in mind that other command options that would also update other repositories will be
dropped if you use the updatestack-only command option.

6.1.3.2 Listing Patches

To nd out whether patches are available, Zypper allows viewing the following information:

Number of Needed Patches

To list the number of needed patches (patches that apply to your system but are not yet
installed), use patch-check :

tux > zypper patch-check

Loading repository data...

70 Updating Software with Zypper SLED 15

 Reading installed packages...
5 patches needed (1 security patch)

This command can be combined with the --updatestack-only option to list only the
patches which affect Zypper and the package management itself.

List of Needed Patches

To list all needed patches (patches that apply to your system but are not yet installed),
use list-patches :

tux > zypper list-patches

Loading repository data...
Reading installed packages...

Repository | Name | Version | Category | Status | Summary

---------------+-------------+---------+----------+---------+---------
SLES12-Updates | SUSE-2014-8 | 1 | security | needed | openssl: Update for OpenSSL

List of All Patches

To list all patches available for SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop, regardless of whether they
are already installed or apply to your installation, use zypper patches .

It is also possible to list and install patches relevant to specific issues. To list specific patches,
use the zypper list-patches command with the following options:

By Bugzilla Issues
To list all needed patches that relate to Bugzilla issues, use the option --bugzilla .
To list patches for a specific bug, you can also specify a bug number: --bugzilla=NUMBER .
To search for patches relating to multiple Bugzilla issues, add commas between the bug
numbers, for example:

tux > zypper list-patches --bugzilla=972197,956917

By CVE Number
To list all needed patches that relate to an entry in the CVE database (Common Vulnera-
bilities and Exposures), use the option --cve .
To list patches for a specific CVE database entry, you can also specify a CVE number: --
cve=NUMBER . To search for patches relating to multiple CVE database entries, add commas
between the CVE numbers, for example:

tux > zypper list-patches --bugzilla=CVE-2016-2315,CVE-2016-2324

71 Updating Software with Zypper SLED 15

To list all patches regardless of whether they are needed, use the option --all additionally.
For example, to list all patches with a CVE number assigned, use:

tux > zypper list-patches --all --cve

Issue | No. | Patch | Category | Severity | Status
------+---------------+-------------------+-------------+-----------+----------
cve | CVE-2015-0287 | SUSE-SLE-Module.. | recommended | moderate | needed
cve | CVE-2014-3566 | SUSE-SLE-SERVER.. | recommended | moderate | not needed
[...]

6.1.3.3 Installing New Package Versions

If a repository contains only new packages, but does not provide patches, zypper patch does
not show any effect. To update all installed packages with newer available versions (while main-
taining system integrity), use:

tux > sudo zypper update

To update individual packages, specify the package with either the update or install command:

tux > sudo zypper update PACKAGE_NAME

sudo zypper install PACKAGE_NAME

A list of all new installable packages can be obtained with the command:

tux > zypper list-updates

Note that this command only lists packages that match the following criteria:

has the same vendor like the already installed package,

is provided by repositories with at least the same priority than the already installed pack-
age,

is installable (all dependencies are satisfied).

A list of all new available packages (regardless whether installable or not) can be obtained with:

tux > sudo zypper list-updates --all

To nd out why a new package cannot be installed, use the zypper install or zypper update
command as described above.

72 Updating Software with Zypper SLED 15

6.1.3.4 Identifying Orphaned Packages

Whenever you remove a repository from Zypper or upgrade your system, some packages can
get in an “orphaned” state. These orphaned packages belong to no active repository anymore.
The following command gives you a list of these:

tux > sudo zypper packages --orphaned

With this list, you can decide if a package is still needed or can be removed safely.

6.1.4 Identifying Processes and Services Using Deleted Files

When patching, updating or removing packages, there may be running processes on the system
which continue to use les having been deleted by the update or removal. Use zypper ps to list
processes using deleted les. In case the process belongs to a known service, the service name
is listed, making it easy to restart the service. By default zypper ps shows a table:

tux > zypper ps

PID | PPID | UID | User | Command | Service | Files
------+------+-----+-------+--------------+--------------+-------------------
814 | 1 | 481 | avahi | avahi-daemon | avahi-daemon | /lib64/ld-2.19.s->
| | | | | | /lib64/libdl-2.1->
| | | | | | /lib64/libpthrea->
| | | | | | /lib64/libc-2.19->
[...]

PID: ID of the process

PPID: ID of the parent process
UID: ID of the user running the process
Login: Login name of the user running the process
Command: Command used to execute the process
Service: Service name (only if command is associated with a system service)
Files: The list of the deleted les
The output format of zypper ps can be controlled as follows:

zypper ps -s
Create a short table not showing the deleted les.

tux > zypper ps -s

PID | PPID | UID | User | Command | Service
------+------+------+---------+--------------+--------------

73 Identifying Processes and Services Using Deleted Files SLED 15

 814 | 1 | 481 | avahi | avahi-daemon | avahi-daemon
817 | 1 | 0 | root | irqbalance | irqbalance
1567 | 1 | 0 | root | sshd | sshd
1761 | 1 | 0 | root | master | postfix
1764 | 1761 | 51 | postfix | pickup | postfix
1765 | 1761 | 51 | postfix | qmgr | postfix
2031 | 2027 | 1000 | tux | bash |

zypper ps -ss
Show only processes associated with a system service.

PID | PPID | UID | User | Command | Service

------+------+------+---------+--------------+--------------
814 | 1 | 481 | avahi | avahi-daemon | avahi-daemon
817 | 1 | 0 | root | irqbalance | irqbalance
1567 | 1 | 0 | root | sshd | sshd
1761 | 1 | 0 | root | master | postfix
1764 | 1761 | 51 | postfix | pickup | postfix
1765 | 1761 | 51 | postfix | qmgr | postfix

zypper ps -sss
Only show system services using deleted les.

avahi-daemon
irqbalance
postfix
sshd

zypper ps --print "systemctl status %s"

Show the commands to retrieve status information for services which might need a restart.

systemctl status avahi-daemon

systemctl status irqbalance
systemctl status postfix
systemctl status sshd

For more information about service handling refer to Chapter 13, The systemd Daemon.

6.1.5 Managing Repositories with Zypper

All installation or patch commands of Zypper rely on a list of known repositories. To list all
repositories known to the system, use the command:

tux > zypper repos

74 Managing Repositories with Zypper SLED 15

The result will look similar to the following output:
EXAMPLE 6.1: ZYPPER—LIST OF KNOWN REPOSITORIES

tux > zypper repos

# | Alias | Name | Enabled | Refresh
--+--------------+---------------+---------+--------
1 | SLEHA-12-GEO | SLEHA-12-GEO | Yes | No
2 | SLEHA-12 | SLEHA-12 | Yes | No
3 | SLES12 | SLES12 | Yes | No

When specifying repositories in various commands, an alias, URI or repository number from
the zypper repos command output can be used. A repository alias is a short version of the
repository name for use in repository handling commands. Note that the repository numbers
can change after modifying the list of repositories. The alias will never change by itself.
By default, details such as the URI or the priority of the repository are not displayed. Use the
following command to list all details:

tux > zypper repos -d

6.1.5.1 Adding Repositories

To add a repository, run

tux > sudo zypper addrepo URI ALIAS

URI can either be an Internet repository, a network resource, a directory or a CD or DVD

(see http://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Libzypp_URIs for details). The ALIAS is a shorthand and
unique identifier of the repository. You can freely choose it, with the only exception that it needs
to be unique. Zypper will issue a warning if you specify an alias that is already in use.

6.1.5.2 Refreshing Repositories

zypper enables you to fetch changes in packages from configured repositories. To fetch the
changes, run:

tux > sudo zypper refresh

Note: Default Behavior of zypper

By default, some commands perform refresh automatically, so you do not need to run
the command explicitly.

75 Managing Repositories with Zypper SLED 15

The refresh command enables you to view changes also in disabled repositories, by using the
--plus-content option:

tux > sudo zypper --plus-content refresh

This option fetches changes in repositories, but keeps the disabled repositories in the same state
—disabled.

6.1.5.3 Removing Repositories

To remove a repository from the list, use the command zypper removerepo together with the
alias or number of the repository you want to delete. For example, to remove the repository
SLEHA-12-GEO from Example 6.1, “Zypper—List of Known Repositories”, use one of the following
commands:

tux > sudo zypper removerepo 1

tux > sudo zypper removerepo "SLEHA-12-GEO"

6.1.5.4 Modifying Repositories

Enable or disable repositories with zypper modifyrepo . You can also alter the repository's
properties (such as refreshing behavior, name or priority) with this command. The following
command will enable the repository named updates , turn on auto-refresh and set its priority
to 20:

tux > sudo zypper modifyrepo -er -p 20 'updates'

Modifying repositories is not limited to a single repository—you can also operate on groups:

-a : all repositories
-l : local repositories
-t : remote repositories
-m TYPE : repositories of a certain type (where TYPE can be one of the following: http , https ,
ftp , cd , dvd , dir , file , cifs , smb , nfs , hd , iso )

To rename a repository alias, use the renamerepo command. The following example changes
the alias from Mozilla Firefox to firefox :

tux > sudo zypper renamerepo 'Mozilla Firefox' firefox

76 Managing Repositories with Zypper SLED 15

6.1.6 Querying Repositories and Packages with Zypper
Zypper offers various methods to query repositories or packages. To get lists of all products,
patterns, packages or patches available, use the following commands:

tux > zypper products

tux > zypper patterns
tux > zypper packages
tux > zypper patches

To query all repositories for certain packages, use search . To get information regarding par-
ticular packages, use the info command.

6.1.6.1 Searching for Software

The zypper search command works on package names, or, optionally, on package summaries
and descriptions. Strings wrapped in / are interpreted as regular expressions. By default, the
search is not case-sensitive.

Simple search for a package name containing fire

tux > zypper search "fire"

Simple search for the exact package MozillaFirefox

tux > zypper search --match-exact "MozillaFirefox"

Also search in package descriptions and summaries

tux > zypper search -d fire

Only display packages not already installed

tux > zypper search -u fire

Display packages containing the string fir not followed be e

tux > zypper se "/fir[^e]/"

6.1.6.2 Searching for Packages Across All SLE Modules

To search for packages both within and outside of currently enabled SLE modules, use the
command zypper search-packages . This command contacts the SUSE Customer Center and
searches all modules for matching packages.

77 Querying Repositories and Packages with Zypper SLED 15

6.1.6.3 Searching for Specific Capability
To search for packages which provide a special capability, use the command what-provides .
For example, if you want to know which package provides the Perl module SVN::Core , use
the following command:

tux > zypper what-provides 'perl(SVN::Core)'

The what-provides PACKAGE_NAME is similar to rpm -q --whatprovides PACKAGE_NAME ,

but RPM is only able to query the RPM database (that is the database of all installed packages).
Zypper, on the other hand, will tell you about providers of the capability from any repository,
not only those that are installed.

6.1.6.4 Showing Package Information

To query single packages, use info with an exact package name as an argument. This displays
detailed information about a package. In case the package name does not match any package
name from repositories, the command outputs detailed information for non-package matches. If
you request a specific type (by using the -t option) and the type does not exist, the command
outputs other available matches but without detailed information.
If you specify a source package, the command displays binary packages built from the source
package. If you specify a binary package, the command outputs the source packages used to
build the binary package.
To also show what is required/recommended by the package, use the options --requires and
--recommends :

tux > zypper info --requires MozillaFirefox

6.1.7 Showing Life Cycle Information

SUSE products are generally supported for 10 years. Often, you can extend that standard lifecycle
by using the extended support offerings of SUSE which add 3 years of support. Depending on
your product, nd the exact support lifecycle at https://www.suse.com/lifecycle .
To check the lifecycle of your product and the supported package, use the zypper lifecycle
command as shown below:

root # zypper lifecycle

78 Showing Life Cycle Information SLED 15

Product end of support
Codestream: SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 2028-07-31
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 n/a*

Module end of support

Basesystem Module n/a*
Server Applications Module n/a*

Package end of support if different from product:

SUSEConnect Now, installed 0.3.11-1.4, update available
0.3.11-3.3.1
ca-certificates-mozilla Now, installed 2.22-2.12, update available
2.24-4.3.1
curl Now, installed 7.60.0-1.1, update available
7.60.0-3.3.1
e2fsprogs Now, installed 1.43.8-2.44, update available
1.43.8-4.3.1
glibc Now, installed 2.26-11.8, update available
2.26-13.3.1

6.1.8 Configuring Zypper

Zypper now comes with a configuration le, allowing you to permanently change Zypper's be-
havior (either system-wide or user-specific). For system-wide changes, edit /etc/zypp/zyp-
per.conf . For user-specific changes, edit ~/.zypper.conf . If ~/.zypper.conf does not yet
exist, you can use /etc/zypp/zypper.conf as a template: copy it to ~/.zypper.conf and
adjust it to your liking. Refer to the comments in the le for help about the available options.

6.1.9 Troubleshooting
If you have trouble accessing packages from configured repositories (for example, Zypper cannot
nd a certain package even though you know it exists in one the repositories), refreshing the
repositories may help:

tux > sudo zypper refresh

If that does not help, try

tux > sudo zypper refresh -fdb

79 Configuring Zypper SLED 15

This forces a complete refresh and rebuild of the database, including a forced download of raw
metadata.

6.1.10 Zypper Rollback Feature on Btrfs File System

If the Btrfs le system is used on the root partition and snapper is installed, Zypper automati-
cally calls snapper when committing changes to the le system to create appropriate le system
snapshots. These snapshots can be used to revert any changes made by Zypper. See Chapter 7,
System Recovery and Snapshot Management with Snapper for more information.

6.1.11 For More Information

For more information on managing software from the command line, enter zypper help , zyp-
per help  COMMAND or refer to the zypper(8) man page. For a complete and detailed com-
mand reference, cheat sheets with the most important commands, and information on how
to use Zypper in scripts and applications, refer to http://en.opensuse.org/SDB:Zypper_usage . A
list of software changes for the latest SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop version can be found at
http://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Zypper versions .

6.2 RPM—the Package Manager

RPM (RPM Package Manager) is used for managing software packages. Its main commands are
rpm and rpmbuild . The powerful RPM database can be queried by the users, system adminis-
trators and package builders for detailed information about the installed software.
rpm has ve modes: installing, uninstalling (or updating) software packages, rebuilding the
RPM database, querying RPM bases or individual RPM archives, integrity checking of packages
and signing packages. rpmbuild can be used to build installable packages from pristine sources.
Installable RPM archives are packed in a special binary format. These archives consist of the
program les to install and certain meta information used during the installation by rpm to
configure the software package or stored in the RPM database for documentation purposes. RPM
archives normally have the extension .rpm .

80 Zypper Rollback Feature on Btrfs File System SLED 15

 Tip: Software Development Packages
For several packages, the components needed for software development (libraries, head-
ers, include les, etc.) have been put into separate packages. These development packages
are only needed if you want to compile software yourself (for example, the most recent
GNOME packages). They can be identified by the name extension -devel , such as the
packages alsa-devel and gimp-devel .

6.2.1 Verifying Package Authenticity

RPM packages have a GPG signature. To verify the signature of an RPM package, use the com-
mand rpm --checksig  PACKAGE -1.2.3.rpm to determine whether the package originates from
SUSE or from another trustworthy facility. This is especially recommended for update packages
from the Internet.
While fixing issues in the operating system, you might need to install a Problem Temporary Fix
(PTF) into a production system. The packages provided by SUSE are signed against a special
PTF key. However, in contrast to SUSE Linux Enterprise 11, this key is not imported by default
on SUSE Linux Enterprise 12 systems. To manually import the key, use the following command:

tux > sudo rpm --import \

/usr/share/doc/packages/suse-build-key/suse_ptf_key.asc

After importing the key, you can install PTF packages on your system.

6.2.2 Managing Packages: Install, Update, and Uninstall

Normally, the installation of an RPM archive is quite simple: rpm -i PACKAGE .rpm. With this
command the package is installed, but only if its dependencies are fulfilled and if there are no
conflicts with other packages. With an error message, rpm requests those packages that need
to be installed to meet dependency requirements. In the background, the RPM database ensures
that no conflicts arise—a specific le can only belong to one package. By choosing different
options, you can force rpm to ignore these defaults, but this is only for experts. Otherwise, you
risk compromising the integrity of the system and possibly jeopardize the ability to update the
system.

81 Verifying Package Authenticity SLED 15

The options -U or --upgrade and -F or --freshen can be used to update a package (for ex-
ample, rpm -F PACKAGE .rpm). This command removes the les of the old version and immedi-
ately installs the new les. The difference between the two versions is that -U installs packages
that previously did not exist in the system, while -F merely updates previously installed pack-
ages. When updating, rpm updates configuration les carefully using the following strategy:

If a configuration le was not changed by the system administrator, rpm installs the new
version of the appropriate le. No action by the system administrator is required.

If a configuration le was changed by the system administrator before the update, rpm
saves the changed le with the extension .rpmorig or .rpmsave (backup le) and installs
the version from the new package. This is done only if the originally installed le and
the newer version are different. If this is the case, compare the backup le ( .rpmorig
or .rpmsave ) with the newly installed le and make your changes again in the new le.
Afterward, delete all .rpmorig and .rpmsave les to avoid problems with future updates.

.rpmnew les appear if the configuration le already exists and if the noreplace label
was specified in the .spec le.

Following an update, .rpmsave and .rpmnew les should be removed after comparing them,
so they do not obstruct future updates. The .rpmorig extension is assigned if the le has not
previously been recognized by the RPM database.
Otherwise, .rpmsave is used. In other words, .rpmorig results from updating from a foreign
format to RPM. .rpmsave results from updating from an older RPM to a newer RPM. .rpmnew
does not disclose any information to whether the system administrator has made any changes
to the configuration le. A list of these les is available in /var/adm/rpmconfigcheck . Some
configuration les (like /etc/httpd/httpd.conf ) are not overwritten to allow continued op-
eration.
The -U switch is not only an equivalent to uninstalling with the -e option and installing with
the -i option. Use -U whenever possible.
To remove a package, enter rpm -e PACKAGE . This command only deletes the package if there
are no unresolved dependencies. It is theoretically impossible to delete Tcl/Tk, for example, as
long as another application requires it. Even in this case, RPM calls for assistance from the data-
base. If such a deletion is, for whatever reason, impossible (even if no additional dependencies
exist), it may be helpful to rebuild the RPM database using the option --rebuilddb .

82 Managing Packages: Install, Update, and Uninstall SLED 15

6.2.3 Delta RPM Packages
Delta RPM packages contain the difference between an old and a new version of an RPM package.
Applying a delta RPM onto an old RPM results in a completely new RPM. It is not necessary
to have a copy of the old RPM because a delta RPM can also work with an installed RPM. The
delta RPM packages are even smaller in size than patch RPMs, which is an advantage when
transferring update packages over the Internet. The drawback is that update operations with
delta RPMs involved consume considerably more CPU cycles than plain or patch RPMs.
The makedeltarpm and applydelta binaries are part of the delta RPM suite (package
deltarpm ) and help you create and apply delta RPM packages. With the following commands,
you can create a delta RPM called new.delta.rpm . The following command assumes that
old.rpm and new.rpm are present:

tux > sudo makedeltarpm old.rpm new.rpm new.delta.rpm

Using applydeltarpm , you can reconstruct the new RPM from the le system if the old package
is already installed:

tux > sudo applydeltarpm new.delta.rpm new.rpm

To derive it from the old RPM without accessing the le system, use the -r option:

tux > sudo applydeltarpm -r old.rpm new.delta.rpm new.rpm

See /usr/share/doc/packages/deltarpm/README for technical details.

6.2.4 RPM Queries

With the -q option rpm initiates queries, making it possible to inspect an RPM archive (by
adding the option -p ) and to query the RPM database of installed packages. Several switches
are available to specify the type of information required. See Table 6.1, “The Most Important RPM
Query Options”.

TABLE 6.1: THE MOST IMPORTANT RPM QUERY OPTIONS

-i Package information

-l File list

83 Delta RPM Packages SLED 15

 -f FILE Query the package that contains the le
FILE (the full path must be specified with
FILE )

-s File list with status information (implies -l )

-d List only documentation les (implies -l )

-c List only configuration les (implies -l )

--dump File list with complete details (to be used

with -l , -c , or -d )

--provides List features of the package that another

package can request with --requires

--requires , -R Capabilities the package requires

--scripts Installation scripts (preinstall, postinstall,

uninstall)

For example, the command rpm -q -i wget displays the information shown in Example 6.2,
“rpm -q -i wget”.

EXAMPLE 6.2: rpm -q -i wget

Name : wget
Version : 1.14
Release : 17.1
Architecture: x86_64
Install Date: Mon 30 Jan 2017 14:01:29 CET
Group : Productivity/Networking/Web/Utilities
Size : 2046483
License : GPL-3.0+
Signature : RSA/SHA256, Thu 08 Dec 2016 07:48:44 CET, Key ID 70af9e8139db7c82
Source RPM : wget-1.14-17.1.src.rpm
Build Date : Thu 08 Dec 2016 07:48:34 CET
Build Host : sheep09
Relocations : (not relocatable)
Packager : https://www.suse.com/
Vendor : SUSE LLC <https://www.suse.com/>
URL : http://www.gnu.org/software/wget/
Summary : A Tool for Mirroring FTP and HTTP Servers
Description :
Wget enables you to retrieve WWW documents or FTP files from a server.

84 RPM Queries SLED 15

This can be done in script files or via the command line.
Distribution: SUSE Linux Enterprise 12

The option -f only works if you specify the complete le name with its full path. Provide as
many le names as desired. For example:

tux > rpm -q -f /bin/rpm /usr/bin/wget

rpm-4.11.2-15.1.x86_64
wget-1.14-17.1.x86_64

If only part of the le name is known, use a shell script as shown in Example 6.3, “Script to Search
for Packages”. Pass the partial le name to the script shown as a parameter when running it.

EXAMPLE 6.3: SCRIPT TO SEARCH FOR PACKAGES

#! /bin/sh
for i in $(rpm -q -a -l | grep $1); do
echo "\"$i\" is in package:"
rpm -q -f $i
echo ""
done

The command rpm -q --changelog PACKAGE displays a detailed list of change information
about a specific package, sorted by date.
With the installed RPM database, verification checks can be made. Initiate these with -V , or
--verify . With this option, rpm shows all les in a package that have been changed since
installation. rpm uses eight character symbols to give some hints about the following changes:

TABLE 6.2: RPM VERIFY OPTIONS

5 MD5 check sum

S File size

L Symbolic link

T Modification time

D Major and minor device numbers

U Owner

G Group

85 RPM Queries SLED 15

 M Mode (permissions and le type)

In the case of configuration les, the letter c is printed. For example, for changes to /etc/
wgetrc ( wget package):

tux > rpm -V wget

S.5....T c /etc/wgetrc

The les of the RPM database are placed in /var/lib/rpm . If the partition /usr has a size of
1 GB, this database can occupy nearly 30 MB, especially after a complete update. If the database
is much larger than expected, it is useful to rebuild the database with the option --rebuilddb .
Before doing this, make a backup of the old database. The cron script cron.daily makes
daily copies of the database (packed with gzip) and stores them in /var/adm/backup/rpmdb .
The number of copies is controlled by the variable MAX_RPMDB_BACKUPS (default: 5 ) in /etc/
sysconfig/backup . The size of a single backup is approximately 1 MB for 1 GB in /usr .

6.2.5 Installing and Compiling Source Packages

All source packages carry a .src.rpm extension (source RPM).

Note: Installed Source Packages

Source packages can be copied from the installation medium to the hard disk and un-
packed with YaST. They are not, however, marked as installed ( [i] ) in the package
manager. This is because the source packages are not entered in the RPM database. Only
installed operating system software is listed in the RPM database. When you “install” a
source package, only the source code is added to the system.

The following directories must be available for rpm and rpmbuild in /usr/src/packages
(unless you specified custom settings in a le like /etc/rpmrc ):

SOURCES
for the original sources ( .tar.bz2 or .tar.gz les, etc.) and for distribution-specific
adjustments (mostly .diff or .patch les)

SPECS
for the .spec les, similar to a meta Makefile, which control the build process

86 Installing and Compiling Source Packages SLED 15

BUILD
all the sources are unpacked, patched and compiled in this directory

RPMS
where the completed binary packages are stored

SRPMS
here are the source RPMs

When you install a source package with YaST, all the necessary components are installed in /
usr/src/packages : the sources and the adjustments in SOURCES and the relevant .spec le
in SPECS .

Warning: System Integrity

Do not experiment with system components ( glibc , rpm , etc.), because this endangers
the stability of your system.

The following example uses the wget.src.rpm package. After installing the source package,
you should have les similar to those in the following list:

/usr/src/packages/SOURCES/wget-1.11.4.tar.bz2
/usr/src/packages/SOURCES/wgetrc.patch
/usr/src/packages/SPECS/wget.spec

rpmbuild -bX /usr/src/packages/SPECS/wget.spec starts the compilation. X is a wild

card for various stages of the build process (see the output of --help or the RPM documentation
for details). The following is merely a brief explanation:

-bp
Prepare sources in /usr/src/packages/BUILD : unpack and patch.

-bc
Do the same as -bp , but with additional compilation.

-bi
Do the same as -bp , but with additional installation of the built software. Caution: if the
package does not support the BuildRoot feature, you might overwrite configuration les.

-bb

87 Installing and Compiling Source Packages SLED 15

 Do the same as -bi , but with the additional creation of the binary package. If the compile
was successful, the binary should be in /usr/src/packages/RPMS .

-ba
Do the same as -bb , but with the additional creation of the source RPM. If the compilation
was successful, the binary should be in /usr/src/packages/SRPMS .

--short-circuit
Skip some steps.

The binary RPM created can now be installed with rpm -i or, preferably, with rpm -U . In-
stallation with rpm makes it appear in the RPM database.
Keep in mind, the BuildRoot directive in the spec le is deprecated since SUSE Linux Enterprise
Desktop 12. If you still need this feature, use the --buildroot option as a workaround. For
a more detailed background, see the support database at https://www.suse.com/support/kb/doc?
id=7017104 .

6.2.6 Compiling RPM Packages with build

The danger with many packages is that unwanted les are added to the running system during
the build process. To prevent this use build , which creates a defined environment in which
the package is built. To establish this chroot environment, the build script must be provided
with a complete package tree. This tree can be made available on the hard disk, via NFS, or
from DVD. Set the position with build --rpms DIRECTORY . Unlike rpm , the build command
looks for the .spec le in the source directory. To build wget (like in the above example) with
the DVD mounted in the system under /media/dvd , use the following commands as root :

root # cd /usr/src/packages/SOURCES/
root # mv ../SPECS/wget.spec .
root # build --rpms /media/dvd/suse/ wget.spec

Subsequently, a minimum environment is established at /var/tmp/build-root . The package

is built in this environment. Upon completion, the resulting packages are located in /var/tmp/
build-root/usr/src/packages/RPMS .

The build script offers several additional options. For example, cause the script to prefer your
own RPMs, omit the initialization of the build environment or limit the rpm command to one of
the above-mentioned stages. Access additional information with build --help and by reading
the build man page.

88 Compiling RPM Packages with build SLED 15

6.2.7 Tools for RPM Archives and the RPM Database
Midnight Commander ( mc ) can display the contents of RPM archives and copy parts of them.
It represents archives as virtual le systems, offering all usual menu options of Midnight Com-
mander. Display the HEADER with F3 . View the archive structure with the cursor keys and
Enter . Copy archive components with F5 .
A full-featured package manager is available as a YaST module. For details, see Book “Deployment
Guide”, Chapter 13 “Installing or Removing Software”.

89 Tools for RPM Archives and the RPM Database SLED 15

7 System Recovery and Snapshot Management with
Snapper

Being able to do le system snapshots providing the ability to do rollbacks on Linux
is a feature that was often requested in the past. Snapper, with the Btrfs le sys-
tem or thin-provisioned LVM volumes now lls that gap.
Btrfs , a new copy-on-write le system for Linux, supports le system snapshots (a
copy of the state of a subvolume at a certain point of time) of subvolumes (one or
more separately mountable le systems within each physical partition). Snapshots
are also supported on thin-provisioned LVM volumes formatted with XFS, Ext4 or
Ext3. Snapper lets you create and manage these snapshots. It comes with a com-
mand line and a YaST interface. Starting with SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 it is
also possible to boot from Btrfs snapshots—see Section 7.3, “System Rollback by Boot-
ing from Snapshots” for more information.
Using Snapper you can perform the following tasks:

Undo system changes made by zypper and YaST. See Section 7.2, “Using Snapper to Undo
Changes” for details.

Restore les from previous snapshots. See Section 7.2.2, “Using Snapper to Restore Files” for
details.

Do a system rollback by booting from a snapshot. See Section 7.3, “System Rollback by Booting
from Snapshots” for details.

Manually create snapshots on the y and manage existing snapshots. See Section 7.5, “Man-
ually Creating and Managing Snapshots” for details.

7.1 Default Setup

Snapper on SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop is set up to serve as an “undo and recovery tool” for
system changes. By default, the root partition ( / ) of SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop is formatted
with Btrfs . Taking snapshots is automatically enabled if the root partition ( / ) is big enough
(approximately more than 16 GB). Taking snapshots on partitions other than / is not enabled
by default.

90 Default Setup SLED 15

 Tip: Enabling Snapper in the Installed System
If you disabled Snapper during the installation, you can enable it at any time later. To do
so, create a default Snapper configuration for the root le system by running

tux > sudo snapper -c root create-config /

Afterward enable the different snapshot types as described in Section 7.1.3.1, “Disabling/En-

abling Snapshots”.

Keep in mind that snapshots require a Btrfs root le system with subvolumes set up as
proposed by the installer and a partition size of at least 16 GB.

When a snapshot is created, both the snapshot and the original point to the same blocks in the
le system. So, initially a snapshot does not occupy additional disk space. If data in the original
le system is modified, changed data blocks are copied while the old data blocks are kept for
the snapshot. Therefore, a snapshot occupies the same amount of space as the data modified.
So, over time, the amount of space a snapshot allocates, constantly grows. As a consequence,
deleting les from a Btrfs le system containing snapshots may not free disk space!

Note: Snapshot Location

Snapshots always reside on the same partition or subvolume on which the snapshot has
been taken. It is not possible to store snapshots on a different partition or subvolume.

As a result, partitions containing snapshots need to be larger than “normal” partitions. The
exact amount strongly depends on the number of snapshots you keep and the amount of data
modifications. As a rule of thumb you should consider using twice the size than you normally
would. To prevent disks from running out of space, old snapshots are automatically cleaned up.
Refer to Section 7.1.3.4, “Controlling Snapshot Archiving” for details.

7.1.1 Types of Snapshots

Although snapshots themselves do not differ in a technical sense, we distinguish between three
types of snapshots, based on the events that trigger them:

Timeline Snapshots

91 Types of Snapshots SLED 15

 A single snapshot is created every hour. Old snapshots are automatically deleted. By de-
fault, the rst snapshot of the last ten days, months, and years are kept. Timeline snapshots
are disabled by default.

Installation Snapshots
Whenever one or more packages are installed with YaST or Zypper, a pair of snapshots
is created: one before the installation starts (“Pre”) and another one after the installation
has finished (“Post”). In case an important system component such as the kernel has been
installed, the snapshot pair is marked as important ( important=yes ). Old snapshots are
automatically deleted. By default the last ten important snapshots and the last ten “regular”
(including administration snapshots) snapshots are kept. Installation snapshots are enabled
by default.

Administration Snapshots
Whenever you administrate the system with YaST, a pair of snapshots is created: one when
a YaST module is started (“Pre”) and another when the module is closed (“Post”). Old
snapshots are automatically deleted. By default the last ten important snapshots and the
last ten “regular” snapshots (including installation snapshots) are kept. Administration
snapshots are enabled by default.

7.1.2 Directories That Are Excluded from Snapshots

Some directories need to be excluded from snapshots for different reasons. The following list
shows all directories that are excluded:

/boot/grub2/i386-pc , /boot/grub2/x86_64-efi , /boot/grub2/powerpc-ieee1275 , /

boot/grub2/s390x-emu
A rollback of the boot loader configuration is not supported. The directories listed above
are architecture-specific. The rst two directories are present on AMD64/Intel 64 ma-
chines, the latter two on IBM POWER and on IBM Z, respectively.

/home
If /home does not reside on a separate partition, it is excluded to avoid data loss on roll-
backs.

/opt , /var/opt
Third-party products usually get installed to /opt . It is excluded to avoid uninstalling
these applications on rollbacks.

92 Directories That Are Excluded from Snapshots SLED 15

/srv
Contains data for Web and FTP servers. It is excluded to avoid data loss on rollbacks.

/tmp , /var/tmp , /var/cache , /var/crash

All directories containing temporary les and caches are excluded from snapshots.

/usr/local
This directory is used when manually installing software. It is excluded to avoid unin-
stalling these installations on rollbacks.

/var/lib/libvirt/images
The default location for virtual machine images managed with libvirt. Excluded to ensure
virtual machine images are not replaced with older versions during a rollback. By default,
this subvolume is created with the option no copy on write .

/var/lib/mailman , /var/spool
Directories containing mails or mail queues are excluded to avoid a loss of mails after a
rollback.

/var/lib/named
Contains zone data for the DNS server. Excluded from snapshots to ensure a name server
can operate after a rollback.

/var/lib/mariadb , /var/lib/mysql , /var/lib/pgqsl

These directories contain database data. By default, these subvolumes are created with the
option no copy on write .

/var/log
Log le location. Excluded from snapshots to allow log le analysis after the rollback of
a broken system.

7.1.3 Customizing the Setup

SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop comes with a reasonable default setup, which should be sufficient
for most use cases. However, all aspects of taking automatic snapshots and snapshot keeping
can be configured according to your needs.

93 Customizing the Setup SLED 15

7.1.3.1 Disabling/Enabling Snapshots
Each of the three snapshot types (timeline, installation, administration) can be enabled or dis-
abled independently.

Disabling/Enabling Timeline Snapshots

Enabling. snapper -c root set-config "TIMELINE_CREATE=yes"

Disabling. snapper -c root set-config "TIMELINE_CREATE=no"

Timeline snapshots are enabled by default, except for the root partition.

Disabling/Enabling Installation Snapshots

Enabling: Install the package snapper-zypp-plugin

Disabling: Uninstall the package snapper-zypp-plugin

Installation snapshots are enabled by default.

Disabling/Enabling Administration Snapshots

Enabling: Set USE_SNAPPER to yes in /etc/sysconfig/yast2 .

Disabling: Set USE_SNAPPER to no in /etc/sysconfig/yast2 .

Administration snapshots are enabled by default.

7.1.3.2 Controlling Installation Snapshots

Taking snapshot pairs upon installing packages with YaST or Zypper is handled by the snap-
per-zypp-plugin . An XML configuration le, /etc/snapper/zypp-plugin.conf defines,
when to make snapshots. By default the le looks like the following:

1 <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

2 <snapper-zypp-plugin-conf>
3 <solvables>
4 <solvable match="w" 1 important="true" 2 >kernel-* 3 </solvable>
5 <solvable match="w" important="true">dracut</solvable>
6 <solvable match="w" important="true">glibc</solvable>
7 <solvable match="w" important="true">systemd*</solvable>
8 <solvable match="w" important="true">udev</solvable>
9 <solvable match="w">*</solvable> 4

10 </solvables>
11 </snapper-zypp-plugin-conf>

1 The match attribute defines whether the pattern is a Unix shell-style wild card ( w ) or a
Python regular expression ( re ).

94 Customizing the Setup SLED 15

 2 If the given pattern matches and the corresponding package is marked as important (for
example kernel packages), the snapshot will also be marked as important.
3 Pattern to match a package name. Based on the setting of the match attribute, special
characters are either interpreted as shell wild cards or regular expressions. This pattern
matches all package names starting with kernel- .
4 This line unconditionally matches all packages.
With this configuration snapshot, pairs are made whenever a package is installed (line 9). When
the kernel, dracut, glibc, systemd, or udev packages marked as important are installed, the
snapshot pair will also be marked as important (lines 4 to 8). All rules are evaluated.
To disable a rule, either delete it or deactivate it using XML comments. To prevent the system
from making snapshot pairs for every package installation for example, comment line 9:

1 <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

2 <snapper-zypp-plugin-conf>
3 <solvables>
4 <solvable match="w" important="true">kernel-*</solvable>
5 <solvable match="w" important="true">dracut</solvable>
6 <solvable match="w" important="true">glibc</solvable>
7 <solvable match="w" important="true">systemd*</solvable>
8 <solvable match="w" important="true">udev</solvable>
9 <!-- <solvable match="w">*</solvable> -->
10 </solvables>
11 </snapper-zypp-plugin-conf>

7.1.3.3 Creating and Mounting New Subvolumes

Creating a new subvolume underneath the / hierarchy and permanently mounting it is sup-
ported. Such a subvolume will be excluded from snapshots. You need to make sure not to create
it inside an existing snapshot, since you would not be able to delete snapshots anymore after
a rollback.
SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop is configured with the /@/ subvolume which serves as an in-
dependent root for permanent subvolumes such as /opt , /srv , /home and others. Any new
subvolumes you create and permanently mount need to be created in this initial root le system.
To do so, run the following commands. In this example, a new subvolume /usr/important
is created from /dev/sda2 .

tux > sudo mount /dev/sda2 -o subvol=@ /mnt

tux > sudo btrfs subvolume create /mnt/usr/important

95 Customizing the Setup SLED 15

tux > sudo umount /mnt

The corresponding entry in /etc/fstab needs to look like the following:

/dev/sda2 /usr/important btrfs subvol=@/usr/important 0 0

Tip: Disable Copy-On-Write (cow)

A subvolume may contain les that constantly change, such as virtualized disk images,
database les, or log les. If so, consider disabling the copy-on-write feature for this
volume, to avoid duplication of disk blocks. Use the nodatacow mount option in /etc/
fstab to do so:

/dev/sda2 /usr/important btrfs nodatacow,subvol=@/usr/important 0 0

To alternatively disable copy-on-write for single les or directories, use the command
chattr +C PATH .

7.1.3.4 Controlling Snapshot Archiving

Snapshots occupy disk space. To prevent disks from running out of space and thus causing system
outages, old snapshots are automatically deleted. By default, up to ten important installation
and administration snapshots and up to ten regular installation and administration snapshots are
kept. If these snapshots occupy more than 50% of the root le system size, additional snapshots
will be deleted. A minimum of four important and two regular snapshots are always kept.
Refer to Section 7.4.1, “Managing Existing Configurations” for instructions on how to change these
values.

7.1.3.5 Using Snapper on Thin-Provisioned LVM Volumes

Apart from snapshots on Btrfs le systems, Snapper also supports taking snapshots on thin-
provisioned LVM volumes (snapshots on regular LVM volumes are not supported) formatted
with XFS, Ext4 or Ext3. For more information and setup instructions on LVM volumes, refer to
Book “Deployment Guide”, Chapter 6 “Expert Partitioner”, Section 6.2 “LVM Configuration”.

96 Customizing the Setup SLED 15

To use Snapper on a thin-provisioned LVM volume you need to create a Snapper configuration
for it. On LVM it is required to specify the le system with --fstype=lvm(FILESYSTEM) . ext3 ,
etx4 or xfs are valid values for FILESYSTEM . Example:

tux > sudo snapper -c lvm create-config --fstype="lvm(xfs)" /thin_lvm

You can adjust this configuration according to your needs as described in Section 7.4.1, “Managing
Existing Configurations”.

7.2 Using Snapper to Undo Changes

Snapper on SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop is preconfigured to serve as a tool that lets you undo
changes made by zypper and YaST. For this purpose, Snapper is configured to create a pair of
snapshots before and after each run of zypper and YaST. Snapper also lets you restore system
les that have been accidentally deleted or modified. Timeline snapshots for the root partition
need to be enabled for this purpose—see Section 7.1.3.1, “Disabling/Enabling Snapshots” for details.
By default, automatic snapshots as described above are configured for the root partition and its
subvolumes. To make snapshots available for other partitions such as /home for example, you
can create custom configurations.

Important: Undoing Changes Compared to

Rollback
When working with snapshots to restore data, it is important to know that there are two
fundamentally different scenarios Snapper can handle:

Undoing Changes
When undoing changes as described in the following, two snapshots are being com-
pared and the changes between these two snapshots are made undone. Using this
method also allows to explicitly select the les that should be restored.

Rollback
When doing rollbacks as described in Section  7.3, “System Rollback by Booting from
Snapshots”, the system is reset to the state at which the snapshot was taken.

97 Using Snapper to Undo Changes SLED 15

 When undoing changes, it is also possible to compare a snapshot against the current
system. When restoring all les from such a comparison, this will have the same result
as doing a rollback. However, using the method described in Section 7.3, “System Rollback
by Booting from Snapshots” for rollbacks should be preferred, since it is faster and allows
you to review the system before doing the rollback.

Warning: Data Consistency

There is no mechanism to ensure data consistency when creating a snapshot. Whenever a
le (for example, a database) is written at the same time as the snapshot is being created,
it will result in a corrupted or partly written le. Restoring such a le will cause problems.
Furthermore, some system les such as /etc/mtab must never be restored. Therefore it
is strongly recommended to always closely review the list of changed les and their dis.
Only restore les that really belong to the action you want to revert.

7.2.1 Undoing YaST and Zypper Changes

If you set up the root partition with Btrfs during the installation, Snapper—preconfigured for
doing rollbacks of YaST or Zypper changes—will automatically be installed. Every time you start
a YaST module or a Zypper transaction, two snapshots are created: a “pre-snapshot” capturing
the state of the le system before the start of the module and a “post-snapshot” after the module
has been finished.
Using the YaST Snapper module or the snapper command line tool, you can undo the changes
made by YaST/Zypper by restoring les from the “pre-snapshot”. Comparing two snapshots the
tools also allow you to see which les have been changed. You can also display the differences
between two versions of a le (di).

PROCEDURE 7.1: UNDOING CHANGES USING THE YAST SNAPPER MODULE

1. Start the Snapper module from the Miscellaneous section in YaST or by entering yast2
snapper .

2. Make sure Current Configuration is set to root. This is always the case unless you have
manually added own Snapper configurations.

98 Undoing YaST and Zypper Changes SLED 15

 3. Choose a pair of pre- and post-snapshots from the list. Both, YaST and Zypper snapshot
pairs are of the type Pre & Post. YaST snapshots are labeled as zypp(y2base) in the
Description column; Zypper snapshots are labeled zypp(zypper) .

4. Click Show Changes to open the list of les that differ between the two snapshots.

99 Undoing YaST and Zypper Changes SLED 15

 5. Review the list of les. To display a “di” between the pre- and post-version of a le,
select it from the list.

6. To restore one or more les, select the relevant les or directories by activating the re-
spective check box. Click Restore Selected and confirm the action by clicking Yes.

To restore a single le, activate its di view by clicking its name. Click Restore From First
and confirm your choice with Yes.

100 Undoing YaST and Zypper Changes SLED 15

PROCEDURE 7.2: UNDOING CHANGES USING THE snapper COMMAND

1. Get a list of YaST and Zypper snapshots by running snapper list -t pre-post . YaST
snapshots are labeled as yast MODULE_NAME in the Description column; Zypper snapshots
are labeled zypp(zypper) .

tux > sudo snapper list -t pre-post

Pre # | Post # | Pre Date | Post Date | Description
------+--------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+--------------
311 | 312 | Tue 06 May 2018 14:05:46 CEST | Tue 06 May 2018 14:05:52 CEST | zypp(y2base)
340 | 341 | Wed 07 May 2018 16:15:10 CEST | Wed 07 May 2018 16:15:16 CEST | zypp(zypper)
342 | 343 | Wed 07 May 2018 16:20:38 CEST | Wed 07 May 2018 16:20:42 CEST | zypp(y2base)
344 | 345 | Wed 07 May 2018 16:21:23 CEST | Wed 07 May 2018 16:21:24 CEST | zypp(zypper)
346 | 347 | Wed 07 May 2018 16:41:06 CEST | Wed 07 May 2018 16:41:10 CEST | zypp(y2base)
348 | 349 | Wed 07 May 2018 16:44:50 CEST | Wed 07 May 2018 16:44:53 CEST | zypp(y2base)
350 | 351 | Wed 07 May 2018 16:46:27 CEST | Wed 07 May 2018 16:46:38 CEST | zypp(y2base)

2. Get a list of changed les for a snapshot pair with snapper status PRE .. POST . Files
with content changes are marked with c, les that have been added are marked with +
and deleted les are marked with -.

tux > sudo snapper status 350..351

+..... /usr/share/doc/packages/mikachan-fonts
+..... /usr/share/doc/packages/mikachan-fonts/COPYING
+..... /usr/share/doc/packages/mikachan-fonts/dl.html
c..... /usr/share/fonts/truetype/fonts.dir
c..... /usr/share/fonts/truetype/fonts.scale
+..... /usr/share/fonts/truetype/#####-p.ttf
+..... /usr/share/fonts/truetype/#####-pb.ttf
+..... /usr/share/fonts/truetype/#####-ps.ttf
+..... /usr/share/fonts/truetype/#####.ttf
c..... /var/cache/fontconfig/7ef2298fde41cc6eeb7af42e48b7d293-x86_64.cache-4
c..... /var/lib/rpm/Basenames
c..... /var/lib/rpm/Dirnames
c..... /var/lib/rpm/Group
c..... /var/lib/rpm/Installtid
c..... /var/lib/rpm/Name
c..... /var/lib/rpm/Packages
c..... /var/lib/rpm/Providename
c..... /var/lib/rpm/Requirename
c..... /var/lib/rpm/Sha1header
c..... /var/lib/rpm/Sigmd5

3. To display the di for a certain le, run snapper diff PRE .. POST FILENAME . If you do
not specify FILENAME , a di for all les will be displayed.

tux > sudo snapper diff 350..351 /usr/share/fonts/truetype/fonts.scale

101 Undoing YaST and Zypper Changes SLED 15

 --- /.snapshots/350/snapshot/usr/share/fonts/truetype/fonts.scale 2014-04-23
15:58:57.000000000 +0200
+++ /.snapshots/351/snapshot/usr/share/fonts/truetype/fonts.scale 2014-05-07
16:46:31.000000000 +0200
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-1174
+1486
ds=y:ai=0.2:luximr.ttf -b&h-luxi mono-bold-i-normal--0-0-0-0-c-0-iso10646-1
ds=y:ai=0.2:luximr.ttf -b&h-luxi mono-bold-i-normal--0-0-0-0-c-0-iso8859-1
[...]

4. To restore one or more les run snapper -v undochange PRE .. POST FILENAMES . If you
do not specify a FILENAMES , all changed les will be restored.

tux > sudo snapper -v undochange 350..351

create:0 modify:13 delete:7
undoing change...
deleting /usr/share/doc/packages/mikachan-fonts
deleting /usr/share/doc/packages/mikachan-fonts/COPYING
deleting /usr/share/doc/packages/mikachan-fonts/dl.html
deleting /usr/share/fonts/truetype/#####-p.ttf
deleting /usr/share/fonts/truetype/#####-pb.ttf
deleting /usr/share/fonts/truetype/#####-ps.ttf
deleting /usr/share/fonts/truetype/#####.ttf
modifying /usr/share/fonts/truetype/fonts.dir
modifying /usr/share/fonts/truetype/fonts.scale
modifying /var/cache/fontconfig/7ef2298fde41cc6eeb7af42e48b7d293-x86_64.cache-4
modifying /var/lib/rpm/Basenames
modifying /var/lib/rpm/Dirnames
modifying /var/lib/rpm/Group
modifying /var/lib/rpm/Installtid
modifying /var/lib/rpm/Name
modifying /var/lib/rpm/Packages
modifying /var/lib/rpm/Providename
modifying /var/lib/rpm/Requirename
modifying /var/lib/rpm/Sha1header
modifying /var/lib/rpm/Sigmd5
undoing change done

102 Undoing YaST and Zypper Changes SLED 15

 Warning: Reverting User Additions
Reverting user additions via undoing changes with Snapper is not recommended. Since
certain directories are excluded from snapshots, les belonging to these users will remain
in the le system. If a user with the same user ID as a deleted user is created, this user will
inherit the les. Therefore it is strongly recommended to use the YaST User and Group
Management tool to remove users.

7.2.2 Using Snapper to Restore Files

Apart from the installation and administration snapshots, Snapper creates timeline snapshots.
You can use these backup snapshots to restore les that have accidentally been deleted or to
restore a previous version of a le. By using Snapper's di feature you can also nd out which
modifications have been made at a certain point of time.
Being able to restore les is especially interesting for data, which may reside on subvolumes or
partitions for which snapshots are not taken by default. To be able to restore les from home
directories, for example, create a separate Snapper configuration for /home doing automatic
timeline snapshots. See Section 7.4, “Creating and Modifying Snapper Configurations” for instructions.

Warning: Restoring Files Compared to Rollback

Snapshots taken from the root le system (defined by Snapper's root configuration), can
be used to do a system rollback. The recommended way to do such a rollback is to boot
from the snapshot and then perform the rollback. See Section 7.3, “System Rollback by Booting
from Snapshots” for details.

Performing a rollback would also be possible by restoring all les from a root le system
snapshot as described below. However, this is not recommended. You may restore single
les, for example a configuration le from the /etc directory, but not the complete list
of les from the snapshot.
This restriction only affects snapshots taken from the root le system!

PROCEDURE 7.3: RESTORING FILES USING THE YAST SNAPPER MODULE

1. Start the Snapper module from the Miscellaneous section in YaST or by entering yast2
snapper .

2. Choose the Current Configuration from which to choose a snapshot.

103 Using Snapper to Restore Files SLED 15

 3. Select a timeline snapshot from which to restore a le and choose Show Changes. Timeline
snapshots are of the type Single with a description value of timeline.

4. Select a le from the text box by clicking the le name. The difference between the snap-
shot version and the current system is shown. Activate the check box to select the le for
restore. Do so for all les you want to restore.

5. Click Restore Selected and confirm the action by clicking Yes.

PROCEDURE 7.4: RESTORING FILES USING THE snapper COMMAND

1. Get a list of timeline snapshots for a specific configuration by running the following com-
mand:

tux > sudo snapper -c CONFIG list -t single | grep timeline

CONFIG needs to be replaced by an existing Snapper configuration. Use snapper list-

configs to display a list.

2. Get a list of changed les for a given snapshot by running the following command:

tux > sudo snapper -c CONFIG status SNAPSHOT_ID..0

Replace SNAPSHOT_ID by the ID for the snapshot from which you want to restore the
le(s).

3. Optionally list the differences between the current le version and the one from the snap-
shot by running

tux > sudo snapper -c CONFIG diff SNAPSHOT_ID..0 FILE NAME

If you do not specify <FILE NAME> , the difference for all les are shown.

4. To restore one or more les, run

tux > sudo snapper -c CONFIG -v undochange SNAPSHOT_ID..0 FILENAME1 FILENAME2

If you do not specify le names, all changed les will be restored.

104 Using Snapper to Restore Files SLED 15

7.3 System Rollback by Booting from Snapshots
The GRUB 2 version included on SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop can boot from Btrfs snapshots.
Together with Snapper's rollback feature, this allows to recover a misconfigured system. Only
snapshots created for the default Snapper configuration ( root ) are bootable.

Important: Supported Configuration

As of SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 15 system rollbacks are only supported if the default
subvolume configuration of the root partition has not been changed.

When booting a snapshot, the parts of the le system included in the snapshot are mounted
read-only; all other le systems and parts that are excluded from snapshots are mounted read-
write and can be modified.

Important: Undoing Changes Compared to

Rollback
When working with snapshots to restore data, it is important to know that there are two
fundamentally different scenarios Snapper can handle:

Undoing Changes
When undoing changes as described in Section 7.2, “Using Snapper to Undo Changes”,
two snapshots are compared and the changes between these two snapshots are re-
verted. Using this method also allows to explicitly exclude selected les from being
restored.

Rollback
When doing rollbacks as described in the following, the system is reset to the state
at which the snapshot was taken.

To do a rollback from a bootable snapshot, the following requirements must be met. When doing
a default installation, the system is set up accordingly.

REQUIREMENTS FOR A ROLLBACK FROM A BOOTABLE SNAPSHOT

The root le system needs to be Btrfs. Booting from LVM volume snapshots is not support-
ed.

105 System Rollback by Booting from Snapshots SLED 15

 The root le system needs to be on a single device, a single partition and a single subvol-
ume. Directories that are excluded from snapshots such as /srv (see Section 7.1.2, “Direc-
tories That Are Excluded from Snapshots” for a full list) may reside on separate partitions.

The system needs to be bootable via the installed boot loader.

To perform a rollback from a bootable snapshot, do as follows:

1. Boot the system. In the boot menu choose Bootable snapshots and select the snapshot you
want to boot. The list of snapshots is listed by date—the most recent snapshot is listed rst.

2. Log in to the system. Carefully check whether everything works as expected. Note that
you cannot write to any directory that is part of the snapshot. Data you write to other
directories will not get lost, regardless of what you do next.

3. Depending on whether you want to perform the rollback or not, choose your next step:

a. If the system is in a state where you do not want to do a rollback, reboot to boot
into the current system state. You can then choose a different snapshot, or start the
rescue system.

b. To perform the rollback, run

tux > sudo snapper rollback

and reboot afterward. On the boot screen, choose the default boot entry to reboot
into the reinstated system. A snapshot of the le system status before the rollback
is created. The default subvolume for root will be replaced with a fresh read-write
snapshot. For details, see Section 7.3.1, “Snapshots after Rollback”.
It is useful to add a description for the snapshot with the -d option. For example:

New file system root since rollback on DATE TIME

Tip: Rolling Back to a Specific Installation State

If snapshots are not disabled during installation, an initial bootable snapshot is created
at the end of the initial system installation. You can go back to that state at any time
by booting this snapshot. The snapshot can be identified by the description after in-
stallation .

106 System Rollback by Booting from Snapshots SLED 15

 A bootable snapshot is also created when starting a system upgrade to a service pack or
a new major release (provided snapshots are not disabled).

7.3.1 Snapshots after Rollback

Before a rollback is performed, a snapshot of the running le system is created. The description
references the ID of the snapshot that was restored in the rollback.
Snapshots created by rollbacks receive the value number for the Cleanup attribute. The rollback
snapshots are therefore automatically deleted when the set number of snapshots is reached.
Refer to Section 7.6, “Automatic Snapshot Clean-Up” for details. If the snapshot contains important
data, extract the data from the snapshot before it is removed.

7.3.1.1 Example of Rollback Snapshot

For example, after a fresh installation the following snapshots are available on the system:

root # snapper --iso list

Type | # | | Cleanup | Description | Userdata
-------+---+ ... +---------+-----------------------+--------------
single | 0 | | | current |
single | 1 | | | first root filesystem |
single | 2 | | number | after installation | important=yes

After running sudo snapper rollback snapshot 3 is created and contains the state of the
system before the rollback was executed. Snapshot 4 is the new default Btrfs subvolume and
thus the system after a reboot.

root # snapper --iso list

Type | # | | Cleanup | Description | Userdata
-------+---+ ... +---------+-----------------------+--------------
single | 0 | | | current |
single | 1 | | number | first root filesystem |
single | 2 | | number | after installation | important=yes
single | 3 | | number | rollback backup of #1 | important=yes
single | 4 | | | |

107 Snapshots after Rollback SLED 15

7.3.2 Accessing and Identifying Snapshot Boot Entries
To boot from a snapshot, reboot your machine and choose Start Bootloader from a read-only
snapshot. A screen listing all bootable snapshots opens. The most recent snapshot is listed rst,
the oldest last. Use the keys ↓ and ↑ to navigate and press Enter to activate the selected
snapshot. Activating a snapshot from the boot menu does not reboot the machine immediately,
but rather opens the boot loader of the selected snapshot.

FIGURE 7.1: BOOT LOADER: SNAPSHOTS

Each snapshot entry in the boot loader follows a naming scheme which makes it possible to
identify it easily:

[*] 1 OS 2 (KERNEL 3 ,DATE 4 TTIME 5 ,DESCRIPTION 6 )

1 If the snapshot was marked important , the entry is marked with a * .

2 Operating system label.
4 Date in the format YYYY-MM-DD .
5 Time in the format HH:MM .

108 Accessing and Identifying Snapshot Boot Entries SLED 15

 6 This eld contains a description of the snapshot. In case of a manually created snapshot
this is the string created with the option --description or a custom string (see Tip: Setting
a Custom Description for Boot Loader Snapshot Entries). In case of an automatically created
snapshot, it is the tool that was called, for example zypp(zypper) or yast_sw_single .
Long descriptions may be truncated, depending on the size of the boot screen.

Tip: Setting a Custom Description for Boot Loader

Snapshot Entries
It is possible to replace the default string in the description eld of a snapshot with a
custom string. This is for example useful if an automatically created description is not
sufficient, or a user-provided description is too long. To set a custom string STRING for
snapshot NUMBER , use the following command:

tux > sudo snapper modify --userdata "bootloader=STRING" NUMBER

The description should be no longer than 25 characters—everything that exceeds this size
will not be readable on the boot screen.

7.3.3 Limitations
A complete system rollback, restoring the complete system to the identical state as it was in when
a snapshot was taken, is not possible.

7.3.3.1 Directories Excluded from Snapshots

Root le system snapshots do not contain all directories. See Section 7.1.2, “Directories That Are
Excluded from Snapshots” for details and reasons. As a general consequence, data from these di-
rectories is not restored, resulting in the following limitations.

Add-ons and Third Party Software may be Unusable after a Rollback

Applications and add-ons installing data in subvolumes excluded from the snapshot, such
as /opt , may not work after a rollback, if others parts of the application data are also
installed on subvolumes included in the snapshot. Re-install the application or the add-
on to solve this problem.

File Access Problems

109 Limitations SLED 15

 If an application had changed le permissions and/or ownership in between snapshot and
current system, the application may not be able to access these les. Reset permissions
and/or ownership for the affected les after the rollback.

Incompatible Data Formats

If a service or an application has established a new data format in between snapshot and
current system, the application may not be able to read the affected data les after a
rollback.

Subvolumes with a Mixture of Code and Data

Subvolumes like /srv may contain a mixture of code and data. A rollback may result in
non-functional code. A downgrade of the PHP version, for example, may result in broken
PHP scripts for the Web server.

User Data
If a rollback removes users from the system, data that is owned by these users in directories
excluded from the snapshot, is not removed. If a user with the same user ID is created, this
user will inherit the les. Use a tool like find to locate and remove orphaned les.

7.3.3.2 No Rollback of Boot Loader Data

A rollback of the boot loader is not possible, since all “stages” of the boot loader must t together.
This cannot be guaranteed when doing rollbacks of /boot .

7.4 Creating and Modifying Snapper Configurations

The way Snapper behaves is defined in a configuration le that is specific for each partition or
Btrfs subvolume. These configuration les reside under /etc/snapper/configs/ .

In case the root le system is big enough (approximately 12 GB), snapshots are automatically
enabled for the root le system / upon installation. The corresponding default configuration is
named root . It creates and manages the YaST and Zypper snapshot. See Section 7.4.1.1, “Config-
uration Data” for a list of the default values.

110 Creating and Modifying Snapper Configurations SLED 15

 Note: Minimum Root File System Size for Enabling
Snapshots
As explained in Section  7.1, “Default Setup”, enabling snapshots requires additional free
space in the root le system. The amount depends on the amount of packages installed and
the amount of changes made to the volume that is included in snapshots. The snapshot
frequency and the number of snapshots that get archived also matter.
There is a minimum root le system size that is required to automatically enable snapshots
during the installation. Currently this size is approximately 12 GB. This value may change
in the future, depending on architecture and the size of the base system. It depends on
the values for the following tags in the le /control.xml from the installation media:

<root_base_size>
<btrfs_increase_percentage>

It is calculated with the following formula: ROOT_BASE_SIZE * (1 + BTRFS_IN-

CREASE_PERCENTAGE /100)

Keep in mind that this value is a minimum size. Consider using more space for the root
le system. As a rule of thumb, double the size you would use when not having enabled
snapshots.

You may create your own configurations for other partitions formatted with Btrfs or existing
subvolumes on a Btrfs partition. In the following example we will set up a Snapper configu-
ration for backing up the Web server data residing on a separate, Btrfs -formatted partition
mounted at /srv/www .
After a configuration has been created, you can either use snapper itself or the YaST Snapper
module to restore les from these snapshots. In YaST you need to select your Current Configura-
tion, while you need to specify your configuration for snapper with the global switch -c (for
example, snapper -c myconfig list ).
To create a new Snapper configuration, run snapper create-config :

tux > sudo snapper -c www-data 1 create-config /srv/www 2

1 Name of configuration le.

2 Mount point of the partition or Btrfs subvolume on which to take snapshots.

111 Creating and Modifying Snapper Configurations SLED 15

This command will create a new configuration le /etc/snapper/configs/www-data with
reasonable default values (taken from /etc/snapper/config-templates/default ). Refer to
Section 7.4.1, “Managing Existing Configurations” for instructions on how to adjust these defaults.

Tip: Configuration Defaults

Default values for a new configuration are taken from /etc/snapper/config-tem-
plates/default . To use your own set of defaults, create a copy of this le in the same
directory and adjust it to your needs. To use it, specify the -t option with the create-con-
fig command:

tux > sudo snapper -c www-data create-config -t MY_DEFAULTS /srv/www

7.4.1 Managing Existing Configurations

The snapper offers several subcommands for managing existing configurations. You can list,
show, delete and modify them:

List Configurations
Use the command snapper list-configs to get all existing configurations:

tux > sudo snapper list-configs

Config | Subvolume
-------+----------
root | /
usr | /usr
local | /local

Show a Configuration
Use the subcommand snapper -c CONFIG get-config to display the specified configu-
ration. Config needs to be replaced by a configuration name shown by snapper list-
configs . See Section 7.4.1.1, “Configuration Data” for more information on the configuration
options.
To display the default configuration run

tux > sudo snapper -c root get-config

Modify a Configuration

112 Managing Existing Configurations SLED 15

 Use the subcommand snapper -c CONFIG set-config OPTION=VALUE to modify an
option in the specified configuration. Config needs to be replaced by a configuration
name shown by snapper list-configs . Possible values for OPTION and VALUE are listed
in Section 7.4.1.1, “Configuration Data”.

Delete a Configuration
Use the subcommand snapper -c CONFIG delete-config to delete a configuration.
Config needs to be replaced by a configuration name shown by snapper list-configs .

7.4.1.1 Configuration Data

Each configuration contains a list of options that can be modified from the command line. The
following list provides details for each option. To change a value, run snapper -c CONFIG
set-config "KEY=VALUE" .

ALLOW_GROUPS , ALLOW_USERS
Granting permissions to use snapshots to regular users. See Section 7.4.1.2, “Using Snapper
as Regular User” for more information.
The default value is "" .

BACKGROUND_COMPARISON
Defines whether pre and post snapshots should be compared in the background after cre-
ation.
The default value is "yes" .

EMPTY_*
Defines the clean-up algorithm for snapshots pairs with identical pre and post snapshots.
See Section 7.6.3, “Cleaning Up Snapshot Pairs That Do Not Differ” for details.

FSTYPE
File system type of the partition. Do not change.
The default value is "btrfs" .

NUMBER_*
Defines the clean-up algorithm for installation and admin snapshots. See Section  7.6.1,
“Cleaning Up Numbered Snapshots” for details.

QGROUP / SPACE_LIMIT
Adds quota support to the clean-up algorithms. See Section 7.6.5, “Adding Disk Quota Support”
for details.

113 Managing Existing Configurations SLED 15

SUBVOLUME
Mount point of the partition or subvolume to snapshot. Do not change.
The default value is "/" .

SYNC_ACL
If Snapper is used by regular users (see Section 7.4.1.2, “Using Snapper as Regular User”), the
users must be able to access the .snapshot directories and to read les within them.
If SYNC_ACL is set to yes , Snapper automatically makes them accessible using ACLs for
users and groups from the ALLOW_USERS or ALLOW_GROUPS entries.
The default value is "no" .

TIMELINE_CREATE
If set to yes , hourly snapshots are created. Valid values: yes , no .
The default value is "no" .

TIMELINE_CLEANUP / TIMELINE_LIMIT_*
Defines the clean-up algorithm for timeline snapshots. See Section 7.6.2, “Cleaning Up Timeline
Snapshots” for details.

7.4.1.2 Using Snapper as Regular User

By default Snapper can only be used by root . However, there are cases in which certain groups
or users need to be able to create snapshots or undo changes by reverting to a snapshot:

Web site administrators who want to take snapshots of /srv/www

Users who want to take a snapshot of their home directory

For these purposes Snapper configurations that grant permissions to users or/and groups can be
created. The corresponding .snapshots directory needs to be readable and accessible by the
specified users. The easiest way to achieve this is to set the SYNC_ACL option to yes .

PROCEDURE 7.5: ENABLING REGULAR USERS TO USE SNAPPER

Note that all steps in this procedure need to be run by root .

1. If not existing, create a Snapper configuration for the partition or subvolume on which
the user should be able to use Snapper. Refer to Section 7.4, “Creating and Modifying Snapper
Configurations” for instructions. Example:

tux > sudo snapper --config web_data create /srv/www

114 Managing Existing Configurations SLED 15

 2. The configuration le is created under /etc/snapper/configs/CONFIG , where CONFIG
is the value you specified with -c/--config in the previous step (for example /etc/
snapper/configs/web_data ). Adjust it according to your needs; see Section 7.4.1, “Man-
aging Existing Configurations” for details.

3. Set values for ALLOW_USERS and/or ALLOW_GROUPS to grant permissions to users and/or
groups, respectively. Multiple entries need to be separated by Space . To grant permissions
to the user www_admin for example, run:

tux > sudo snapper -c web_data set-config "ALLOW_USERS=www_admin" SYNC_ACL="yes"

4. The given Snapper configuration can now be used by the specified user(s) and/or group(s).
You can test it with the list command, for example:

www_admin:~ > snapper -c web_data list

7.5 Manually Creating and Managing Snapshots

Snapper is not restricted to creating and managing snapshots automatically by configuration;
you can also create snapshot pairs (“before and after”) or single snapshots manually using either
the command-line tool or the YaST module.
All Snapper operations are carried out for an existing configuration (see Section 7.4, “Creating
and Modifying Snapper Configurations” for details). You can only take snapshots of partitions or
volumes for which a configuration exists. By default the system configuration ( root ) is used. To
create or manage snapshots for your own configuration you need to explicitly choose it. Use the
Current Configuration drop-down box in YaST or specify the -c on the command line ( snapper
-c MYCONFIG COMMAND ).

7.5.1 Snapshot Metadata

Each snapshot consists of the snapshot itself and some metadata. When creating a snapshot you
also need to specify the metadata. Modifying a snapshot means changing its metadata—you
cannot modify its content. Use snapper list to show existing snapshots and their metadata:

snapper --config home list

Lists snapshots for the configuration home . To list snapshots for the default configuration
(root), use snapper -c root list or snapper list .

115 Manually Creating and Managing Snapshots SLED 15

snapper list -a
Lists snapshots for all existing configurations.

snapper list -t pre-post

Lists all pre and post snapshot pairs for the default ( root ) configuration.

snapper list -t single

Lists all snapshots of the type single for the default ( root ) configuration.

The following metadata is available for each snapshot:

Type: Snapshot type, see Section 7.5.1.1, “Snapshot Types” for details. This data cannot be
changed.

Number: Unique number of the snapshot. This data cannot be changed.

Pre Number: Specifies the number of the corresponding pre snapshot. For snapshots of
type post only. This data cannot be changed.

Description: A description of the snapshot.

Userdata: An extended description where you can specify custom data in the form of a
comma-separated key=value list: reason=testing, project=foo . This eld is also used
to mark a snapshot as important ( important=yes ) and to list the user that created the
snapshot (user=tux).

Cleanup-Algorithm: Cleanup-algorithm for the snapshot, see Section 7.6, “Automatic Snap-

shot Clean-Up” for details.

7.5.1.1 Snapshot Types

Snapper knows three different types of snapshots: pre, post, and single. Physically they do not
differ, but Snapper handles them differently.

pre
Snapshot of a le system before a modification. Each pre snapshot has got a corresponding
post snapshot. Used for the automatic YaST/Zypper snapshots, for example.

post
Snapshot of a le system after a modification. Each post snapshot has got a corresponding
pre snapshot. Used for the automatic YaST/Zypper snapshots, for example.

116 Snapshot Metadata SLED 15

single
Stand-alone snapshot. Used for the automatic hourly snapshots, for example. This is the
default type when creating snapshots.

7.5.1.2 Cleanup-algorithms

Snapper provides three algorithms to clean up old snapshots. The algorithms are executed in a
daily cron job. It is possible to define the number of different types of snapshots to keep in the
Snapper configuration (see Section 7.4.1, “Managing Existing Configurations” for details).

number
Deletes old snapshots when a certain snapshot count is reached.

timeline
Deletes old snapshots having passed a certain age, but keeps several hourly, daily, monthly,
and yearly snapshots.

empty-pre-post
Deletes pre/post snapshot pairs with empty dis.

7.5.2 Creating Snapshots

Creating a snapshot is done by running snapper create or by clicking Create in the YaST
module Snapper. The following examples explain how to create snapshots from the command
line. It should be easy to adopt them when using the YaST interface.

Tip: Snapshot Description

You should always specify a meaningful description to later be able to identify its purpose.
Even more information can be specified via the user data option.

snapper create --description "Snapshot for week 2 2014"

Creates a stand-alone snapshot (type single) for the default ( root ) configuration with a
description. Because no cleanup-algorithm is specified, the snapshot will never be deleted
automatically.

snapper --config home create --description "Cleanup in ~tux"

117 Creating Snapshots SLED 15

 Creates a stand-alone snapshot (type single) for a custom configuration named home with
a description. Because no cleanup-algorithm is specified, the snapshot will never be deleted
automatically.

snapper --config home create --description "Daily data backup" --cleanup-algo-

rithm timeline >
Creates a stand-alone snapshot (type single) for a custom configuration named home with
a description. The le will automatically be deleted when it meets the criteria specified
for the timeline cleanup-algorithm in the configuration.

snapper create --type pre --print-number --description "Before the Apache config
cleanup" --userdata "important=yes"
Creates a snapshot of the type pre and prints the snapshot number. First command needed
to create a pair of snapshots used to save a “before” and “after” state. The snapshot is
marked as important.

snapper create --type post --pre-number 30 --description "After the Apache

config cleanup" --userdata "important=yes"
Creates a snapshot of the type post paired with the pre snapshot number 30 . Second
command needed to create a pair of snapshots used to save a “before” and “after” state.
The snapshot is marked as important.

snapper create --command COMMAND --description "Before and after COMMAND"

Automatically creates a snapshot pair before and after running COMMAND . This option is
only available when using snapper on the command line.

7.5.3 Modifying Snapshot Metadata

Snapper allows you to modify the description, the cleanup algorithm, and the user data of a
snapshot. All other metadata cannot be changed. The following examples explain how to mod-
ify snapshots from the command line. It should be easy to adopt them when using the YaST
interface.
To modify a snapshot on the command line, you need to know its number. Use snapper list
to display all snapshots and their numbers.
The YaST Snapper module already lists all snapshots. Choose one from the list and click Modify.

snapper modify --cleanup-algorithm "timeline" 10

118 Modifying Snapshot Metadata SLED 15

 Modifies the metadata of snapshot 10 for the default ( root ) configuration. The cleanup
algorithm is set to timeline .

snapper --config home modify --description "daily backup" -cleanup-algorithm

"timeline" 120
Modifies the metadata of snapshot 120 for a custom configuration named home . A new
description is set and the cleanup algorithm is unset.

7.5.4 Deleting Snapshots

To delete a snapshot with the YaST Snapper module, choose a snapshot from the list and click
Delete.
To delete a snapshot with the command line tool, you need to know its number. Get it by running
snapper list . To delete a snapshot, run snapper delete NUMBER .

Deleting the current default subvolume snapshot is not allowed.

When deleting snapshots with Snapper, the freed space will be claimed by a Btrfs process running
in the background. Thus the visibility and the availability of free space is delayed. In case you
need space freed by deleting a snapshot to be available immediately, use the option --sync
with the delete command.

Tip: Deleting Snapshot Pairs

When deleting a pre snapshot, you should always delete its corresponding post snap-
shot (and vice versa).

snapper delete 65
Deletes snapshot 65 for the default ( root ) configuration.

snapper -c home delete 89 90

Deletes snapshots 89 and 90 for a custom configuration named home .

snapper delete --sync 23

Deletes snapshot 23 for the default ( root ) configuration and makes the freed space avail-
able immediately.

119 Deleting Snapshots SLED 15

 Tip: Delete Unreferenced Snapshots
Sometimes the Btrfs snapshot is present but the XML le containing the metadata for
Snapper is missing. In this case the snapshot is not visible for Snapper and needs to be
deleted manually:

btrfs subvolume delete /.snapshots/SNAPSHOTNUMBER/snapshot

rm -rf /.snapshots/SNAPSHOTNUMBER

Tip: Old Snapshots Occupy More Disk Space

If you delete snapshots to free space on your hard disk, make sure to delete old snapshots
rst. The older a snapshot is, the more disk space it occupies.

Snapshots are also automatically deleted by a daily cron job. Refer to Section 7.5.1.2, “Cleanup-
algorithms” for details.

7.6 Automatic Snapshot Clean-Up

Snapshots occupy disk space and over time the amount of disk space occupied by the snapshots
may become large. To prevent disks from running out of space, Snapper offers algorithms to
automatically delete old snapshots. These algorithms differentiate between timeline snapshots
and numbered snapshots (administration plus installation snapshot pairs). You can specify the
number of snapshots to keep for each type.
In addition to that, you can optionally specify a disk space quota, defining the maximum amount
of disk space the snapshots may occupy. It is also possible to automatically delete pre and post
snapshots pairs that do not differ.
A clean-up algorithm is always bound to a single Snapper configuration, so you need to config-
ure algorithms for each configuration. To prevent certain snapshots from being automatically
deleted, refer to Q:.
The default setup ( root ) is configured to do clean-up for numbered snapshots and empty pre
and post snapshot pairs. Quota support is enabled—snapshots may not occupy more than 50%
of the available disk space of the root partition. Timeline snapshots are disabled by default,
therefore the timeline clean-up algorithm is also disabled.

120 Automatic Snapshot Clean-Up SLED 15

7.6.1 Cleaning Up Numbered Snapshots
Cleaning up numbered snapshots—administration plus installation snapshot pairs—is controlled
by the following parameters of a Snapper configuration.

NUMBER_CLEANUP
Enables or disables clean-up of installation and admin snapshot pairs. If enabled, snap-
shot pairs are deleted when the total snapshot count exceeds a number specified
with NUMBER_LIMIT and/or NUMBER_LIMIT_IMPORTANT and an age specified with NUM-
BER_MIN_AGE . Valid values: yes (enable), no (disable).
The default value is "yes" .
Example command to change or set:

tux > sudo snapper -c CONFIG set-config "NUMBER_CLEANUP=no"

NUMBER_LIMIT / NUMBER_LIMIT_IMPORTANT
Defines how many regular and/or important installation and administration snapshot pairs
to keep. Only the youngest snapshots will be kept. Ignored if NUMBER_CLEANUP is set to
"no" .
The default value is "2-10" for NUMBER_LIMIT and "4-10" for NUMBER_LIMIT_IMPOR-
TANT .
Example command to change or set:

tux > sudo snapper -c CONFIG set-config "NUMBER_LIMIT=10"

Important: Ranged Compared to Constant

Values
In case quota support is enabled (see Section 7.6.5, “Adding Disk Quota Support”) the
limit needs to be specified as a minimum-maximum range, for example 2-10 . If
quota support is disabled, a constant value, for example 10 , needs to be provided,
otherwise cleaning-up will fail with an error.

NUMBER_MIN_AGE
Defines the minimum age in seconds a snapshot must have before it can automatically be
deleted. Snapshots younger than the value specified here will not be deleted, regardless
of how many exist.
The default value is "1800" .

121 Cleaning Up Numbered Snapshots SLED 15

 Example command to change or set:

tux > sudo snapper -c CONFIG set-config "NUMBER_MIN_AGE=864000"

Note: Limit and Age

NUMBER_LIMIT , NUMBER_LIMIT_IMPORTANT and NUMBER_MIN_AGE are always evaluated.
Snapshots are only deleted when all conditions are met.
If you always want to keep the number of snapshots defined with NUMBER_LIMIT* re-
gardless of their age, set NUMBER_MIN_AGE to 0 .
The following example shows a configuration to keep the last 10 important and regular
snapshots regardless of age:

NUMBER_CLEANUP=yes
NUMBER_LIMIT_IMPORTANT=10
NUMBER_LIMIT=10
NUMBER_MIN_AGE=0

On the other hand, if you do not want to keep snapshots beyond a certain age, set NUM-
BER_LIMIT* to 0 and provide the age with NUMBER_MIN_AGE .

The following example shows a configuration to only keep snapshots younger than ten
days:

NUMBER_CLEANUP=yes
NUMBER_LIMIT_IMPORTANT=0
NUMBER_LIMIT=0
NUMBER_MIN_AGE=864000

7.6.2 Cleaning Up Timeline Snapshots

Cleaning up timeline snapshots is controlled by the following parameters of a Snapper config-
uration.

TIMELINE_CLEANUP
Enables or disables clean-up of timeline snapshots. If enabled, snapshots are deleted when
the total snapshot count exceeds a number specified with TIMELINE_LIMIT_* and an age
specified with TIMELINE_MIN_AGE . Valid values: yes , no .
The default value is "yes" .

122 Cleaning Up Timeline Snapshots SLED 15

 Example command to change or set:

tux > sudo snapper -c CONFIG set-config "TIMELINE_CLEANUP=yes"

TIMELINE_LIMIT_DAILY , TIMELINE_LIMIT_HOURLY , TIMELINE_LIMIT_MONTHLY ,

TIMELINE_LIMIT_WEEKLY , TIMELINE_LIMIT_YEARLY
Number of snapshots to keep for hour, day, month, week, and year.
The default value for each entry is "10" , except for TIMELINE_LIMIT_WEEKLY , which is
set to "0" by default.

TIMELINE_MIN_AGE
Defines the minimum age in seconds a snapshot must have before it can automatically
be deleted.
The default value is "1800" .

EXAMPLE 7.1: EXAMPLE TIMELINE CONFIGURATION

TIMELINE_CLEANUP="yes"
TIMELINE_CREATE="yes"
TIMELINE_LIMIT_DAILY="7"
TIMELINE_LIMIT_HOURLY="24"
TIMELINE_LIMIT_MONTHLY="12"
TIMELINE_LIMIT_WEEKLY="4"
TIMELINE_LIMIT_YEARLY="2"
TIMELINE_MIN_AGE="1800"

This example configuration enables hourly snapshots which are automatically cleaned up.
TIMELINE_MIN_AGE and TIMELINE_LIMIT_* are always both evaluated. In this example,
the minimum age of a snapshot before it can be deleted is set to 30 minutes (1800 seconds).
Since we create hourly snapshots, this ensures that only the latest snapshots are kept. If
TIMELINE_LIMIT_DAILY is set to not zero, this means that the rst snapshot of the day
is kept, too.

SNAPSHOTS TO BE KEPT

Hourly: The last 24 snapshots that have been made.

Daily: The rst daily snapshot that has been made is kept from the last seven days.

Monthly: The rst snapshot made on the last day of the month is kept for the last
twelve months.

123 Cleaning Up Timeline Snapshots SLED 15

 Weekly: The rst snapshot made on the last day of the week is kept from the last
four weeks.

Yearly: The rst snapshot made on the last day of the year is kept for the last two
years.

7.6.3 Cleaning Up Snapshot Pairs That Do Not Differ

As explained in Section 7.1.1, “Types of Snapshots”, whenever you run a YaST module or execute
Zypper, a pre snapshot is created on start-up and a post snapshot is created when exiting. In
case you have not made any changes there will be no difference between the pre and post
snapshots. Such “empty” snapshot pairs can be automatically be deleted by setting the following
parameters in a Snapper configuration:

EMPTY_PRE_POST_CLEANUP
If set to yes , pre and post snapshot pairs that do not differ will be deleted.
The default value is "yes" .

EMPTY_PRE_POST_MIN_AGE
Defines the minimum age in seconds a pre and post snapshot pair that does not differ must
have before it can automatically be deleted.
The default value is "1800" .

7.6.4 Cleaning Up Manually Created Snapshots

Snapper does not offer custom clean-up algorithms for manually created snapshots. However,
you can assign the number or timeline clean-up algorithm to a manually created snapshot. If
you do so, the snapshot will join the “clean-up queue” for the algorithm you specified. You can
specify a clean-up algorithm when creating a snapshot, or by modifying an existing snapshot:

snapper create --description "Test" --cleanup-algorithm number

Creates a stand-alone snapshot (type single) for the default (root) configuration and assigns
the number clean-up algorithm.

snapper modify --cleanup-algorithm "timeline" 25

Modifies the snapshot with the number 25 and assigns the clean-up algorithm timeline .

124 Cleaning Up Snapshot Pairs That Do Not Differ SLED 15

7.6.5 Adding Disk Quota Support
In addition to the number and/or timeline clean-up algorithms described above, Snapper sup-
ports quotas. You can define what percentage of the available space snapshots are allowed to
occupy. This percentage value always applies to the Btrfs subvolume defined in the respective
Snapper configuration.
If Snapper was enabled during the installation, quota support is automatically enabled. In case
you manually enable Snapper at a later point in time, you can enable quota support by running
snapper setup-quota . This requires a valid configuration (see Section 7.4, “Creating and Modi-
fying Snapper Configurations” for more information).

Quota support is controlled by the following parameters of a Snapper configuration.

QGROUP
The Btrfs quota group used by Snapper. If not set, run snapper setup-quota . If already
set, only change if you are familiar with man 8 btrfs-qgroup . This value is set with
snapper setup-quota and should not be changed.

SPACE_LIMIT
Limit of space snapshots are allowed to use in fractions of 1 (100%). Valid values range
from 0 to 1 (0.1 = 10%, 0.2 = 20%, ...).

The following limitations and guidelines apply:

Quotas are only activated in addition to an existing number and/or timeline clean-up al-
gorithm. If no clean-up algorithm is active, quota restrictions are not applied.

With quota support enabled, Snapper will perform two clean-up runs if required. The rst
run will apply the rules specified for number and timeline snapshots. Only if the quota is
exceeded after this run, the quota-specific rules will be applied in a second run.

Even if quota support is enabled, Snapper will always keep the number of snapshots
specified with the NUMBER_LIMIT* and TIMELINE_LIMIT* values, even if the quota will
be exceeded. It is therefore recommended to specify ranged values ( MIN-MAX ) for NUM-
BER_LIMIT* and TIMELINE_LIMIT* to ensure the quota can be applied.
If, for example, NUMBER_LIMIT=5-20 is set, Snapper will perform a rst clean-up run and
reduce the number of regular numbered snapshots to 20. In case these 20 snapshots exceed
the quota, Snapper will delete the oldest ones in a second run until the quota is met. A
minimum of ve snapshots will always be kept, regardless of the amount of space they
occupy.

125 Adding Disk Quota Support SLED 15

7.7 Frequently Asked Questions
Q: Why does Snapper Never Show Changes in /var/log , /tmp and Other Directories?
A: For some directories we decided to exclude them from snapshots. See Section 7.1.2, “Direc-
tories That Are Excluded from Snapshots” for a list and reasons. To exclude a path from snap-
shots we create a subvolume for that path.

Q: How much disk space is used by snapshots? How to free disk space?
A: Displaying the amount of disk space a snapshot allocates is currently not supported by the
Btrfs tools. However, if you have quota enabled, it is possible to determine how much
space would be freed if all snapshots would be deleted:

1. Get the quota group ID ( 1/0 in the following example):

tux > sudo snapper -c root get-config | grep QGROUP

QGROUP | 1/0

2. Rescan the subvolume quotas:

tux > sudo btrfs quota rescan -w /

3. Show the data of the quota group ( 1/0 in the following example):

tux > sudo btrfs qgroup show / | grep "1/0"

1/0 4.80GiB 108.82MiB

The third column shows the amount of space that would be freed when deleting all
snapshots ( 108.82MiB ).

To free space on a Btrfs partition containing snapshots you need to delete unneeded
snapshots rather than les. Older snapshots occupy more space than recent ones. See Sec-
tion 7.1.3.4, “Controlling Snapshot Archiving” for details.

Doing an upgrade from one service pack to another results in snapshots occupying a lot of
disk space on the system subvolumes, because a lot of data gets changed (package updates).
Manually deleting these snapshots after they are no longer needed is recommended. See
Section 7.5.4, “Deleting Snapshots” for details.

Q: Can I Boot a Snapshot from the Boot Loader?

A: Yes—refer to Section 7.3, “System Rollback by Booting from Snapshots” for details.

126 Frequently Asked Questions SLED 15

Q: How to make a snapshot permanent?
A: Currently Snapper does not offer means to prevent a snapshot from being deleted manual-
ly. However, you can prevent snapshots from being automatically deleted by clean-up al-
gorithms. Manually created snapshots (see Section 7.5.2, “Creating Snapshots”) have no clean-
up algorithm assigned unless you specify one with --cleanup-algorithm . Automatically
created snapshots always either have the number or timeline algorithm assigned. To
remove such an assignment from one or more snapshots, proceed as follows:

1. List all available snapshots:

tux > sudo snapper list -a

2. Memorize the number of the snapshot(s) you want to prevent from being deleted.

3. Run the following command and replace the number placeholders with the num-
ber(s) you memorized:

tux > sudo snapper modify --cleanup-algorithm "" #1 #2 #n

4. Check the result by running snapper list -a again. The entry in the column
Cleanup should now be empty for the snapshots you modified.

Q: Where can I get more information on Snapper?

A: See the Snapper home page at http://snapper.io/ .

127 Frequently Asked Questions SLED 15

8 Remote Access with VNC

Virtual Network Computing (VNC) enables you to control a remote computer via a
graphical desktop (as opposed to a remote shell access). VNC is platform-indepen-
dent and lets you access the remote machine from any operating system.
SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop supports two different kinds of VNC sessions: One-
time sessions that “live” as long as the VNC connection from the client is kept up,
and persistent sessions that “live” until they are explicitly terminated.

Note: Session Types

A machine can offer both kinds of sessions simultaneously on different ports, but an open
session cannot be converted from one type to the other.

8.1 The vncviewer Client

To connect to a VNC service provided by a server, a client is needed. The default in SUSE Linux
Enterprise Desktop is vncviewer , provided by the tigervnc package.

8.1.1 Connecting Using the vncviewer CLI

To start your VNC viewer and initiate a session with the server, use the command:

tux > vncviewer jupiter.example.com:1

Instead of the VNC display number you can also specify the port number with two colons:

tux > vncviewer jupiter.example.com::5901

Note: Display and Port Number

The actual display or port number you specify in the VNC client must be the same as the
display or port number picked by the vncserver command on the target machine. See
Section 8.4, “Persistent VNC Sessions” for further info.

128 The vncviewer Client SLED 15

8.1.2 Connecting Using the vncviewer GUI
By running vncviewer without specifying --listen or a host to connect to, it will show a
window to ask for connection details. Enter the host into the VNC server eld like in Section 8.1.1,
“Connecting Using the vncviewer CLI” and click Connect.

FIGURE 8.1: VNCVIEWER

8.1.3 Notification of Unencrypted Connections

The VNC protocol supports different kinds of encrypted connections, not to be confused with
password authentication. If a connection does not use TLS, the text “(Connection not encrypt-
ed!)” can be seen in the window title of the VNC viewer.

8.2 Remmina: the Remote Desktop Client

Remmina is a modern and feature rich remote desktop client. It supports several access methods,
for example VNC, SSH, RDP, or Spice.

8.2.1 Installation
To use Remmina, verify whether the remmina package is installed on your system, and install
it if not. Remember to install the VNC plug-in for Remmina as well:

root # zypper in remmina remmina-plugin-vnc

129 Connecting Using the vncviewer GUI SLED 15

8.2.2 Main Window
Run Remmina by entering the remmina command.

FIGURE 8.2: REMMINA'S MAIN WINDOW

The main application window shows the list of stored remote sessions. Here you can add and
save a new remote session, quick-start a new session without saving it, start a previously saved
session, or set Remmina's global preferences.

8.2.3 Adding Remote Sessions

To add and save a new remote session, click in the top left of the main window. The Remote
Desktop Preference window opens.

130 Main Window SLED 15

FIGURE 8.3: REMOTE DESKTOP PREFERENCE

Complete the elds that specify your newly added remote session profile. The most important
are:

Name
Name of the profile. It will be listed in the main window.

Protocol
The protocol to use when connecting to the remote session, for example VNC.

Server
The IP or DNS address and display number of the remote server.

User name, Password

Credentials to use for remote authentication. Leave empty for no authentication.

Color depth, Quality

Select the best options according to your connection speed and quality.

Select the Advanced tab to enter more specific settings.

131 Adding Remote Sessions SLED 15

 Tip: Disable Encryption
If the communication between the client and the remote server is not encrypted, activate
Disable encryption, otherwise the connection fails.

Select the SSH tab for advanced SSH tunneling and authentication options.
Confirm with Save. Your new profile will be listed in the main window.

8.2.4 Starting Remote Sessions

You can either start a previously saved session, or quick-start a remote session without saving
the connection details.

8.2.4.1 Quick-starting Remote Sessions

To start a remote session quickly without properly adding and saving connection details, use
the drop-down box and text box at the top of the main window.

FIGURE 8.4: QUICK-STARTING

Select the communication protocol from the drop-down box, for example 'VNC', then enter the
VNC server DNS or IP address followed by a colon and a display number, and confirm with
Enter .

8.2.4.2 Opening Saved Remote Sessions

To open a specific remote session, double-click it from the list of sessions.

8.2.4.3 Remote Sessions Window

Remote sessions are opened in tabs of a separate window. Each tab hosts one session. The toolbar
on the left of the window helps you manage the windows / sessions, such as toggle fullscreen
mode, resize the window to match the display size of the session, send specific keystrokes to the
session, take screenshots of the session, or set the image quality.

132 Starting Remote Sessions SLED 15

FIGURE 8.5: REMMINA VIEWING SLES 15 REMOTE SESSION

8.2.5 Editing, Copying, and Deleting Saved Sessions

To edit a saved remote session, right-click its name in Remmina's main window and select Edit.
Refer to Section 8.2.3, “Adding Remote Sessions” for the description of the relevant elds.
To copy a saved remote session, right-click its name in Remmina's main window and select
Copy. In the Remote Desktop Preference window, change the name of the profile, optionally adjust
relevant options, and confirm with Save.
To Delete a saved remote session, right-click its name in Remmina's main window and select
Delete. Confirm with Yes in the next dialog.

8.2.6 Running Remote Sessions from the Command Line

If you need to open a remote session from the command line or from a batch le without rst
opening the main application window, use the following syntax:

tux > remmina -c profile_name.remmina

133 Editing, Copying, and Deleting Saved Sessions SLED 15

Remmina's profile les are stored in the .local/share/remmina/ directory in your home di-
rectory. To determine which profile le belongs to the session you want to open, run Remmina,
click the session name in the main window, and read the path to the profile le in the window's
status line at the bottom.

FIGURE 8.6: READING PATH TO THE PROFILE FILE

While Remmina is not running, you can rename the profile le to a more reasonable le name,
such as sle15.remmina . You can even copy the profile le to your custom directory and run
it using the remmina -c command from there.

8.3 One-time VNC Sessions

A one-time session is initiated by the remote client. It starts a graphical login screen on the
server. This way you can choose the user which starts the session and, if supported by the
login manager, the desktop environment. When you terminate the client connection to such a
VNC session, all applications started within that session will be terminated, too. One-time VNC
sessions cannot be shared, but it is possible to have multiple sessions on a single host at the
same time.

PROCEDURE 8.1: ENABLING ONE-TIME VNC SESSIONS

1. Start YaST Network Services Remote Administration (VNC).

2. Check Allow Remote Administration Without Session Management.

3. Activate Enable access using a web browser if you plan to access the VNC session in a Web
browser window.

4. If necessary, also check Open Port in Firewall (for example, when your network interface
is configured to be in the External Zone). If you have more than one network interface,
restrict opening the firewall ports to a specific interface via Firewall Details.

134 One-time VNC Sessions SLED 15

 5. Confirm your settings with Next.

6. In case not all needed packages are available yet, you need to approve the installation
of missing packages.

Tip: Restart the Display Manager

YaST makes changes to the display manager settings. You need to log out of your
current graphical session and restart the display manager for the changes to take
effect.

FIGURE 8.7: REMOTE ADMINISTRATION

8.3.1 Available Configurations

The default configuration on SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop serves sessions with a resolution
of 1024x768 pixels at a color depth of 16-bit. The sessions are available on ports 5901 for
“regular” VNC viewers (equivalent to VNC display 1 ) and on port 5801 for Web browsers.
Other configurations can be made available on different ports. Ask your system administrator
for details if you need to modify the configuration.

135 Available Configurations SLED 15

VNC display numbers and X display numbers are independent in one-time sessions. A VNC dis-
play number is manually assigned to every configuration that the server supports (:1 in the ex-
ample above). Whenever a VNC session is initiated with one of the configurations, it automat-
ically gets a free X display number.
By default, both the VNC client and server try to communicate securely via a self-signed SSL
certificate, which is generated after installation. You can either use the default one, or replace it
with your own. When using the self-signed certificate, you need to confirm its signature before
the rst connection—both in the VNC viewer and the Web browser.

8.3.2 Initiating a One-time VNC Session

To connect to a one-time VNC session, a VNC viewer must be installed, see also Section 8.1, “The
vncviewer Client”. Alternatively use a JavaScript-capable Web browser to view the VNC session
by entering the following URL: http://jupiter.example.com:5801

8.3.3 Configuring One-time VNC Sessions

You can skip this section, if you do not need or want to modify the default configuration.
One-time VNC sessions are started via the systemd socket xvnc.socket . By default it offers
six configuration blocks: three for VNC viewers ( vnc1 to vnc3 ), and three serving a JavaScript
client ( vnchttpd1 to vnchttpd3 ). By default only vnc1 and vnchttpd1 are active.
To activate the VNC server socket at boot time, run the following command:

sudo systemctl enable xvnc.socket

To start the socket immediately, run:

sudo systemctl start xvnc.socket

The Xvnc server can be configured via the server_args option. For a list of options, see Xvnc
--help .

When adding custom configurations, make sure they are not using ports that are already in use
by other configurations, other services, or existing persistent VNC sessions on the same host.
Activate configuration changes by entering the following command:

tux > sudo systemctl reload xvnc.socket

136 Initiating a One-time VNC Session SLED 15

 Important: Firewall and VNC Ports
When activating Remote Administration as described in Procedure 8.1, “Enabling One-time
VNC Sessions”, the ports 5801 and 5901 are opened in the firewall. If the network in-
terface serving the VNC sessions is protected by a firewall, you need to manually open
the respective ports when activating additional ports for VNC sessions. See Book “Security
Guide”, Chapter 16 “Masquerading and Firewalls” for instructions.

8.4 Persistent VNC Sessions

A persistent session can be accessed from multiple clients simultaneously. This is ideal for
demonstration purposes where one client has full access and all other clients have view-only ac-
cess. Another use case are trainings where the trainer might need access to the trainee's desktop.

Tip: Connecting to a Persistent VNC Session

To connect to a persistent VNC session, a VNC viewer must be installed. Refer to Section 8.1,
“The vncviewer Client” for more details. Alternatively use a JavaScript-capable Web brows-
er to view the VNC session by entering the following URL: http://jupiter.exam-
ple.com:5801

There are two types of persistent VNC sessions:

VNC Session Initiated Using vncserver

VNC Session Initiated Using vncmanager

8.4.1 VNC Session Initiated Using vncserver

This type of persistent VNC session is initiated on the server. The session and all applications
started in this session run regardless of client connections until the session is terminated. Access
to persistent sessions is protected by two possible types of passwords:

a regular password that grants full access or

an optional view-only password that grants a non-interactive (view-only) access.

137 Persistent VNC Sessions SLED 15

A session can have multiple client connections of both kinds at once.

PROCEDURE 8.2: STARTING A PERSISTENT VNC SESSION USING vncserver

1. Open a shell and make sure you are logged in as the user that should own the VNC session.

2. If the network interface serving the VNC sessions is protected by a firewall, you need to
manually open the port used by your session in the firewall. If starting multiple sessions
you may alternatively open a range of ports. See Book “Security Guide”, Chapter 16 “Mas-
querading and Firewalls” for details on how to configure the firewall.
vncserver uses the ports 5901 for display :1 , 5902 for display :2 , and so on. For
persistent sessions, the VNC display and the X display usually have the same number.

3. To start a session with a resolution of 1024x768 pixel and with a color depth of 16-bit,
enter the following command:

vncserver -alwaysshared -geometry 1024x768 -depth 16

The vncserver command picks an unused display number when none is given and prints
its choice. See man 1 vncserver for more options.

When running vncserver for the rst time, it asks for a password for full access to the session.
If needed, you can also provide a password for view-only access to the session.
The password(s) you are providing here are also used for future sessions started by the same
user. They can be changed with the vncpasswd command.

Important: Security Considerations

Make sure to use strong passwords of significant length (eight or more characters). Do
not share these passwords.

To terminate the session shut down the desktop environment that runs inside the VNC session
from the VNC viewer as you would shut it down if it was a regular local X session.

138 VNC Session Initiated Using vncserver SLED 15

If you prefer to manually terminate a session, open a shell on the VNC server and make sure you
are logged in as the user that owns the VNC session you want to terminate. Run the following
command to terminate the session that runs on display :1 : vncserver -kill :1

8.4.1.1 Configuring Persistent VNC Sessions

Persistent VNC sessions can be configured by editing $HOME/.vnc/xstartup . By default this

shell script starts the same GUI/window manager it was started from. In SUSE Linux Enterprise
Desktop this will either be GNOME or IceWM. If you want to start your session with a window
manager of your choice, set the variable WINDOWMANAGER :

WINDOWMANAGER=gnome vncserver -geometry 1024x768

WINDOWMANAGER=icewm vncserver -geometry 1024x768

Note: One Configuration for Each User

Persistent VNC sessions are configured in a single per-user configuration. Multiple ses-
sions started by the same user will all use the same start-up and password les.

8.4.2 VNC Session Initiated Using vncmanager

PROCEDURE 8.3: ENABLING PERSISTENT VNC SESSIONS

1. Start YaST Network Services Remote Administration (VNC).

2. Activate Allow Remote Administration With Session Management.

3. Activate Enable access using a web browser if you plan to access the VNC session in a Web
browser window.

4. If necessary, also check Open Port in Firewall (for example, when your network interface
is configured to be in the External Zone). If you have more than one network interface,
restrict opening the firewall ports to a specific interface via Firewall Details.

5. Confirm your settings with Next.

6. In case not all needed packages are available yet, you need to approve the installation
of missing packages.

139 VNC Session Initiated Using vncmanager SLED 15

 Tip: Restart the Display Manager
YaST makes changes to the display manager settings. You need to log out of your
current graphical session and restart the display manager for the changes to take
effect.

8.4.2.1 Configuring Persistent VNC Sessions

After you enable the VNC session management as described in Procedure 8.3, “Enabling Persistent
VNC Sessions”, you can normally connect to the remote session with your favorite VNC viewer,
such as vncviewer or Remmina. You will be presented with the login screen. After you log in,
the 'VNC' icon will appear in the system tray of your desktop environment. Click the icon to
open the VNC Session window. If it does not appear or if your desktop environment does not
support icons in the system tray, run vncmanager-controller manually.

FIGURE 8.8: VNC SESSION SETTINGS

There are several settings which influence the VNC session's behavior:

Non-persistent, private

140 VNC Session Initiated Using vncmanager SLED 15

 This is equivalent to a one-time session. Such a session is not visible to others and will
be terminated after you disconnect from it. Refer to Section 8.3, “One-time VNC Sessions” for
more information.

Persistent, visible
The session is visible to other users and keeps running even after you disconnect from it.

Session name
Here you can specify the name of the persistent session so that it is easily identified when
reconnecting.

No password required
The session will be freely accessible without having to log in under user credentials.

Require user login

You need to log in with a valid user name and password to access the session. Lists the
valid user names in the Allowed users text box.

Allow one client at time

Disables joining the session by multiple users at the same time.

Allow multiple clients at time

Allows multiple users to join the persistent session at the same time. This can be used
remote presentations or trainings.

Confirm with OK.

141 VNC Session Initiated Using vncmanager SLED 15

8.4.2.2 Joining Persistent VNC Sessions

After you set up a persistent VNC session as described in Section 8.4.2.1, “Configuring Persistent VNC
Sessions”, you can join it with your VNC viewer. After your VNC client connects to the server, you
will be prompted to choose whether you want to create a new session, or join the existing one:

FIGURE 8.9: JOINING A PERSISTENT VNC SESSION

After you click the name of the existing session, you may be asked for login credentials, depend-
ing on the persistent session settings.

8.5 Encrypted VNC Communication

If the VNC server is set up properly, all communication between the VNC server and the client is
encrypted. The authentication happens at the beginning of the session, the actual data transfer
only begins afterward.

142 Encrypted VNC Communication SLED 15

Whether for a one-time or a persistent VNC session, security options are configured via the -
securitytypes parameter of the /usr/bin/Xvnc command located on the server_args line.
The -securitytypes parameter selects both authentication method and encryption. It has the
following options:

AUTHENTICATIONS

None, TLSNone, X509None

No authentication.

VncAuth, TLSVnc, X509Vnc

Authentication using custom password.

Plain, TLSPlain, X509Plain

Authentication using PAM to verify user's password.

ENCRYPTIONS

None, VncAuth, Plain

No encryption.

TLSNone, TLSVnc, TLSPlain

Anonymous TLS encryption. Everything is encrypted, but there is no verification of the
remote host. So you are protected against passive attackers, but not against man-in-the-
middle attackers.

X509None, X509Vnc, X509Plain

TLS encryption with certificate. If you use a self-signed certificate, you will be asked to
verify it on the rst connection. On subsequent connections you will be warned only if
the certificate changed. So you are protected against everything except man-in-the-middle
on the rst connection (similar to typical SSH usage). If you use a certificate signed by
a certificate authority matching the machine name, then you get full security (similar to
typical HTTPS usage).

Tip: Path to Certificate and Key

With X509 based encryption, you need to specify the path to the X509 certificate
and the key with -X509Cert and -X509Key options.

143 Encrypted VNC Communication SLED 15

If you select multiple security types separated by comma, the rst one supported and allowed
by both client and server will be used. That way you can configure opportunistic encryption on
the server. This is useful if you need to support VNC clients that do not support encryption.
On the client, you can also specify the allowed security types to prevent a downgrade attack if
you are connecting to a server which you know has encryption enabled (although our vncviewer
will warn you with the "Connection not encrypted!" message in that case).

144 Encrypted VNC Communication SLED 15

9 File Copying with RSync

Today, a typical user has several computers: home and workplace machines, a lap-
top, a smartphone or a tablet. This makes the task of keeping les and documents in
synchronization across multiple devices all the more important.

Warning: Risk of Data Loss

Before you start using a synchronization tool, you should familiarize yourself with its
features and functionality. Make sure to back up your important les.

9.1 Conceptual Overview

For synchronizing a large amount of data over a slow network connection, Rsync offers a reliable
method of transmitting only changes within les. This applies not only to text les but also
binary les. To detect the differences between les, Rsync subdivides the les into blocks and
computes check sums over them.
Detecting changes requires some computing power. So make sure that machines on both ends
have enough resources, including RAM.
Rsync can be particularly useful when large amounts of data containing only minor changes
need to be transmitted regularly. This is often the case when working with backups. Rsync can
also be useful for mirroring staging servers that store complete directory trees of Web servers
to a Web server in a DMZ.
Despite its name, Rsync is not a synchronization tool. Rsync is a tool that copies data only in
one direction at a time. It does not and cannot do the reverse. If you need a bidirectional tool
which can synchronize both source and destination, use Csync.

9.2 Basic Syntax

Rsync is a command-line tool that has the following basic syntax:

rsync [OPTION] SOURCE [SOURCE]... DEST

145 Conceptual Overview SLED 15

You can use Rsync on any local or remote machine, provided you have access and write per-
missions. It is possible to have multiple SOURCE entries. The SOURCE and DEST placeholders
can be paths, URLs, or both.
Below are the most common Rsync options:

-v
Outputs more verbose text

-a
Archive mode; copies les recursively and preserves time stamps, user/group ownership,
le permissions, and symbolic links

-z
Compresses the transmitted data

Note: Trailing Slashes Count

When working with Rsync, you should pay particular attention to trailing slashes. A trail-
ing slash after the directory denotes the content of the directory. No trailing slash denotes
the directory itself.

9.3 Copying Files and Directories Locally

The following description assumes that the current user has write permissions to the directory
/var/backup . To copy a single le from one directory on your machine to another path, use
the following command:

tux > rsync -avz backup.tar.xz /var/backup/

The le backup.tar.xz is copied to /var/backup/ ; the absolute path will be /var/back-
up/backup.tar.xz .

Do not forget to add the trailing slash after the /var/backup/ directory! If you do not insert
the slash, the le backup.tar.xz is copied to /var/backup (le) not inside the directory /
var/backup/ !

Copying a directory is similar to copying a single le. The following example copies the directory
tux/ and its content into the directory /var/backup/ :

tux > rsync -avz tux /var/backup/

146 Copying Files and Directories Locally SLED 15

Find the copy in the absolute path /var/backup/tux/ .

9.4 Copying Files and Directories Remotely

The Rsync tool is required on both machines. To copy les from or to remote directories requires
an IP address or a domain name. A user name is optional if your current user names on the local
and remote machine are the same.
To copy the le file.tar.xz from your local host to the remote host 192.168.1.1 with same
users (being local and remote), use the following command:

tux > rsync -avz file.tar.xz tux@192.168.1.1:

Depending on what you prefer, these commands are also possible and equivalent:

tux > rsync -avz file.tar.xz 192.168.1.1:~

tux > rsync -avz file.tar.xz 192.168.1.1:/home/tux

In all cases with standard configuration, you will be prompted to enter your passphrase of the
remote user. This command will copy file.tar.xz to the home directory of user tux (usually
/home/tux ).

Copying a directory remotely is similar to copying a directory locally. The following example
copies the directory tux/ and its content into the remote directory /var/backup/ on the
192.168.1.1 host:

tux > rsync -avz tux 192.168.1.1:/var/backup/

Assuming you have write permissions on the host 192.168.1.1 , you will nd the copy in the
absolute path /var/backup/tux .

9.5 Configuring and Using an Rsync Server

Rsync can run as a daemon ( rsyncd ) listing on default port 873 for incoming connections. This
daemon can receive “copying targets”.

147 Copying Files and Directories Remotely SLED 15

The following description explains how to create an Rsync server on jupiter with a backup
target. This target can be used to store your backups. To create an Rsync server, do the following:

PROCEDURE 9.1: SETTING UP AN RSYNC SERVER

1. On jupiter, create a directory to store all your backup les. In this example, we use /
var/backup :

root # mkdir /var/backup

2. Specify ownership. In this case, the directory is owned by user tux in group users :

root # chown tux.users /var/backup

3. Configure the rsyncd daemon.

We will separate the configuration le into a main le and some “modules” which hold
your backup target. This makes it easier to add additional targets later. Global values
can be stored in /etc/rsyncd.d/*.inc les, whereas your modules are placed in /etc/
rsyncd.d/*.conf les:

a. Create a directory /etc/rsyncd.d/ :

root # mkdir /etc/rsyncd.d/

b. In the main configuration le /etc/rsyncd.conf , add the following lines:

# rsyncd.conf main configuration file

log file = /var/log/rsync.log
pid file = /var/lock/rsync.lock

&merge /etc/rsyncd.d 1

&include /etc/rsyncd.d 2

1 Merges global values from /etc/rsyncd.d/*.inc les into the main configu-
ration le.
2 Loads any modules (or targets) from /etc/rsyncd.d/*.conf les. These les
should not contain any references to global values.

c. Create your module (your backup target) in the le /etc/rsyncd.d/backup.conf

with the following lines:

# backup.conf: backup module

[backup] 1

148 Configuring and Using an Rsync Server SLED 15

 uid = tux 2

gid = users 2

path = /var/backup 3

auth users = tux 4

secrets file = /etc/rsyncd.secrets 5

comment = Our backup target

1 The backup target. You can use any name you like. However, it is a good idea to
name a target according to its purpose and use the same name in your *.conf
le.
2 Specifies the user name or group name that is used when the le transfer takes
place.
3 Defines the path to store your backups (from Step 1).
4 Specifies a comma-separated list of allowed users. In its simplest form, it con-
tains the user names that are allowed to connect to this module. In our case,
only user tux is allowed.
5 Specifies the path of a le that contains lines with user names and plain pass-
words.

d. Create the /etc/rsyncd.secrets le with the following content and replace
PASSPHRASE :

# user:passwd
tux:PASSPHRASE

e. Make sure the le is only readable by root :

root # chmod 0600 /etc/rsyncd.secrets

4. Start and enable the rsyncd daemon with:

root # systemctl enable rsyncd

root # systemctl start rsyncd

5. Test the access to your Rsync server:

tux > rsync jupiter::

You should see a response that looks like this:

backup Our backup target

149 Configuring and Using an Rsync Server SLED 15

 Otherwise, check your configuration le, firewall and network settings.

The above steps create an Rsync server that can now be used to store backups. The example
also creates a log le listing all connections. This le is stored in /var/log/rsyncd.log . This
is useful if you want to debug your transfers.
To list the content of your backup target, use the following command:

tux > rsync -avz jupiter::backup

This command lists all les present in the directory /var/backup on the server. This request is
also logged in the log le /var/log/rsyncd.log . To start an actual transfer, provide a source
directory. Use . for the current directory. For example, the following command copies the
current directory to your Rsync backup server:

tux > rsync -avz . jupiter::backup

By default, Rsync does not delete les and directories when it runs. To enable deletion, the
additional option --delete must be stated. To ensure that no newer les are deleted, the option
--update can be used instead. Any conflicts that arise must be resolved manually.

9.6 For More Information

CSync
Bidirectional le synchronizer, see https://www.csync.org/ .

RSnapshot
Creates incremental backups, see http://rsnapshot.org .

Unison
A le synchronizer similar to CSync but with a graphical interface, see http://www.seas.u-
penn.edu/~bcpierce/unison/ .

Rear
A disaster recovery framework, see the Administration Guide of the SUSE Linux Enterprise
High Availability Extension https://www.suse.com/documentation/sle-ha-12/ .

150 For More Information SLED 15

II Booting a Linux System

10 Introduction to the Booting Process 152

11 UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) 160

12 The Boot Loader GRUB 2 169

13 The systemd Daemon 189

10 Introduction to the Booting Process

Booting a Linux system involves different components and tasks. After a rmware
and hardware initialization process, which depends on the machine's architecture,
the kernel is started by means of the boot loader GRUB 2. After this point, the boot
process is completely controlled by the operating system and handled by systemd .
systemd provides a set of “targets” that boot configurations for everyday usage,
maintenance or emergencies.

10.1 Terminology
This chapter uses terms that can be interpreted ambiguously. To understand how they are used
here, read the definitions below:

init
Two different processes are commonly named “init”:

The initramfs process mounting the root le system

The operating system process that starts all other processes that is executed from the
real root le system

In both cases, the systemd program is taking care of this task. It is rst executed from
the initramfs to mount the root le system. Once that has succeeded, it is re-executed
from the root le system as the initial process. To avoid confusing these two systemd
processes, we refer to the rst process as init on initramfs and to the second one as systemd.

initrd / initramfs
An initrd (initial RAM disk) is an image le containing a root le system image which
is loaded by the kernel and mounted from /dev/ram as the temporary root le system.
Mounting this le system requires a le system driver.
Beginning with kernel 2.6.13, the initrd has been replaced by the initramfs (initial RAM
le system) which does not require a le system driver to be mounted. SUSE Linux Enter-
prise Desktop exclusively uses an initramfs . However, since the initramfs is stored
as /boot/initrd , it is often called “initrd”. In this chapter we exclusively use the name
initramfs .

152 Terminology SLED 15

10.2 The Linux Boot Process
The Linux boot process consists of several stages, each represented by a different component:

1. Section 10.2.1, “ The Initialization and Boot Loader Phase ”

2. Section 10.2.2, “The Kernel Phase”

3. Section 10.2.3, “The init on initramfs Phase”

4. Section 10.2.4, “The systemd Phase”

10.2.1 The Initialization and Boot Loader Phase

During the initialization phase the machine's hardware is set up and the devices are prepared.
This process differs significantly between hardware architectures.
SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop uses the boot loader GRUB 2 on all architectures. Depending on
the architecture and rmware, starting the GRUB 2 boot loader can be a multi-step process. The
purpose of the boot loader is to load the kernel and the initial, RAM-based le system (initramfs).
For more information about GRUB 2, refer to Chapter 12, The Boot Loader GRUB 2.

10.2.1.1 Initialization and Boot Loader Phase on AArch64 and AMD64/

Intel 64
After turning on the computer, the BIOS or the UEFI initializes the screen and keyboard, and
tests the main memory. Up to this stage, the machine does not access any mass storage media.
Subsequently, the information about the current date, time, and the most important peripherals
are loaded from the CMOS values. When the boot media and its geometry are recognized, the
system control passes from the BIOS/UEFI to the boot loader.
On a machine equipped with a traditional BIOS, only code from the rst physical 512-byte data
sector (the Master Boot Record, MBR) of the boot disk can be loaded. Only a minimal GRUB 2
ts into the MBR. Its sole purpose is to load a GRUB 2 core image containing le system drivers
from the gap between the MBR and the rst partition (MBR partition table) or from the BIOS
boot partition (GPT partition table). This image contains le system drivers and therefore is able
to access /boot located on the root le system. /boot contains additional modules for GRUB 2
core as well as the kernel and the initramfs image. Once it has access to this partition, GRUB 2
loads the kernel and the initramfs image into memory and hands control over to the kernel.

153 The Linux Boot Process SLED 15

When booting a BIOS system from an encrypted le system that includes an encrypted /boot
partition, you need to enter the password for decryption twice. It is rst needed by GRUB 2 to
decrypt /boot and then for systemd to mount the encrypted volumes.
On machines with UEFI the boot process is much simpler than on machines with a traditional
BIOS. The rmware is capable to read from a FAT formatted system partition of disks with a
GPT partition table. This EFI system-partition (in the running system mounted as /boot/efi )
holds enough space to host a fully-edged GRUB 2 which is directly loaded and executed by
the rmware.
If the BIOS/UEFI supports network booting, it is also possible to configure a boot server that
provides the boot loader. The system can then be booted via PXE. the BIOS/UEFI acts as the
boot loader. It gets the boot image from the boot server and starts the system. This is completely
independent of local hard disks.

10.2.1.2 Initialization and Boot Loader Phase on IBM IBM Z

On IBM IBM  Z the boot process must be initialized by a boot loader called zipl (z initial
program load). Although zipl supports reading from various le systems, it does not support
the SLE default le system (Btrfs) or booting from snapshots. SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop
therefore uses a two-stage boot process that ensures full Btrfs-support at boot-time:

1. zipl boots from the ext2-formatted partition /boot/zipl . This partition contains a min-
imal kernel and an initramfs that are loaded into memory. The initramfs contains a Btrfs
driver (among others) and the boot loader GRUB 2. The kernel is started with a parameter
initgrub , that tells it to start GRUB 2.

2. The kernel mounts the root le system, so /boot becomes accessible. Now GRUB 2 is
started from the initramfs. It reads its configuration from /boot/grub2/grub.cfg and
loads the final kernel and initramfs from /boot . The new kernel now gets loaded via
Kexec.

10.2.2 The Kernel Phase

When the boot loader has passed on system control, the boot process is the same on all architec-
tures. The boot loader loads both the kernel and an initial RAM-based le system ( initramfs )
into memory and the kernel takes over.

154 The Kernel Phase SLED 15

After the kernel has set up memory management and has detected the CPU type and its features,
it initializes the hardware and mounts the temporary root le system from the memory that was
loaded with the initramfs .

10.2.2.1 The initramfs file

initramfs (initial RAM le system) is a small cpio archive that the kernel can load into a RAM
disk. It is located at /boot/initrd . It can be created with a tool called dracut —refer to man
8 dracut for details.

The initramfs provides a minimal Linux environment that enables the execution of programs
before the actual root le system is mounted. This minimal Linux environment is loaded into
memory by BIOS or UEFI routines and does not have specific hardware requirements other than
sufficient memory. The initramfs archive must always provide an executable named init
that executes the systemd daemon on the root le system for the boot process to proceed.
Before the root le system can be mounted and the operating system can be started, the kernel
needs the corresponding drivers to access the device on which the root le system is located.
These drivers may include special drivers for certain kinds of hard disks or even network drivers
to access a network le system. The needed modules for the root le system are loaded by
init on initramfs . After the modules are loaded, udev provides the initramfs with the
needed devices. Later in the boot process, after changing the root le system, it is necessary to
regenerate the devices. This is done by the systemd unit systemd-udev-trigger.service .

10.2.2.1.1 Regenerating the initramfs

Since the initramfs contains drivers, it needs to be updated whenever a new version of one
of its drivers is available. This is done automatically when installing the package containing
the driver update. YaST or zypper will inform you about this by showing the output of the
command that generates the initramfs . However, there are some occasions on which you need
to regenerate an initramfs manually:

Adding Drivers Because of Hardware Changes

Moving System Directories to a RAID or LVM

Adding Disks to a LVM Group /Btrfs RAID Containing the Root File System

Changing Kernel Variables

155 The Kernel Phase SLED 15

Adding Drivers Because of Hardware Changes
If you need to change hardware (for example, hard disks), and this hardware requires
different drivers to be in the kernel at boot time, you must update the initramfs le.
Open or create /etc/dracut.conf.d/10-DRIVER.conf and add the following line (mind
the leading whitespace):

force_drivers+=" DRIVER1"

Replace DRIVER1 with the module name of the driver. If you need to add more than one
driver, list them space-separated:

force_drivers+=" DRIVER1 DRIVER2"

Proceed with Procedure 10.1, “Generate an initramfs”.

Moving System Directories to a RAID or LVM

Whenever you move swap les, or system directories like /usr in a running system to
a RAID or logical volume, you need to create an initramfs that contains support for
software RAID or LVM drivers.
To do so, create the respective entries in /etc/fstab and mount the new entries (for
example with mount -a and/or swapon -a ).
Proceed with Procedure 10.1, “Generate an initramfs”.

Adding Disks to a LVM Group /Btrfs RAID Containing the Root File System
Whenever you add (or remove) a disk to a logical volume group or a Btrfs RAID contain-
ing the root le system, you need to create an initramfs that contains support for the
enlarged volume. Follow the instructions at Procedure 10.1, “Generate an initramfs”.
Proceed with Procedure 10.1, “Generate an initramfs”.

Changing Kernel Variables

If you change the values of kernel variables via the sysctl interface by editing related
les ( /etc/sysctl.conf or /etc/sysctl.d/*.conf ), the change will be lost on the next
system reboot. Even if you load the values with sysctl --system at runtime, the changes
are not saved into the initramfs le. You need to update it by proceeding as outlined
in Procedure 10.1, “Generate an initramfs”.

PROCEDURE 10.1: GENERATE AN INITRAMFS

Note that all commands in the following procedure need to be executed as user root .

1. Generate a new initramfs le by running

156 The Kernel Phase SLED 15

 dracut MY_INITRAMFS

Replace MY_INITRAMFS with a le name of your choice. The new initramfs will be
created as /boot/MY_INITRAMFS .
Alternatively, run dracut -f . This will overwrite the currently used, existing le.

2. (Skip this step if you ran dracut -f in the previous step). Create a link to the initramfs
le you created in the previous step:

(cd /boot && ln -sf MY_INITRAMFS initrd)

3. On the IBM IBM Z architecture, additionally run grub2-install .

10.2.3 The init on initramfs Phase

The temporary root le system mounted by the kernel from the initramfs contains the exe-
cutable systemd (which is called init on initramfs in the following, also see Section 10.1,
“Terminology”. This program performs all actions needed to mount the proper root le system.
It provides kernel functionality for the needed le system and device drivers for mass storage
controllers with udev .
The main purpose of init on initramfs is to prepare the mounting of and access to the real
root le system. Depending on your system configuration, init on initramfs is responsible
for the following tasks.

Loading Kernel Modules

Depending on your hardware configuration, special drivers may be needed to access the
hardware components of your computer (the most important component being your hard
disk). To access the final root le system, the kernel needs to load the proper le system
drivers.

Providing Block Special Files

The kernel generates device events depending on loaded modules. udev handles these
events and generates the required special block les on a RAM le system in /dev . Without
those special les, the le system and other devices would not be accessible.

Managing RAID and LVM Setups

If you configured your system to hold the root le system under RAID or LVM, init on
initramfs sets up LVM or RAID to enable access to the root le system later.

157 The init on initramfs Phase SLED 15

Managing the Network Configuration
If you configured your system to use a network-mounted root le system (mounted via
NFS), init must make sure that the proper network drivers are loaded and that they are
set up to allow access to the root le system.
If the le system resides on a network block device like iSCSI or SAN, the connection to
the storage server is also set up by init on initramfs . SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop
supports booting from a secondary iSCSI target if the primary target is not available. .

Note: Handling of Mount Failures

If the root le system fails to mount from within the boot environment, it must be checked
and repaired before the boot can continue. The le system checker will be automatical-
ly started for Ext3 and Ext4 le systems. The repair process is not automated for XFS
and Btrfs le systems, and the user is presented with information describing the options
available to repair the le system. When the le system has been successfully repaired,
exiting the boot environment will cause the system to retry mounting the root le system.
If successful, the boot will continue normally.

10.2.3.1 The init on initramfs Phase in the Installation Process

When init on initramfs is called during the initial boot as part of the installation process,
its tasks differ from those mentioned above. Note that the installation system also does not start
systemd from initramfs —these tasks are performed by linuxrc .

Finding the Installation Medium

When starting the installation process, your machine loads an installation kernel and a
special init containing the YaST installer. The YaST installer is running in a RAM le
system and needs to have information about the location of the installation medium to
access it for installing the operating system.

Initiating Hardware Recognition and Loading Appropriate Kernel Modules

As mentioned in Section 10.2.2.1, “The initramfs file”, the boot process starts with a mini-
mum set of drivers that can be used with most hardware configurations. On AArch64, POW-
ER, and AMD64/Intel 64 machines linuxrc starts an initial hardware scanning process
that determines the set of drivers suitable for your hardware configuration. On IBM IBM Z,
a list of drivers and their parameters needs to be provided for example via linuxrc or a
parmfile.

158 The init on initramfs Phase SLED 15

 These drivers are used to generate a custom initramfs that is needed to boot the system.
If the modules are not needed for boot but for coldplug, the modules can be loaded with
systemd ; for more information, see Section 13.6.4, “Loading Kernel Modules”.

Loading the Installation System

When the hardware is properly recognized, the appropriate drivers are loaded. The udev
program creates the special device les and linuxrc starts the installation system with
the YaST installer.

Starting YaST
Finally, linuxrc starts YaST, which starts the package installation and the system con-
figuration.

10.2.4 The systemd Phase

After the “real” root le system has been found, it is checked for errors and mounted. If this
is successful, the initramfs is cleaned and the systemd daemon on the root le system is
executed. systemd is Linux' system and service manager. It is the parent process that is started
as PID 1 and acts as init system that brings up and maintains user space services. See Chapter 13,
The systemd Daemon for details.

159 The systemd Phase SLED 15

11 UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface)

UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) is the interface between the rmware that comes
with the system hardware, all the hardware components of the system, and the operating system.
UEFI is becoming more and more available on PC systems and thus is replacing the traditional
PC-BIOS. UEFI, for example, properly supports 64-bit systems and offers secure booting (“Secure
Boot”, rmware version 2.3.1c or better required), which is one of its most important features.
Lastly, with UEFI a standard rmware will become available on all x86 platforms.
UEFI additionally offers the following advantages:

Booting from large disks (over 2 TiB) with a GUID Partition Table (GPT).

CPU-independent architecture and drivers.

Flexible pre-OS environment with network capabilities.

CSM (Compatibility Support Module) to support booting legacy operating systems via a
PC-BIOS-like emulation.

For more information, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unified_Extensible_Firmware_Interface .

The following sections are not meant as a general UEFI overview; these are only hints about
how some features are implemented in SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop.

11.1 Secure Boot

In the world of UEFI, securing the bootstrapping process means establishing a chain of trust. The
“platform” is the root of this chain of trust; in the context of SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop, the
mainboard and the on-board rmware could be considered the “platform”. In other words, it is
the hardware vendor, and the chain of trust ows from that hardware vendor to the component
manufacturers, the OS vendors, etc.
The trust is expressed via public key cryptography. The hardware vendor puts a so-called Plat-
form Key (PK) into the rmware, representing the root of trust. The trust relationship with op-
erating system vendors and others is documented by signing their keys with the Platform Key.
Finally, security is established by requiring that no code will be executed by the rmware unless
it has been signed by one of these “trusted” keys—be it an OS boot loader, some driver located in
the ash memory of some PCI Express card or on disk, or be it an update of the rmware itself.

160 Secure Boot SLED 15

To use Secure Boot, you need to have your OS loader signed with a key trusted by the rmware,
and you need the OS loader to verify that the kernel it loads can be trusted.
Key Exchange Keys (KEK) can be added to the UEFI key database. This way, you can use other
certificates, as long as they are signed with the private part of the PK.

11.1.1 Implementation on SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop

Microsoft’s Key Exchange Key (KEK) is installed by default.

Note: GUID Partitioning Table (GPT) Required

The Secure Boot feature is enabled by default on UEFI/x86_64 installations. You can nd
the Enable Secure Boot Support option in the Boot Code Options tab of the Boot Loader
Settings dialog. It supports booting when the secure boot is activated in the rmware,
while making it possible to boot when it is deactivated.

FIGURE 11.1: SECURE BOOT SUPPORT

The Secure Boot feature requires that a GUID Partitioning Table (GPT) replaces the old
partitioning with a Master Boot Record (MBR). If YaST detects EFI mode during the in-
stallation, it will try to create a GPT partition. UEFI expects to nd the EFI programs on
a FAT-formatted EFI System Partition (ESP).

161 Implementation on SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop SLED 15

Supporting UEFI Secure Boot requires having a boot loader with a digital signature that the
rmware recognizes as a trusted key. That key is trusted by the rmware a priori, without
requiring any manual intervention.
There are two ways of getting there. One is to work with hardware vendors to have them en-
dorse a SUSE key, which SUSE then signs the boot loader with. The other way is to go through
Microsoft’s Windows Logo Certification program to have the boot loader certified and have Mi-
crosoft recognize the SUSE signing key (that is, have it signed with their KEK). By now, SUSE
got the loader signed by UEFI Signing Service (that is Microsoft in this case).

FIGURE 11.2: UEFI: SECURE BOOT PROCESS

At the implementation layer, SUSE uses the shim loader which is installed by default. It is a
smart solution that avoids legal issues, and simplifies the certification and signing step consid-
erably. The shim loader’s job is to load a boot loader such as GRUB 2 and verify it; this boot
loader in turn will load kernels signed by a SUSE key only. SUSE provides this functionality
since SLE11 SP3 on fresh installations with UEFI Secure Boot enabled.
There are two types of trusted users:

First, those who hold the keys. The Platform Key (PK) allows almost everything. The Key
Exchange Key (KEK) allows all a PK can except changing the PK.

Second, anyone with physical access to the machine. A user with physical access can reboot
the machine, and configure UEFI.

162 Implementation on SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop SLED 15

UEFI offers two types of variables to fulfill the needs of those users:

The rst is the so-called “Authenticated Variables”, which can be updated from both within
the boot process (the so-called Boot Services Environment) and the running OS. This can
be done only when the new value of the variable is signed with the same key that the old
value of the variable was signed with. And they can only be appended to or changed to
a value with a higher serial number.

The second is the so-called “Boot Services Only Variables”. These variables are accessible
to any code that runs during the boot process. After the boot process ends and before the
OS starts, the boot loader must call the ExitBootServices call. After that, these variables
are no longer accessible, and the OS cannot touch them.

The various UEFI key lists are of the rst type, as this allows online updating, adding, and
blacklisting of keys, drivers, and rmware fingerprints. It is the second type of variable, the
“Boot Services Only Variable”, that helps to implement Secure Boot in a secure and open source-
friendly manner, and thus compatible with GPLv3.
SUSE starts with shim —a small and simple EFI boot loader signed by SUSE and Microsoft.
This allows shim to load and execute.
shim then goes on to verify that the boot loader it wants to load is trusted. In a default situation
shim will use an independent SUSE certificate embedded in its body. In addition, shim will
allow to “enroll” additional keys, overriding the default SUSE key. In the following, we call
them “Machine Owner Keys” or MOKs for short.
Next the boot loader will verify and then boot the kernel, and the kernel will do the same on
the modules.

11.1.2 MOK (Machine Owner Key)

If the user (“machine owner”) wants to replace any components of the boot process, Machine
Owner Keys (MOKs) are to be used. The mokutils tool will help with signing components and
managing MOKs.
The enrollment process begins with rebooting the machine and interrupting the boot process (for
example, pressing a key) when shim loads. shim will then go into enrollment mode, allowing
the user to replace the default SUSE key with keys from a le on the boot partition. If the user

163 MOK (Machine Owner Key) SLED 15

chooses to do so, shim will then calculate a hash of that le and put the result in a “Boot
Services Only” variable. This allows shim to detect any change of the le made outside of Boot
Services and thus avoid tampering with the list of user-approved MOKs.
All of this happens during boot time—only verified code is executing now. Therefore, only a
user present at the console can use the machine owner's set of keys. It cannot be malware or a
hacker with remote access to the OS because hackers or malware can only change the le, but
not the hash stored in the “Boot Services Only” variable.
The boot loader, after having been loaded and verified by shim , will call back to shim when
it wants to verify the kernel—to avoid duplication of the verification code. Shim will use the
same list of MOKs for this and tell the boot loader whether it can load the kernel.
This way, you can install your own kernel or boot loader. It is only necessary to install a new set
of keys and authorize them by being physically present during the rst reboot. Because MOKs
are a list and not a single MOK, you can make shim trust keys from several vendors, allowing
dual- and multi-boot from the boot loader.

11.1.3 Booting a Custom Kernel

The following is based on http://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:UEFI#Booting_a_custom_kernel .
Secure Boot does not prevent you from using a self-compiled kernel. You must sign it with your
own certificate and make that certificate known to the rmware or MOK.

1. Create a custom X.509 key and certificate used for signing:

openssl req -new -x509 -newkey rsa:2048 -keyout key.asc \

-out cert.pem -nodes -days 666 -subj "/CN=$USER/"

For more information about creating certificates, see http://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:UE-

FI_Image_File_Sign_Tools#Create_Your_Own_Certificate .

2. Package the key and the certificate as a PKCS#12 structure:

tux > openssl pkcs12 -export -inkey key.asc -in cert.pem \

-name kernel_cert -out cert.p12

3. Generate an NSS database for use with pesign :

tux > certutil -d . -N

164 Booting a Custom Kernel SLED 15

 4. Import the key and the certificate contained in PKCS#12 into the NSS database:

tux > pk12util -d . -i cert.p12

5. “Bless” the kernel with the new signature using pesign :

tux > pesign -n . -c kernel_cert -i arch/x86/boot/bzImage \

-o vmlinuz.signed -s

6. List the signatures on the kernel image:

tux > pesign -n . -S -i vmlinuz.signed

At that point, you can install the kernel in /boot as usual. Because the kernel now has
a custom signature the certificate used for signing needs to be imported into the UEFI
rmware or MOK.

7. Convert the certificate to the DER format for import into the rmware or MOK:

tux > openssl x509 -in cert.pem -outform der -out cert.der

8. Copy the certificate to the ESP for easier access:

tux > sudo cp cert.der /boot/efi/

9. Use mokutil to launch the MOK list automatically.

• a. Import the certificate to MOK:

tux > mokutil --root-pw --import cert.der

The --root-pw option enables usage of the root user directly.

b. Check the list of certificates that are prepared to be enrolled:

tux > mokutil --list-new

c. Reboot the system; shim should launch MokManager. You need to enter the
root password to confirm the import of the certificate to the MOK list.

d. Check if the newly imported key was enrolled:

tux > mokutil --list-enrolled

165 Booting a Custom Kernel SLED 15

 • a. Alternatively, this is the procedure if you want to launch MOK manually:
Reboot

b. In the GRUB 2 menu press the ' c ' key.

c. Type:

chainloader $efibootdir/MokManager.efi
boot

d. Select Enroll key from disk.

e. Navigate to the cert.der le and press Enter .

f. Follow the instructions to enroll the key. Normally this should be pressing ' 0 '
and then ' y ' to confirm.
Alternatively, the rmware menu may provide ways to add a new key to the
Signature Database.

11.1.4 Using Non-Inbox Drivers

There is no support for adding non-inbox drivers (that is, drivers that do not come with SUSE
Linux Enterprise Desktop) during installation with Secure Boot enabled. The signing key used
for SolidDriver/PLDP is not trusted by default.
It is possible to install third party drivers during installation with Secure Boot enabled in two
different ways. In both cases:

Add the needed keys to the rmware database via rmware/system management tools
before the installation. This option depends on the specific hardware you are using. Consult
your hardware vendor for more information.

Use a bootable driver ISO from https://drivers.suse.com/ or your hardware vendor to

enroll the needed keys in the MOK list at rst boot.

To use the bootable driver ISO to enroll the driver keys to the MOK list, follow these steps:

1. Burn the ISO image above to an empty CD/DVD medium.

2. Start the installation using the new CD/DVD medium, having the standard installation
media at hand or a URL to a network installation server.

166 Using Non-Inbox Drivers SLED 15

 If doing a network installation, enter the URL of the network installation source on the
boot command line using the install= option.
If doing installation from optical media, the installer will rst boot from the driver kit and
then ask to insert the rst installation disk of the product.

3. An initrd containing updated drivers will be used for installation.

For more information, see https://drivers.suse.com/doc/Usage/Secure_Boot_Certificate.html .

11.1.5 Features and Limitations

When booting in Secure Boot mode, the following features apply:

Installation to UEFI default boot loader location, a mechanism to keep or restore the EFI
boot entry.

Reboot via UEFI.

Xen hypervisor will boot with UEFI when there is no legacy BIOS to fall back to.

UEFI IPv6 PXE boot support.

UEFI videomode support, the kernel can retrieve video mode from UEFI to configure KMS
mode with the same parameters.

UEFI booting from USB devices is supported.

When booting in Secure Boot mode, the following limitations apply:

To ensure that Secure Boot cannot be easily circumvented, some kernel features are dis-
abled when running under Secure Boot.

Boot loader, kernel, and kernel modules must be signed.

Kexec and Kdump are disabled.

Hibernation (suspend on disk) is disabled.

Access to /dev/kmem and /dev/mem is not possible, not even as root user.

Access to the I/O port is not possible, not even as root user. All X11 graphical drivers must
use a kernel driver.

PCI BAR access through sysfs is not possible.

167 Features and Limitations SLED 15

 custom_method in ACPI is not available.

debugfs for asus-wmi module is not available.

the acpi_rsdp parameter does not have any effect on the kernel.

11.2 For More Information

http://www.uefi.org —UEFI home page where you can nd the current UEFI specifica-
tions.

Blog posts by Olaf Kirch and Vojtěch Pavlík (the chapter above is heavily based on these
posts):

http://www.suse.com/blogs/uefi-secure-boot-plan/

http://www.suse.com/blogs/uefi-secure-boot-overview/

http://www.suse.com/blogs/uefi-secure-boot-details/

http://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:UEFI —UEFI with openSUSE.

168 For More Information SLED 15

12 The Boot Loader GRUB 2

This chapter describes how to configure GRUB 2, the boot loader used in SUSE®
Linux Enterprise Desktop. It is the successor to the traditional GRUB boot loader—
now called “GRUB Legacy”. GRUB 2 has been the default boot loader in SUSE® Lin-
ux Enterprise Desktop since version 12. A YaST module is available for configur-
ing the most important settings. The boot procedure as a whole is outlined in Chap-
ter 10, Introduction to the Booting Process. For details on Secure Boot support for UEFI
machines, see Chapter 11, UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface).

12.1 Main Differences between GRUB Legacy and

GRUB 2
The configuration is stored in different les.

More le systems are supported (for example, Btrfs).

Can directly read les stored on LVM or RAID devices.

The user interface can be translated and altered with themes.

Includes a mechanism for loading modules to support additional features, such as le
systems, etc.

Automatically searches for and generates boot entries for other kernels and operating sys-
tems, such as Windows.

Includes a minimal Bash-like console.

12.2 Configuration File Structure

The configuration of GRUB 2 is based on the following les:

/boot/grub2/grub.cfg
This le contains the configuration of the GRUB 2 menu items. It replaces menu.lst used
in GRUB Legacy. grub.cfg should not be edited—it is automatically generated by the
command grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/grub2/grub.cfg .

169 Main Differences between GRUB Legacy and GRUB 2 SLED 15

/boot/grub2/custom.cfg
This optional le is directly sourced by grub.cfg at boot time and can be used to add
custom items to the boot menu. Starting with SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop these entries
will also be parsed when using grub-once .

/etc/default/grub
This le controls the user settings of GRUB 2 and usually includes additional environmental
settings such as backgrounds and themes.

Scripts under /etc/grub.d/

The scripts in this directory are read during execution of the command grub2-mkconfig
-o /boot/grub2/grub.cfg . Their instructions are integrated into the main configuration
le /boot/grub/grub.cfg .

/etc/sysconfig/bootloader
This configuration le holds some basic settings like the boot loader type or whether to
enable UEFI Secure Boot support.

/boot/grub2/x86_64-efi , /boot/grub2/power-ieee1275 , /boot/grub2/s390x

These configuration les contain architecture-specific options.

GRUB 2 can be controlled in various ways. Boot entries from an existing configuration can be se-
lected from the graphical menu (splash screen). The configuration is loaded from the le /boot/
grub2/grub.cfg which is compiled from other configuration les (see below). All GRUB  2
configuration les are considered system les, and you need root privileges to edit them.

Note: Activating Configuration Changes

After having manually edited GRUB 2 configuration les, you need to run grub2-mkcon-
fig -o /boot/grub2/grub.cfg to activate the changes. However, this is not necessary
when changing the configuration with YaST, because YaST will automatically run this
command.

12.2.1 The File /boot/grub2/grub.cfg

The graphical splash screen with the boot menu is based on the GRUB 2 configuration le /
boot/grub2/grub.cfg , which contains information about all partitions or operating systems
that can be booted by the menu.

170 The File /boot/grub2/grub.cfg SLED 15

Every time the system is booted, GRUB 2 loads the menu le directly from the le system. For
this reason, GRUB  2 does not need to be re-installed after changes to the configuration le.
grub.cfg is automatically rebuilt with kernel installations or removals.

grub.cfg is compiled from the le /etc/default/grub and scripts found in the /etc/
grub.d/ directory when running the command grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/grub2/grub.cfg .
Therefore you should never edit the le manually. Instead, edit the related source les or use the
YaST Boot Loader module to modify the configuration as described in Section 12.3, “Configuring
the Boot Loader with YaST”.

12.2.2 The File /etc/default/grub

More general options of GRUB 2 belong here, such as the time the menu is displayed, or the
default OS to boot. To list all available options, see the output of the following command:

tux > grep "export GRUB_DEFAULT" -A50 /usr/sbin/grub2-mkconfig | grep GRUB_

In addition to already defined variables, the user may introduce their own variables, and use
them later in the scripts found in the /etc/grub.d directory.
After having edited /etc/default/grub , update the main configuration le with grub2-mk-
config -o /boot/grub2/grub.cfg .

Note: Scope
All options set in this le are general options that affect all boot entries. Specific options
for Xen kernels or the Xen hypervisor can be set via the GRUB_*_XEN_* configuration
options. See below for details.

GRUB_DEFAULT
Sets the boot menu entry that is booted by default. Its value can be a numeric value, the
complete name of a menu entry, or “saved”.
GRUB_DEFAULT=2 boots the third (counted from zero) boot menu entry.
GRUB_DEFAULT="2>0" boots the rst submenu entry of the third top-level menu entry.
GRUB_DEFAULT="Example boot menu entry" boots the menu entry with the title “Ex-
ample boot menu entry”.

171 The File /etc/default/grub SLED 15

 GRUB_DEFAULT=saved boots the entry specified by the grub2-once or grub2-set-de-
fault commands. While grub2-reboot sets the default boot entry for the next reboot on-
ly, grub2-set-default sets the default boot entry until changed. grub2-editenv list
lists the next boot entry.

GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT
Waits the specified number of seconds for the user to press a key. During the period no
menu is shown unless the user presses a key. If no key is pressed during the time specified,
the control is passed to GRUB_TIMEOUT . GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT=0 rst checks whether
Shift is pressed and shows the boot menu if yes, otherwise immediately boots the default
menu entry. This is the default when only one bootable OS is identified by GRUB 2.

GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT_QUIET
If false is specified, a countdown timer is displayed on a blank screen when the
GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT feature is active.

GRUB_TIMEOUT
Time period in seconds the boot menu is displayed before automatically booting the default
boot entry. If you press a key, the timeout is cancelled and GRUB 2 waits for you to make
the selection manually. GRUB_TIMEOUT=-1 will cause the menu to be displayed until you
select the boot entry manually.

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX
Entries on this line are added at the end of the boot entries for normal and recovery mode.
Use it to add kernel parameters to the boot entry.

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT
Same as GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX but the entries are appended in the normal mode only.

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_RECOVERY
Same as GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX but the entries are appended in the recovery mode only.

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_XEN_REPLACE
This entry will completely replace the GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX parameters for all Xen boot
entries.

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_XEN_REPLACE_DEFAULT
Same as GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_XEN_REPLACE but it will only replace parameters
of GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT .

GRUB_CMDLINE_XEN

172 The File /etc/default/grub SLED 15

 This entry specifies the kernel parameters for the Xen guest kernel only—the operation
principle is the same as for GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX .

GRUB_CMDLINE_XEN_DEFAULT
Same as GRUB_CMDLINE_XEN —the operation principle is the same as for
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT .

GRUB_TERMINAL
Enables and specifies an input/output terminal device. Can be console (PC BIOS and EFI
consoles), serial (serial terminal), ofconsole (Open Firmware console), or the default
gfxterm (graphics-mode output). It is also possible to enable more than one device by
quoting the required options, for example GRUB_TERMINAL="console serial" .

GRUB_GFXMODE
The resolution used for the gfxterm graphical terminal. Note that you can only use modes
supported by your graphics card (VBE). The default is ‘auto’, which tries to select a pre-
ferred resolution. You can display the screen resolutions available to GRUB 2 by typing
videoinfo in the GRUB 2 command line. The command line is accessed by typing C

when the GRUB 2 boot menu screen is displayed.

You can also specify a color depth by appending it to the resolution setting, for example
GRUB_GFXMODE=1280x1024x24 .

GRUB_BACKGROUND
Set a background image for the gfxterm graphical terminal. The image must be a le
readable by GRUB 2 at boot time, and it must end with the .png , .tga , .jpg , or .jpeg
suffix. If necessary, the image will be scaled to t the screen.

GRUB_DISABLE_OS_PROBER
If this option is set to true , automatic searching for other operating systems is disabled.
Only the kernel images in /boot/ and the options from your own scripts in /etc/grub.d/
are detected.

SUSE_BTRFS_SNAPSHOT_BOOTING
If this option is set to true , GRUB 2 can boot directly into Snapper snapshots. For more
information, see Section 7.3, “System Rollback by Booting from Snapshots”.

For a complete list of options, see the GNU GRUB manual (http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/
manual/grub.html#Simple-configuration) .

173 The File /etc/default/grub SLED 15

12.2.3 Scripts in /etc/grub.d
The scripts in this directory are read during execution of the command grub2-mkconfig -o /
boot/grub2/grub.cfg . Their instructions are incorporated into /boot/grub2/grub.cfg . The
order of menu items in grub.cfg is determined by the order in which the les in this directory
are run. Files with a leading numeral are executed rst, beginning with the lowest number.
00_header is run before 10_linux , which would run before 40_custom . If les with alpha-
betic names are present, they are executed after the numerically-named les. Only executable
les generate output to grub.cfg during execution of grub2-mkconfig . By default all les in
the /etc/grub.d directory are executable.

Tip: Persistent Custom Content in grub.cfg

Because /boot/grub2/grub.cfg is recompiled each time grub2-mkconfig is run, any
custom content is lost. If you want to insert your lines directly into /boot/grub2/
grub.cfg without losing them after grub2-mkconfig is run, insert them between

### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/90_persistent ###

and

### END /etc/grub.d/90_persistent ###

The 90_persistent script ensures that such content will be preserved.

A list of the most important scripts follows:

00_header
Sets environmental variables such as system le locations, display settings, themes, and
previously saved entries. It also imports preferences stored in the /etc/default/grub .
Normally you do not need to make changes to this le.

10_linux
Identifies Linux kernels on the root device and creates relevant menu entries. This includes
the associated recovery mode option if enabled. Only the latest kernel is displayed on the
main menu page, with additional kernels included in a submenu.

30_os-prober

174 Scripts in /etc/grub.d SLED 15

 This script uses os-prober to search for Linux and other operating systems and places
the results in the GRUB 2 menu. There are sections to identify specific other operating
systems, such as Windows or macOS.

40_custom
This le provides a simple way to include custom boot entries into grub.cfg . Make sure
that you do not change the exec tail -n +3 $0 part at the beginning.

The processing sequence is set by the preceding numbers with the lowest number being executed
rst. If scripts are preceded by the same number the alphabetical order of the complete name
decides the order.

Tip: /boot/grub2/custom.cfg
If you create /boot/grub2/custom.cfg and ll it with content, it will be automatically
included into /boot/grub2/grub.cfg just after 40_custom at boot time.

12.2.4 Mapping between BIOS Drives and Linux Devices

In GRUB Legacy, the device.map configuration le was used to derive Linux device names
from BIOS drive numbers. The mapping between BIOS drives and Linux devices cannot always
be guessed correctly. For example, GRUB Legacy would get a wrong order if the boot sequence
of IDE and SCSI drives is exchanged in the BIOS configuration.
GRUB  2 avoids this problem by using device ID strings (UUIDs) or le system labels when
generating grub.cfg . GRUB  2 utilities create a temporary device map on the y, which is
usually sufficient, particularly in the case of single-disk systems.
However, if you need to override the GRUB 2's automatic device mapping mechanism, create
your custom mapping le /boot/grub2/device.map . The following example changes the map-
ping to make DISK 3 the boot disk. Note that GRUB 2 partition numbers start with 1 and not
with 0 as in GRUB Legacy.

(hd1) /dev/disk-by-id/DISK3 ID
(hd2) /dev/disk-by-id/DISK1 ID
(hd3) /dev/disk-by-id/DISK2 ID

175 Mapping between BIOS Drives and Linux Devices SLED 15

12.2.5 Editing Menu Entries during the Boot Procedure
Being able to directly edit menu entries is useful when the system does not boot anymore because
of a faulty configuration. It can also be used to test new settings without altering the system
configuration.

1. In the graphical boot menu, select the entry you want to edit with the arrow keys.

2. Press E to open the text-based editor.

3. Use the arrow keys to move to the line you want to edit.

FIGURE 12.1: GRUB 2 BOOT EDITOR

Now you have two options:

a. Add space-separated parameters to the end of the line starting with linux or lin-
uxefi to edit the kernel parameters. A complete list of parameters is available at
http://en.opensuse.org/Linuxrc .

b. Or edit the general options to change for example the kernel version. The →| key
suggests all possible completions.

4. Press F10 to boot the system with the changes you made or press Esc to discard your
edits and return to the GRUB 2 menu.

176 Editing Menu Entries during the Boot Procedure SLED 15

Changes made this way only apply to the current boot process and are not saved permanently.

Important: Keyboard Layout During the Boot

Procedure
The US keyboard layout is the only one available when booting. See Book “Deployment
Guide”, Chapter 9 “Troubleshooting”, Section 9.3 “Booting from Installation Media Fails”, US Key-
board Layout.

Note: Boot Loader on the Installation Media

The Boot Loader of the installation media on systems with a traditional BIOS is still GRUB
Legacy. To add boot parameters, select an entry and start typing. Additions you make to
the installation boot entry will be permanently saved in the installed system.

Note: Editing GRUB 2 Menu Entries on IBM Z

Cursor movement and editing commands on IBM Z differ—see Section 12.4, “Differences in
Terminal Usage on IBM Z” for details.

12.2.6 Setting a Boot Password

Even before the operating system is booted, GRUB 2 enables access to le systems. Users without
root permissions can access les in your Linux system to which they have no access after the
system is booted. To block this kind of access or to prevent users from booting certain menu
entries, set a boot password.

Important: Booting Requires Password

If set, the boot password is required on every boot, which means the system does not
boot automatically.

Proceed as follows to set a boot password. Alternatively use YaST (Protect Boot Loader with Pass-
word ).

177 Setting a Boot Password SLED 15

 1. Encrypt the password using grub2-mkpasswd-pbkdf2:

tux > sudo grub2-mkpasswd-pbkdf2

Password: ****
Reenter password: ****
PBKDF2 hash of your password is grub.pbkdf2.sha512.10000.9CA4611006FE96BC77A...

2. Paste the resulting string into the le /etc/grub.d/40_custom together with the set
superusers command.

set superusers="root"
password_pbkdf2 root grub.pbkdf2.sha512.10000.9CA4611006FE96BC77A...

3. To import the changes into the main configuration le, run:

tux > sudo grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/grub2/grub.cfg

After you reboot, you will be prompted for a user name and a password when trying to boot
a menu entry. Enter root and the password you typed during the grub2-mkpasswd-pbkdf2
command. If the credentials are correct, the system will boot the selected boot entry.
For more information, see https://www.gnu.org/software/grub/manual/grub.html#Security .

12.3 Configuring the Boot Loader with YaST

The easiest way to configure general options of the boot loader in your SUSE Linux Enterprise
Desktop system is to use the YaST module. In the YaST Control Center, select System Boot Loader.
The module shows the current boot loader configuration of your system and allows you to make
changes.
Use the Boot Code Options tab to view and change settings related to type, location and advanced
loader settings. You can choose whether to use GRUB 2 in standard or EFI mode.

178 Configuring the Boot Loader with YaST SLED 15

FIGURE 12.2: BOOT CODE OPTIONS

Important: EFI Systems require GRUB2-EFI

If you have an EFI system you can only install GRUB2-EFI, otherwise your system is no
longer bootable.

Important: Reinstalling the Boot Loader

To reinstall the boot loader, make sure to change a setting in YaST and then change
it back. For example, to reinstall GRUB2-EFI, select GRUB2 rst and then immediately
switch back to GRUB2-EFI.
Otherwise, the boot loader may only be partially reinstalled.

Note: Custom Boot Loader

To use a boot loader other than the ones listed, select Do Not Install Any Boot Loader. Read
the documentation of your boot loader carefully before choosing this option.

179 Configuring the Boot Loader with YaST SLED 15

12.3.1 Boot Loader Location and Boot Code Options
The default location of the boot loader depends on the partition setup and is either the Master
Boot Record (MBR) or the boot sector of the / partition. To modify the location of the boot
loader, follow these steps:

PROCEDURE 12.1: CHANGING THE BOOT LOADER LOCATION

1. Select the Boot Code Options tab and then choose one of the following options for Boot
Loader Location:

Boot from Master Boot Record

This installs the boot loader in the MBR of the disk containing the directory /boot .
Usually this will be the disk mounted to / , but if /boot is mounted to a separate
partition on a different disk, the MBR of that disk will be used.

Boot from Root Partition

This installs the boot loader in the boot sector of the / partition.

Custom Boot Partition

Use this option to specify the location of the boot loader manually.

2. Click OK to apply your changes.

FIGURE 12.3: CODE OPTIONS

180 Boot Loader Location and Boot Code Options SLED 15

The Boot Code Options tab includes the following additional options:

Set Active Flag in Partition Table for Boot Partition

Activates the partition that contains the /boot directory. For POWER systems it activates
the PReP partition. Use this option on systems with old BIOS and/or legacy operating
systems because they may fail to boot from a non-active partition. It is safe to leave this
option active.

Write Generic Boot Code to MBR

If MBR contains a custom 'non-GRUB' code, this option replaces it with a generic, operat-
ing system independent code. If you deactivate this option, the system may become un-
bootable.

Enable Trusted Boot Support

Starts TrustedGRUB2 which supports trusted computing functionality (Trusted Plat-
form Module (TPM)). For more information refer to https://github.com/Sirrix-AG/Trusted-
GRUB2 .

12.3.2 Adjusting the Disk Order

If your computer has more than one hard disk, you can specify the boot sequence of the disks.
The rst disk in the list is where GRUB 2 will be installed in the case of booting from MBR. It is
the disk where SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop is installed by default. The rest of the list is a hint
for GRUB 2's device mapper (see Section 12.2.4, “Mapping between BIOS Drives and Linux Devices”).

Warning: Unbootable System

The default value is usually valid for almost all deployments. If you change the boot order
of disks wrongly, the system may become unbootable on the next reboot. For example,
if the rst disk in the list is not part of the BIOS boot order, and the other disks in the
list have empty MBRs.

PROCEDURE 12.2: SETTING THE DISK ORDER

1. Open the Boot Code Options tab.

2. Click Edit Disk Boot Order.

181 Adjusting the Disk Order SLED 15

 3. If more than one disk is listed, select a disk and click Up or Down to reorder the displayed
disks.

4. Click OK two times to save the changes.

12.3.3 Configuring Advanced Options

Advanced boot parameters can be configured via the Boot Loader Options tab.

12.3.3.1 Boot Loader Options Tab

FIGURE 12.4: BOOT LOADER OPTIONS

Boot Loader Time-Out

Change the value of Time-Out in Seconds by typing in a new value and clicking the appro-
priate arrow key with your mouse.

Probe Foreign OS
When selected, the boot loader searches for other systems like Windows or other Linux
installations.

Hide Menu on Boot

182 Configuring Advanced Options SLED 15

 Hides the boot menu and boots the default entry.

Adjusting the Default Boot Entry

Select the desired entry from the “Default Boot Section” list. Note that the “>” sign in the
boot entry name delimits the boot section and its subsection.

Protect Boot Loader with Password

Protects the boot loader and the system with an additional password. For more informa-
tion, see Section 12.2.6, “Setting a Boot Password”.

12.3.3.2 Kernel Parameters Tab

FIGURE 12.5: KERNEL PARAMETERS

Console resolution
The Console resolution option specifies the default screen resolution during the boot process.

Kernel Command Line Parameter

The optional kernel parameters are added at the end of the default parameters. For a list
of all possible parameters, see http://en.opensuse.org/Linuxrc .

Use graphical console

183 Configuring Advanced Options SLED 15

 When checked, the boot menu appears on a graphical splash screen rather than in a text
mode. The resolution of the boot screen can be then set from the Console resolution list,
and graphical theme definition le can be specified with the Console theme le-chooser.

Use Serial Console

If your machine is controlled via a serial console, activate this option and specify which
COM port to use at which speed. See info grub or http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/
manual/grub.html#Serial-terminal

12.4 Differences in Terminal Usage on IBM Z

On 3215 and 3270 terminals there are some differences and limitations on how to move the
cursor and how to issue editing commands within GRUB 2.

12.4.1 Limitations

Interactivity
Interactivity is strongly limited. Typing often does not result in visual feedback. To see
where the cursor is, type an underscore ( _ ).

Note: 3270 Compared to 3215

The 3270 terminal is much better at displaying and refreshing screens than the 3215
terminal.

Cursor Movement
“Traditional” cursor movement is not possible. Alt , Meta , Ctrl and the cursor keys
do not work. To move the cursor, use the key combinations listed in Section 12.4.2, “Key
Combinations”.

Caret
The caret ( ^ ) is used as a control character. To type a literal ^ followed by a letter,
type ^ , ^ , LETTER .

Enter
The Enter key does not work, use ^ – J instead.

184 Differences in Terminal Usage on IBM Z SLED 15

12.4.2 Key Combinations

Common Substitutes: ^ –J engage (“Enter”)

^ –L abort, return to previous

“state”

^ –I tab completion (in edit and

shell mode)

Keys Available in Menu ^ –A rst entry

Mode:
^ –E last entry

^ –P previous entry

^ –N next entry

^ –G previous page

^ –C next page

^ –F boot selected entry or enter

submenu (same as ^ –J )

E edit selected entry

C enter GRUB-Shell

Keys Available in Edit Mode: ^ –P previous line

^ –N next line

^ –B backward char

^ –F forward char

^ –A beginning of line

^ –E end of line

185 Key Combinations SLED 15

 ^ –H backspace

^ –D delete

^ –K kill line

^ –Y yank

^ –O open line

^ –L refresh screen

^ –X boot entry

^ –C enter GRUB-Shell

Keys Available in Command ^ –P previous command

Line Mode:
^ –N next command from history

^ –A beginning of line

^ –E end of line

^ –B backward char

^ –F forward char

^ –H backspace

^ –D delete

^ –K kill line

^ –U discard line

^ –Y yank

186 Key Combinations SLED 15

12.5 Helpful GRUB 2 Commands
grub2-mkconfig
Generates a new /boot/grub2/grub.cfg based on /etc/default/grub and the scripts
from /etc/grub.d/ .

EXAMPLE 12.1: USAGE OF GRUB2-MKCONFIG

grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/grub2/grub.cfg

Tip: Syntax Check

Running grub2-mkconfig without any parameters prints the configuration to STD-
OUT where it can be reviewed. Use grub2-script-check after /boot/grub2/
grub.cfg has been written to check its syntax.

Important: grub2-mkconfig Cannot Repair

UEFI Secure Boot Tables
If you are using UEFI Secure Boot and your system is not reaching GRUB 2 correctly
anymore, you may need to additionally reinstall Shim and regenerate the UEFI boot
table. To do so, use:

root # shim-install --config-file=/boot/grub2/grub.cfg

grub2-mkrescue
Creates a bootable rescue image of your installed GRUB 2 configuration.

EXAMPLE 12.2: USAGE OF GRUB2-MKRESCUE

grub2-mkrescue -o save_path/name.iso iso

grub2-script-check
Checks the given le for syntax errors.

EXAMPLE 12.3: USAGE OF GRUB2-SCRIPT-CHECK

grub2-script-check /boot/grub2/grub.cfg

187 Helpful GRUB 2 Commands SLED 15

grub2-once
Set the default boot entry for the next boot only. To get the list of available boot entries
use the --list option.

EXAMPLE 12.4: USAGE OF GRUB2-ONCE

grub2-once number_of_the_boot_entry

Tip: grub2-once Help

Call the program without any option to get a full list of all possible options.

12.6 More Information

Extensive information about GRUB 2 is available at http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/ . Also
refer to the grub info page. You can also search for the keyword “GRUB 2” in the Technical
Information Search at http://www.suse.com/support to get information about special issues.

188 More Information SLED 15

13 The systemd Daemon

The program systemd is the process with process ID 1. It is responsible for initializing the
system in the required way. systemd is started directly by the kernel and resists signal 9, which
normally terminates processes. All other programs are either started directly by systemd or by
one of its child processes.
Systemd is a replacement for the System V init daemon. systemd is fully compatible with System
V init (by supporting init scripts). One of the main advantages of systemd is that it considerably
speeds up boot time by aggressively paralleling service starts. Furthermore, systemd only starts a
service when it is really needed. Daemons are not started unconditionally at boot time, but rather
when being required for the rst time. systemd also supports Kernel Control Groups (cgroups),
snapshotting and restoring the system state and more. See http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Soft-
ware/systemd/ for details.

13.1 The systemd Concept

This section will go into detail about the concept behind systemd.

13.1.1 What Is systemd

systemd is a system and session manager for Linux, compatible with System V and LSB init
scripts. The main features are:

provides aggressive parallelization capabilities

uses socket and D-Bus activation for starting services

offers on-demand starting of daemons

keeps track of processes using Linux cgroups

supports snapshotting and restoring of the system state

maintains mount and automount points

implements an elaborate transactional dependency-based service control logic

189 The systemd Concept SLED 15

13.1.2 Unit File
A unit configuration le contains information about a service, a socket, a device, a mount point,
an automount point, a swap le or partition, a start-up target, a watched le system path,
a timer controlled and supervised by systemd, a temporary system state snapshot, a resource
management slice or a group of externally created processes. “Unit le” is a generic term used
by systemd for the following:

Service. Information about a process (for example running a daemon); le ends with .ser-
vice

Targets. Used for grouping units and as synchronization points during start-up; le ends
with .target

Sockets. Information about an IPC or network socket or a le system FIFO, for sock-
et-based activation (like inetd ); le ends with .socket

Path. Used to trigger other units (for example running a service when les change); le
ends with .path

Timer. Information about a timer controlled, for timer-based activation; le ends
with .timer

Mount point. Usually auto-generated by the fstab generator; le ends with .mount

Automount point. Information about a le system automount point; le ends with .auto-
mount

Swap. Information about a swap device or le for memory paging; le ends with .swap

Device. Information about a device unit as exposed in the sysfs/udev(7) device tree; le
ends with .device

Scope / Slice. A concept for hierarchically managing resources of a group of processes;

le ends with .scope/.slice

For more information about systemd.unit see http://www.freedesktop.org/software/sys-

temd/man/systemd.unit.html

190 Unit File SLED 15

13.2 Basic Usage
The System V init system uses several commands to handle services—the init scripts, insserv ,
telinit and others. systemd makes it easier to manage services, since there is only one com-
mand to memorize for the majority of service-handling tasks: systemctl . It uses the “command
plus subcommand” notation like git or zypper :

systemctl GENERAL OPTIONS SUBCOMMAND SUBCOMMAND OPTIONS

See man 1 systemctl for a complete manual.

Tip: Terminal Output and Bash Completion

If the output goes to a terminal (and not to a pipe or a le, for example) systemd com-
mands send long output to a pager by default. Use the --no-pager option to turn o
paging mode.
systemd also supports bash-completion, allowing you to enter the rst letters of a sub-
command and then press →| to automatically complete it. This feature is only available
in the bash shell and requires the installation of the package bash-completion .

13.2.1 Managing Services in a Running System

Subcommands for managing services are the same as for managing a service with System V init
( start , stop , ...). The general syntax for service management commands is as follows:

systemd

systemctl reload|restart|start|status|stop|... MY_SERVICE(S)

System V init

rcMY_SERVICE(S) reload|restart|start|status|stop|...

systemd allows you to manage several services in one go. Instead of executing init scripts one
after the other as with System V init, execute a command like the following:

tux > sudo systemctl start MY_1ST_SERVICE MY_2ND_SERVICE

191 Basic Usage SLED 15

To list all services available on the system:

tux > sudo systemctl list-unit-files --type=service

The following table lists the most important service management commands for systemd and
System V init:

TABLE 13.1: SERVICE MANAGEMENT COMMANDS

Task systemd Command System V init

Command

Starting. start start

Stopping. stop stop

Restarting. Shuts down services and starts restart restart

them afterward. If a service is not yet run-
ning it will be started.

Restarting conditionally. Restarts services if try-restart try-restart

they are currently running. Does nothing for
services that are not running.

Reloading. Tells services to reload their con- reload reload

figuration les without interrupting opera-
tion. Use case: Tell Apache to reload a mod-
ified httpd.conf configuration le. Note
that not all services support reloading.

Reloading or restarting. Reloads services reload-or-restart n/a

if reloading is supported, otherwise restarts
them. If a service is not yet running it will be
started.

Reloading or restarting conditionally. Re- reload-or-try-restart n/a

loads services if reloading is supported, oth-
erwise restarts them if currently running.
Does nothing for services that are not run-
ning.

192 Managing Services in a Running System SLED 15

Task systemd Command System V init
Command

Getting detailed status information. Lists in- status status

formation about the status of services. The
systemd command shows details such as
description, executable, status, cgroup, and
messages last issued by a service (see Sec-
tion 13.6.8, “Debugging Services”). The level of
details displayed with the System V init dif-
fers from service to service.

Getting short status information. Shows is-active status

whether services are active or not.

13.2.2 Permanently Enabling/Disabling Services

The service management commands mentioned in the previous section let you manipulate ser-
vices for the current session. systemd also lets you permanently enable or disable services, so
they are automatically started when requested or are always unavailable. You can either do this
by using YaST, or on the command line.

13.2.2.1 Enabling/Disabling Services on the Command Line

The following table lists enabling and disabling commands for systemd and System V init:

Important: Service Start

When enabling a service on the command line, it is not started automatically. It is sched-
uled to be started with the next system start-up or runlevel/target change. To immediate-
ly start a service after having enabled it, explicitly run systemctl start MY_SERVICE
or rc MY_SERVICE start .

193 Permanently Enabling/Disabling Services SLED 15

TABLE 13.2: COMMANDS FOR ENABLING AND DISABLING SERVICES

Task systemd Command System V init Com-

mand

Enabling. systemctl enable insserv

MY_SERVICE(S) MY_SERVICE(S) ,
chkconfig -a
MY_SERVICE(S)

Disabling. systemctl disable insserv -r

MY_SERVICE(S).service MY_SERVICE(S) ,
chkconfig -d
MY_SERVICE(S)

Checking. Shows whether a systemctl is-enabled chkconfig

service is enabled or not. MY_SERVICE MY_SERVICE

Re-enabling. Similar to systemctl reenable n/a

restarting a service, this MY_SERVICE
command rst disables and
then enables a service. Use-
ful to re-enable a service
with its defaults.

Masking. After “disabling” systemctl mask MY_SERVICE n/a

a service, it can still be
started manually. To com-
pletely disable a service,
you need to mask it. Use
with care.

Unmasking. A service that systemctl unmask MY_SERVICE n/a

has been masked can only
be used again after it has
been unmasked.

194 Permanently Enabling/Disabling Services SLED 15

13.3 System Start and Target Management
The entire process of starting the system and shutting it down is maintained by systemd. From
this point of view, the kernel can be considered a background process to maintain all other
processes and adjust CPU time and hardware access according to requests from other programs.

13.3.1 Targets Compared to Runlevels

With System V init the system was booted into a so-called “Runlevel”. A runlevel defines how the
system is started and what services are available in the running system. Runlevels are numbered;
the most commonly known ones are 0 (shutting down the system), 3 (multiuser with network)
and 5 (multiuser with network and display manager).
systemd introduces a new concept by using so-called “target units”. However, it remains fully
compatible with the runlevel concept. Target units are named rather than numbered and serve
specific purposes. For example, the targets local-fs.target and swap.target mount local
le systems and swap spaces.
The target graphical.target provides a multiuser system with network and display manager
capabilities and is equivalent to runlevel 5. Complex targets, such as graphical.target act
as “meta” targets by combining a subset of other targets. Since systemd makes it easy to create
custom targets by combining existing targets, it offers great flexibility.
The following list shows the most important systemd target units. For a full list refer to man
7 systemd.special .

SELECTED SYSTEMD TARGET UNITS

default.target
The target that is booted by default. Not a “real” target, but rather a symbolic link to an-
other target like graphic.target . Can be permanently changed via YaST (see Section 13.4,
“Managing Services with YaST”). To change it for a session, use the kernel parameter sys-
temd.unit=MY_TARGET.target at the boot prompt.

emergency.target
Starts an emergency shell on the console. Only use it at the boot prompt as systemd.u-
nit=emergency.target .

graphical.target
Starts a system with network, multiuser support and a display manager.

195 System Start and Target Management SLED 15

halt.target
Shuts down the system.

mail-transfer-agent.target
Starts all services necessary for sending and receiving mails.

multi-user.target
Starts a multiuser system with network.

reboot.target
Reboots the system.

rescue.target
Starts a single-user system without network.

To remain compatible with the System V init runlevel system, systemd provides special targets
named runlevelX.target mapping the corresponding runlevels numbered X .
If you want to know the current target, use the command: systemctl get-default

TABLE 13.3: SYSTEM V RUNLEVELS AND systemd TARGET UNITS

System V run- systemd target Purpose

level

0 runlevel0.target , halt.tar- System shutdown

get , poweroff.target

1, S runlevel1.target , rescue.tar- Single-user mode

get ,

2 runlevel2.target , mul- Local multiuser without remote

ti-user.target , network

3 runlevel3.target , mul- Full multiuser with network

ti-user.target ,

4 runlevel4.target Unused/User-defined

5 runlevel5.target , graphi- Full multiuser with network and

cal.target , display manager

196 Targets Compared to Runlevels SLED 15

System V run- systemd target Purpose
level

6 runlevel6.target , reboot.tar- System reboot

get ,

Important: systemd Ignores /etc/inittab

The runlevels in a System V init system are configured in /etc/inittab . systemd does
not use this configuration. Refer to Section 13.5.3, “Creating Custom Targets” for instructions
on how to create your own bootable target.

13.3.1.1 Commands to Change Targets

Use the following commands to operate with target units:

Task systemd Command System V init Command

Change the cur- systemctl isolate MY_TARGET .target telinit X

rent target/run-
level

Change to the systemctl default n/a

default tar-
get/runlevel

Get the current systemctl list-units --type=target who -r

target/runlevel With systemd there is usually more than one or
active target. The command lists all currently runlevel
active targets.

persistently Use the Services Manager or run the follow- Use the Services Manager
change the de- ing command: or change the line
fault runlevel ln -sf /usr/lib/systemd/system/ id: X :initdefault:
MY_TARGET .target /etc/systemd/system/de- in /etc/inittab
fault.target

197 Targets Compared to Runlevels SLED 15

 Task systemd Command System V init Command

Change the de- Enter the following option at the boot Enter the desired run-
fault runlevel for prompt level number at the boot
the current boot systemd.unit= MY_TARGET .target prompt.
process

Show a tar- systemctl show -p "Requires" MY_TAR- n/a

get's/runlevel's GET .target
dependencies systemctl show -p "Wants" MY_TAR-
GET .target

“Requires” lists the hard dependencies

(the ones that must be resolved), whereas
“Wants” lists the soft dependencies (the ones
that get resolved if possible).

13.3.2 Debugging System Start-Up

systemd offers the means to analyze the system start-up process. You can review the list of all
services and their status (rather than having to parse /varlog/ ). systemd also allows you to
scan the start-up procedure to nd out how much time each service start-up consumes.

13.3.2.1 Review Start-Up of Services

To review the complete list of services that have been started since booting the system, enter
the command systemctl . It lists all active services like shown below (shortened). To get more
information on a specific service, use systemctl status MY_SERVICE .
EXAMPLE 13.1: LIST ACTIVE SERVICES

root # systemctl
UNIT LOAD ACTIVE SUB JOB DESCRIPTION
[...]
iscsi.service loaded active exited Login and scanning of iSC+
kmod-static-nodes.service loaded active exited Create list of required s+
libvirtd.service loaded active running Virtualization daemon
nscd.service loaded active running Name Service Cache Daemon
chronyd.service loaded active running NTP Server Daemon
polkit.service loaded active running Authorization Manager

198 Debugging System Start-Up SLED 15

postfix.service loaded active running Postfix Mail Transport Ag+
rc-local.service loaded active exited /etc/init.d/boot.local Co+
rsyslog.service loaded active running System Logging Service
[...]
LOAD = Reflects whether the unit definition was properly loaded.
ACTIVE = The high-level unit activation state, i.e. generalization of SUB.
SUB = The low-level unit activation state, values depend on unit type.

161 loaded units listed. Pass --all to see loaded but inactive units, too.
To show all installed unit files use 'systemctl list-unit-files'.

To restrict the output to services that failed to start, use the --failed option:
EXAMPLE 13.2: LIST FAILED SERVICES

root # systemctl --failed

UNIT LOAD ACTIVE SUB JOB DESCRIPTION
apache2.service loaded failed failed apache
NetworkManager.service loaded failed failed Network Manager
plymouth-start.service loaded failed failed Show Plymouth Boot Screen

[...]

13.3.2.2 Debug Start-Up Time

To debug system start-up time, systemd offers the systemd-analyze command. It shows the
total start-up time, a list of services ordered by start-up time and can also generate an SVG
graphic showing the time services took to start in relation to the other services.

Listing the System Start-Up Time

root # systemd-analyze
Startup finished in 2666ms (kernel) + 21961ms (userspace) = 24628ms

Listing the Services Start-Up Time

root # systemd-analyze blame

6472ms systemd-modules-load.service
5833ms remount-rootfs.service
4597ms network.service
4254ms systemd-vconsole-setup.service
4096ms postfix.service
2998ms xdm.service
2483ms localnet.service
2470ms SuSEfirewall2_init.service
2189ms avahi-daemon.service

199 Debugging System Start-Up SLED 15

 2120ms systemd-logind.service
1080ms chronyd.service
[...]
75ms fbset.service
72ms purge-kernels.service
47ms dev-vda1.swap
38ms bluez-coldplug.service
35ms splash_early.service

Services Start-Up Time Graphics

root # systemd-analyze plot > jupiter.example.com-startup.svg

13.3.2.3 Review the Complete Start-Up Process

The above-mentioned commands let you review the services that started and the time it took
to start them. If you need to know more details, you can tell systemd to verbosely log the
complete start-up procedure by entering the following parameters at the boot prompt:

systemd.log_level=debug systemd.log_target=kmsg

200 Debugging System Start-Up SLED 15

Now systemd writes its log messages into the kernel ring buer. View that buer with dmesg :

tux > dmesg -T | less

13.3.3 System V Compatibility

systemd is compatible with System V, allowing you to still use existing System V init scripts.
However, there is at least one known issue where a System V init script does not work with
systemd out of the box: starting a service as a different user via su or sudo in init scripts will
result in a failure of the script, producing an “Access denied” error.
When changing the user with su or sudo , a PAM session is started. This session will be termi-
nated after the init script is finished. As a consequence, the service that has been started by the
init script will also be terminated. To work around this error, proceed as follows:

1. Create a service le wrapper with the same name as the init script plus the le name
extension .service :

[Unit]
Description=DESCRIPTION
After=network.target

[Service]
User=USER
Type=forking 1

PIDFile=PATH TO PID FILE 1

ExecStart=PATH TO INIT SCRIPT start

ExecStop=PATH TO INIT SCRIPT stop
ExecStopPost=/usr/bin/rm -f PATH TO PID FILE 1

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target 2

Replace all values written in UPPERCASE LETTERS with appropriate values.

1 Optional—only use if the init script starts a daemon.

2 multi-user.target also starts the init script when booting into graphical.tar-
get . If it should only be started when booting into the display manager, user graph-
ical.target here.

2. Start the daemon with systemctl start APPLICATION .

201 System V Compatibility SLED 15

13.4 Managing Services with YaST
Basic service management can also be done with the YaST Services Manager module. It supports
starting, stopping, enabling and disabling services. It also lets you show a service's status and
change the default target. Start the YaST module with YaST System Services Manager.

FIGURE 13.1: SERVICES MANAGER

Changing the Default System Target

To change the target the system boots into, choose a target from the Default System Target
drop-down box. The most often used targets are Graphical Interface (starting a graphical
login screen) and Multi-User (starting the system in command line mode).

Starting or Stopping a Service

Select a service from the table. The Active column shows whether it is currently running
(Active) or not (Inactive). Toggle its status by choosing Start/Stop.
Starting or stopping a service changes its status for the currently running session. To change
its status throughout a reboot, you need to enable or disable it.

Enabling or Disabling a Service

Select a service from the table. The Enabled column shows whether it is currently Enabled
or Disabled. Toggle its status by choosing Enable/Disable.

202 Managing Services with YaST SLED 15

 By enabling or disabling a service you configure whether it is started during booting (En-
abled) or not (Disabled). This setting will not affect the current session. To change its status
in the current session, you need to start or stop it.

View a Status Messages

To view the status message of a service, select it from the list and choose Show Details.
The output you will see is identical to the one generated by the command systemctl -
l status MY_SERVICE .

Warning: Faulty Runlevel Settings May Damage

Your System
Faulty runlevel settings may make your system unusable. Before applying your changes,
make absolutely sure that you know their consequences.

13.5 Customization of systemd

The following sections contain some examples for systemd customization.

Warning: Avoiding Overwritten Customization

Always do systemd customization in /etc/systemd/ , never in /usr/lib/systemd/ .
Otherwise your changes will be overwritten by the next update of systemd.

13.5.1 Customizing Unit Files

The systemd unit les are located in /usr/lib/systemd/system . If you want to customize
them, proceed as follows:

1. Copy the les you want to modify from /usr/lib/systemd/system to /etc/sys-

temd/system . Keep the le names identical to the original ones.

2. Modify the copies in /etc/systemd/system according to your needs.

3. For an overview of your configuration changes, use the systemd-delta command. It

can compare and identify configuration les that override other configuration les. For
details, refer to the systemd-delta man page.

203 Customization of systemd SLED 15

The modified les in /etc/systemd will take precedence over the original les in /usr/lib/
systemd/system , provided that their le name is the same.

13.5.1.1 Converting xinetd Services to systemd

Since the release of SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 15, the xinetd infrastructure has been
removed. This section outlines how to convert existing custom xinetd service les to systemd
sockets.
For each xinetd service le, you need at least two systemd unit les: the socket le ( *.sock-
et ) and an associated service le ( *.service ). The socket le tells systemd which socket to
create, and the service le tells systemd which executable to start.
Consider the following example xinetd service le:

root # cat /etc/xinetd.d/example

service example
{
socket_type = stream
protocol = tcp
port = 10085
wait = no
user = user
group = users
groups = yes
server = /usr/libexec/example/exampled
server_args = -auth=bsdtcp exampledump
disable = no
}

To convert it to systemd , you need the following two matching les:

root # cat /usr/lib/systemd/system/example.socket

[Socket]
ListenStream=0.0.0.0:10085
Accept=false

[Install]
WantedBy=sockets.target

root # cat /usr/lib/systemd/system/example.service

[Unit]
Description=example

[Service]

204 Customizing Unit Files SLED 15

ExecStart=/usr/libexec/example/exampled -auth=bsdtcp exampledump
User=user
Group=users
StandardInput=socket

For a complete list of the systemd 'socket' and 'service' le options, refer to the systemd.socket
and systemd.service manual pages ( man 5 systemd.socket , man 5 systemd.service ).

13.5.2 Creating “Drop-in” Files

If you only want to add a few lines to a configuration le or modify a small part of it, you can
use so-called “drop-in” les. Drop-in les let you extend the configuration of unit les without
having to edit or override the unit les themselves.
For example, to change one value for the FOOBAR service located in /usr/lib/systemd/sys-
tem/FOOBAR.SERVICE , proceed as follows:

1. Create a directory called /etc/systemd/system/FOOBAR.service.d/ .

Note the .d suffix. The directory must otherwise be named like the service that you want
to patch with the drop-in le.

2. In that directory, create a le WHATEVERMODIFICATION.conf .

Make sure it only contains the line with the value that you want to modify.

3. Save your changes to the le. It will be used as an extension of the original le.

13.5.3 Creating Custom Targets

On System V init SUSE systems, runlevel 4 is unused to allow administrators to create their
own runlevel configuration. systemd allows you to create any number of custom targets. It is
suggested to start by adapting an existing target such as graphical.target .

1. Copy the configuration le /usr/lib/systemd/system/graphical.target to /etc/

systemd/system/MY_TARGET.target and adjust it according to your needs.

2. The configuration le copied in the previous step already covers the required (“hard”)
dependencies for the target. To also cover the wanted (“soft”) dependencies, create a
directory /etc/systemd/system/MY_TARGET.target.wants .

3. For each wanted service, create a symbolic link from /usr/lib/systemd/system into /
etc/systemd/system/MY_TARGET.target.wants .

205 Creating “Drop-in” Files SLED 15

 4. When you have finished setting up the target, reload the systemd configuration to make
the new target available:

tux > sudo systemctl daemon-reload

13.6 Advanced Usage

The following sections cover advanced topics for system administrators. For even more advanced
systemd documentation, refer to Lennart Pöttering's series about systemd for administrators at
http://0pointer.de/blog/projects .

13.6.1 Cleaning Temporary Directories

systemd supports cleaning temporary directories regularly. The configuration from the previ-
ous system version is automatically migrated and active. tmpfiles.d —which is responsible
for managing temporary les—reads its configuration from /etc/tmpfiles.d/*.conf , /run/
tmpfiles.d/*.conf , and /usr/lib/tmpfiles.d/*.conf les. Configuration placed in /etc/
tmpfiles.d/*.conf overrides related configurations from the other two directories ( /usr/
lib/tmpfiles.d/*.conf is where packages store their configuration les).

The configuration format is one line per path containing action and path, and optionally mode,
ownership, age and argument elds, depending on the action. The following example unlinks
the X11 lock les:

Type Path Mode UID GID Age Argument

r /tmp/.X[0-9]*-lock

To get the status the tmpfile timer:

tux > sudo systemctl status systemd-tmpfiles-clean.timer

systemd-tmpfiles-clean.timer - Daily Cleanup of Temporary Directories
Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/systemd-tmpfiles-clean.timer; static)
Active: active (waiting) since Tue 2018-04-09 15:30:36 CEST; 1 weeks 6 days ago
Docs: man:tmpfiles.d(5)
man:systemd-tmpfiles(8)

Apr 09 15:30:36 jupiter systemd[1]: Starting Daily Cleanup of Temporary Directories.

Apr 09 15:30:36 jupiter systemd[1]: Started Daily Cleanup of Temporary Directories.

For more information on temporary les handling, see man 5 tmpfiles.d .

206 Advanced Usage SLED 15

13.6.2 System Log
Section 13.6.8, “Debugging Services” explains how to view log messages for a given service. How-
ever, displaying log messages is not restricted to service logs. You can also access and query the
complete log messages written by systemd —the so-called “Journal”. Use the command jour-
nalctl to display the complete log messages starting with the oldest entries. Refer to man 1
journalctl for options such as applying filters or changing the output format.

13.6.3 Snapshots
You can save the current state of systemd to a named snapshot and later revert to it with the
isolate subcommand. This is useful when testing services or custom targets, because it allows
you to return to a defined state at any time. A snapshot is only available in the current session
and will automatically be deleted on reboot. A snapshot name must end in .snapshot .

Create a Snapshot

tux > sudo systemctl snapshot MY_SNAPSHOT.snapshot

Delete a Snapshot

tux > sudo systemctl delete MY_SNAPSHOT.snapshot

View a Snapshot

tux > sudo systemctl show MY_SNAPSHOT.snapshot

Activate a Snapshot

tux > sudo systemctl isolate MY_SNAPSHOT.snapshot

13.6.4 Loading Kernel Modules

With systemd , kernel modules can automatically be loaded at boot time via a configuration
le in /etc/modules-load.d . The le should be named MODULE .conf and have the following
content:

# load module MODULE at boot time

MODULE

207 System Log SLED 15

In case a package installs a configuration le for loading a kernel module, the le gets installed
to /usr/lib/modules-load.d . If two configuration les with the same name exist, the one in
/etc/modules-load.d tales precedence.

For more information, see the modules-load.d(5) man page.

13.6.5 Performing Actions before Loading a Service

With System V init actions that need to be performed before loading a service, needed to be
specified in /etc/init.d/before.local . This procedure is no longer supported with systemd.
If you need to do actions before starting services, do the following:

Loading Kernel Modules

Create a drop-in le in /etc/modules-load.d directory (see man modules-load.d for
the syntax)

Creating Files or Directories, Cleaning-up Directories, Changing Ownership

Create a drop-in le in /etc/tmpfiles.d (see man tmpfiles.d for the syntax)

Other Tasks
Create a system service le, for example /etc/systemd/system/before.service , from
the following template:

[Unit]
Before=NAME OF THE SERVICE YOU WANT THIS SERVICE TO BE STARTED BEFORE
[Service]
Type=oneshot
RemainAfterExit=true
ExecStart=YOUR_COMMAND
# beware, executable is run directly, not through a shell, check the man pages
# systemd.service and systemd.unit for full syntax
[Install]
# target in which to start the service
WantedBy=multi-user.target
#WantedBy=graphical.target

When the service le is created, you should run the following commands (as root ):

tux > sudo systemctl daemon-reload

tux > sudo systemctl enable before

Every time you modify the service le, you need to run:

tux > sudo systemctl daemon-reload

208 Performing Actions before Loading a Service SLED 15

13.6.6 Kernel Control Groups (cgroups)
On a traditional System V init system it is not always possible to clearly assign a process to the
service that spawned it. Some services, such as Apache, spawn a lot of third-party processes (for
example CGI or Java processes), which themselves spawn more processes. This makes a clear
assignment difficult or even impossible. Additionally, a service may not terminate correctly,
leaving some children alive.
systemd solves this problem by placing each service into its own cgroup. cgroups are a ker-
nel feature that allows aggregating processes and all their children into hierarchical organized
groups. systemd names each cgroup after its service. Since a non-privileged process is not al-
lowed to “leave” its cgroup, this provides an effective way to label all processes spawned by a
service with the name of the service.
To list all processes belonging to a service, use the command systemd-cgls . The result will
look like the following (shortened) example:

EXAMPLE 13.3: LIST ALL PROCESSES BELONGING TO A SERVICE

root # systemd-cgls --no-pager

├─1 /usr/lib/systemd/systemd --switched-root --system --deserialize 20
├─user.slice
│ └─user-1000.slice
│ ├─session-102.scope
│ │ ├─12426 gdm-session-worker [pam/gdm-password]
│ │ ├─15831 gdm-session-worker [pam/gdm-password]
│ │ ├─15839 gdm-session-worker [pam/gdm-password]
│ │ ├─15858 /usr/lib/gnome-terminal-server

[...]

└─system.slice
├─systemd-hostnamed.service
│ └─17616 /usr/lib/systemd/systemd-hostnamed
├─cron.service
│ └─1689 /usr/sbin/cron -n
├─postfix.service
│ ├─ 1676 /usr/lib/postfix/master -w
│ ├─ 1679 qmgr -l -t fifo -u
│ └─15590 pickup -l -t fifo -u
├─sshd.service
│ └─1436 /usr/sbin/sshd -D

[...]

209 Kernel Control Groups (cgroups) SLED 15

See Book “System Analysis and Tuning Guide”, Chapter 9 “Kernel Control Groups” for more information
about cgroups.

13.6.7 Terminating Services (Sending Signals)

As explained in Section 13.6.6, “Kernel Control Groups (cgroups)”, it is not always possible to assign a
process to its parent service process in a System V init system. This makes it difficult to terminate
a service and all of its children. Child processes that have not been terminated will remain as
zombie processes.
systemd's concept of confining each service into a cgroup makes it possible to clearly identify all
child processes of a service and therefore allows you to send a signal to each of these processes.
Use systemctl kill to send signals to services. For a list of available signals refer to man
7 signals .

Sending SIGTERM to a Service

SIGTERM is the default signal that is sent.

tux > sudo systemctl kill MY_SERVICE

Sending SIGNAL to a Service

Use the -s option to specify the signal that should be sent.

tux > sudo systemctl kill -s SIGNAL MY_SERVICE

Selecting Processes
By default the kill command sends the signal to all processes of the specified cgroup.
You can restrict it to the control or the main process. The latter is for example useful to
force a service to reload its configuration by sending SIGHUP :

tux > sudo systemctl kill -s SIGHUP --kill-who=main MY_SERVICE

Warning: Terminating or Restarting the D-Bus

Service Is Not Supported
The D-Bus service is the message bus for communication between systemd clients and the
systemd manager that is running as pid 1. Even though dbus is a stand-alone daemon,
it is an integral part of the initialization infrastructure.

210 Terminating Services (Sending Signals) SLED 15

 Terminating dbus or restarting it in the running system is similar to an attempt to termi-
nate or restart pid 1. It will break systemd client/server communication and make most
systemd functions unusable.
Therefore, terminating or restarting dbus is neither recommended nor supported.

13.6.8 Debugging Services

By default, systemd is not overly verbose. If a service was started successfully, no output will
be produced. In case of a failure, a short error message will be displayed. However, systemctl
status provides means to debug start-up and operation of a service.

systemd comes with its own logging mechanism (“The Journal”) that logs system messages. This
allows you to display the service messages together with status messages. The status command
works similar to tail and can also display the log messages in different formats, making it a
powerful debugging tool.

Show Service Start-Up Failure

Whenever a service fails to start, use systemctl status MY_SERVICE to get a detailed
error message:

root # systemctl start apache2

Job failed. See system journal and 'systemctl status' for details.
root # systemctl status apache2
Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/apache2.service; disabled)
Active: failed (Result: exit-code) since Mon, 04 Apr 2018 16:52:26 +0200; 29s ago
Process: 3088 ExecStart=/usr/sbin/start_apache2 -D SYSTEMD -k start (code=exited,
status=1/FAILURE)
CGroup: name=systemd:/system/apache2.service

Apr 04 16:52:26 g144 start_apache2[3088]: httpd2-prefork: Syntax error on line

205 of /etc/apache2/httpd.conf: Syntax error on li...alHost>

Show Last N Service Messages

The default behavior of the status subcommand is to display the last ten messages a
service issued. To change the number of messages to show, use the --lines=N parameter:

tux > sudo systemctl status chronyd

tux > sudo systemctl --lines=20 status chronyd

Show Service Messages in Append Mode

211 Debugging Services SLED 15

 To display a “live stream” of service messages, use the --follow option, which works
like tail -f :

tux > sudo systemctl --follow status chronyd

Messages Output Format

The --output=MODE parameter allows you to change the output format of service mes-
sages. The most important modes available are:

short
The default format. Shows the log messages with a human readable time stamp.

verbose
Full output with all elds.

cat
Terse output without time stamps.

13.7 More Information

For more information on systemd refer to the following online resources:

Homepage
http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd

systemd for Administrators

Lennart Pöttering, one of the systemd authors, has written a series of blog entries (13 at
the time of writing this chapter). Find them at http://0pointer.de/blog/projects .

212 More Information SLED 15

III System

14 32-Bit and 64-Bit Applications in a 64-Bit System Environment 214

15 journalctl: Query the systemd Journal 216

16 update-alternatives: Managing Multiple Versions of Commands and

Files 224

17 Basic Networking 232

18 Printer Operation 294

19 Graphical User Interface 308

20 Accessing File Systems with FUSE 323

21 Managing Kernel Modules 325

22 Dynamic Kernel Device Management with udev 329

23 Live Patching the Linux Kernel Using kGraft 341

24 Special System Features 347

25 Using NetworkManager 358

26 Power Management 370

27 VM Guest 376

28 Persistent Memory 377

14 32-Bit and 64-Bit Applications in a 64-Bit System
Environment

SUSE® Linux Enterprise Desktop is available for 64-bit platforms. Developers have not ported
all 32-bit applications to 64-bit systems. But SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop supports 32-bit
application use in 64-bit system environments. This chapter offers a brief overview of 32-bit
support implementation on 64-bit SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop platforms.
SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop for the 64-bit platforms AMD64 and Intel  64 is designed so
that existing 32-bit applications run in the 64-bit environment “out-of-the-box.” This support
means that you can continue to use your preferred 32-bit applications without waiting for a
corresponding 64-bit port to become available.

Note: No Support for Building 32-bit Applications

SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop does not support compilation of 32-bit applications. It
only offers runtime support for 32-bit binaries.

14.1 Runtime Support

Important: Conflicts Between Application Versions

If an application is available for both 32-bit and 64-bit environments, installing both
versions may cause problems. In such cases, decide on one version to install to avoid
potential runtime errors.
An exception to this rule is PAM (pluggable authentication modules). SUSE Linux Enter-
prise Desktop uses PAM in the authentication process as a layer that mediates between
user and application. Always install both PAM versions on 64-bit operating systems that
also run 32-bit applications.

For correct execution, every application requires a range of libraries. Unfortunately, the names
are identical for the 32-bit and 64-bit versions of these libraries. They must be differentiated
from each other in another way.

214 Runtime Support SLED 15

To retain compatibility with 32-bit versions, 64-bit and 32-bit libraries are stored in the same
location. The 32-bit version of libc.so.6 is located under /lib/libc.so.6 in both 32-bit
and 64-bit environments.
All 64-bit libraries and object les are located in directories called lib64 . The 64-bit object les
normally found under /lib and /usr/lib are now found under /lib64 and /usr/lib64 .
This means that space is available for 32-bit libraries under /lib and /usr/lib , so the le
name for both versions can remain unchanged.
If the data content of 32-bit subdirectories under /lib does not depend on word size, they are
not moved. This scheme conforms to LSB (Linux Standards Base) and FHS (File System Hierarchy
Standard).

14.2 Kernel Specifications

The 64-bit kernels for AMD64/Intel 64 offer both a 64-bit and a 32-bit kernel ABI (application
binary interface). The latter is identical to the ABI for the corresponding 32-bit kernel. This
means that communication between both 32-bit and 64-bit applications with 64-bit kernels are
identical.
The 32-bit system call emulation for 64-bit kernels does not support all the APIs used by system
programs. This depends on the platform. For this reason, few applications, like lspci , must
be compiled.
A 64-bit kernel can only load 64-bit kernel modules. You must compile 64-bit modules specifi-
cally for 64-bit kernels. It is not possible to use 32-bit kernel modules with 64-bit kernels.

Tip: Kernel-loadable Modules

Some applications require separate kernel-loadable modules. If you intend to use a 32-
bit application in a 64-bit system environment, contact the provider of the application
and SUSE. Make sure that the 64-bit version of the kernel-loadable module and the 32-
bit compiled version of the kernel API are available for this module.

215 Kernel Specifications SLED 15

15 journalctl: Query the systemd Journal
When systemd replaced traditional init scripts in SUSE Linux Enterprise 12 (see Chapter 13, The
systemd Daemon), it introduced its own logging system called journal. There is no need to run
a syslog based service anymore, as all system events are written in the journal.
The journal itself is a system service managed by systemd . Its full name is systemd-jour-
nald.service . It collects and stores logging data by maintaining structured indexed journals
based on logging information received from the kernel, user processes, standard input, and sys-
tem service errors. The systemd-journald service is on by default:

tux > sudo systemctl status systemd-journald

systemd-journald.service - Journal Service
Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/systemd-journald.service; static)
Active: active (running) since Mon 2014-05-26 08:36:59 EDT; 3 days ago
Docs: man:systemd-journald.service(8)
man:journald.conf(5)
Main PID: 413 (systemd-journal)
Status: "Processing requests..."
CGroup: /system.slice/systemd-journald.service
└─413 /usr/lib/systemd/systemd-journald
[...]

15.1 Making the Journal Persistent

The journal stores log data in /run/log/journal/ by default. Because the /run/ directory is
volatile by nature, log data is lost at reboot. To make the log data persistent, the directory /
var/log/journal/ must exist with correct ownership and permissions so the systemd-journald
service can store its data. systemd will create the directory for you—and switch to persistent
logging—if you do the following:

1. As root , open /etc/systemd/journald.conf for editing.

root # vi /etc/systemd/journald.conf

2. Uncomment the line containing Storage= and change it to

[...]
[Journal]
Storage=persistent
#Compress=yes

216 Making the Journal Persistent SLED 15

 [...]

3. Save the le and restart systemd-journald:

root # systemctl restart systemd-journald

15.2 journalctl Useful Switches

This section introduces several common useful options to enhance the default journalctl
behavior. All switches are described in the journalctl manual page, man 1 journalctl .

Tip: Messages Related to a Specific Executable

To show all journal messages related to a specific executable, specify the full path to the
executable:

tux > sudo journalctl /usr/lib/systemd/systemd

-f
Shows only the most recent journal messages, and prints new log entries as they are added
to the journal.

-e
Prints the messages and jumps to the end of the journal, so that the latest entries are visible
within the pager.

-r
Prints the messages of the journal in reverse order, so that the latest entries are listed rst.

-k
Shows only kernel messages. This is equivalent to the eld match _TRANSPORT=kernel
(see Section 15.3.3, “Filtering Based on Fields”).

-u
Shows only messages for the specified systemd unit. This is equivalent to the eld match
_SYSTEMD_UNIT=UNIT (see Section 15.3.3, “Filtering Based on Fields”).

tux > sudo journalctl -u apache2

[...]
Jun 03 10:07:11 pinkiepie systemd[1]: Starting The Apache Webserver...

217 journalctl Useful Switches SLED 15

 Jun 03 10:07:12 pinkiepie systemd[1]: Started The Apache Webserver.

15.3 Filtering the Journal Output

When called without switches, journalctl shows the full content of the journal, the oldest
entries listed rst. The output can be filtered by specific switches and elds.

15.3.1 Filtering Based on a Boot Number

journalctl can filter messages based on a specific system boot. To list all available boots, run

tux > sudo journalctl --list-boots

-1 097ed2cd99124a2391d2cffab1b566f0 Mon 2014-05-26 08:36:56 EDT—Fri 2014-05-30 05:33:44
EDT
0 156019a44a774a0bb0148a92df4af81b Fri 2014-05-30 05:34:09 EDT—Fri 2014-05-30 06:15:01
EDT

The rst column lists the boot offset: 0 for the current boot, -1 for the previous one, -2 for
the one prior to that, etc. The second column contains the boot ID followed by the limiting time
stamps of the specific boot.
Show all messages from the current boot:

tux > sudo journalctl -b

If you need to see journal messages from the previous boot, add an offset parameter. The fol-
lowing example outputs the previous boot messages:

tux > sudo journalctl -b -1

Another way is to list boot messages based on the boot ID. For this purpose, use the _BOOT_ID
eld:

tux > sudo journalctl _BOOT_ID=156019a44a774a0bb0148a92df4af81b

15.3.2 Filtering Based on Time Interval

You can filter the output of journalctl by specifying the starting and/or ending date. The date
specification should be of the format "2014-06-30 9:17:16". If the time part is omitted, midnight
is assumed. If seconds are omitted, ":00" is assumed. If the date part is omitted, the current day
is assumed. Instead of numeric expression, you can specify the keywords "yesterday", "today",

218 Filtering the Journal Output SLED 15

or "tomorrow". They refer to midnight of the day before the current day, of the current day, or
of the day after the current day. If you specify "now", it refers to the current time. You can also
specify relative times prefixed with - or + , referring to times before or after the current time.
Show only new messages since now, and update the output continuously:

tux > sudo journalctl --since "now" -f

Show all messages since last midnight till 3:20am:

tux > sudo journalctl --since "today" --until "3:20"

15.3.3 Filtering Based on Fields

You can filter the output of the journal by specific elds. The syntax of a eld to be matched is
FIELD_NAME=MATCHED_VALUE , such as _SYSTEMD_UNIT=httpd.service . You can specify mul-
tiple matches in a single query to filter the output messages even more. See man 7 sys-
temd.journal-fields for a list of default elds.

Show messages produced by a specific process ID:

tux > sudo journalctl _PID=1039

Show messages belonging to a specific user ID:

# journalctl _UID=1000

Show messages from the kernel ring buer (the same as dmesg produces):

tux > sudo journalctl _TRANSPORT=kernel

Show messages from the service's standard or error output:

tux > sudo journalctl _TRANSPORT=stdout

Show messages produced by a specified service only:

tux > sudo journalctl _SYSTEMD_UNIT=avahi-daemon.service

If two different elds are specified, only entries that match both expressions at the same time
are shown:

tux > sudo journalctl _SYSTEMD_UNIT=avahi-daemon.service _PID=1488

If two matches refer to the same eld, all entries matching either expression are shown:

tux > sudo journalctl _SYSTEMD_UNIT=avahi-daemon.service _SYSTEMD_UNIT=dbus.service

219 Filtering Based on Fields SLED 15

You can use the '+' separator to combine two expressions in a logical 'OR'. The following example
shows all messages from the Avahi service process with the process ID 1480 together with all
messages from the D-Bus service:

tux > sudo journalctl _SYSTEMD_UNIT=avahi-daemon.service _PID=1480 +

_SYSTEMD_UNIT=dbus.service

15.4 Investigating systemd Errors

This section introduces a simple example to illustrate how to nd and x the error reported by
systemd during apache2 start-up.

1. Try to start the apache2 service:

# systemctl start apache2

Job for apache2.service failed. See 'systemctl status apache2' and 'journalctl -xn'
for details.

2. Let us see what the service's status says:

tux > sudo systemctl status apache2

apache2.service - The Apache Webserver
Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/apache2.service; disabled)
Active: failed (Result: exit-code) since Tue 2014-06-03 11:08:13 CEST; 7min ago
Process: 11026 ExecStop=/usr/sbin/start_apache2 -D SYSTEMD -DFOREGROUND \
-k graceful-stop (code=exited, status=1/FAILURE)

The ID of the process causing the failure is 11026.

3. Show the verbose version of messages related to process ID 11026:

tux > sudo journalctl -o verbose _PID=11026

[...]
MESSAGE=AH00526: Syntax error on line 6 of /etc/apache2/default-server.conf:
[...]
MESSAGE=Invalid command 'DocumenttRoot', perhaps misspelled or defined by a module
[...]

4. Fix the typo inside /etc/apache2/default-server.conf , start the apache2 service, and
print its status:

tux > sudo systemctl start apache2 && systemctl status apache2
apache2.service - The Apache Webserver

220 Investigating systemd Errors SLED 15

 Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/apache2.service; disabled)
Active: active (running) since Tue 2014-06-03 11:26:24 CEST; 4ms ago
Process: 11026 ExecStop=/usr/sbin/start_apache2 -D SYSTEMD -DFOREGROUND
-k graceful-stop (code=exited, status=1/FAILURE)
Main PID: 11263 (httpd2-prefork)
Status: "Processing requests..."
CGroup: /system.slice/apache2.service
├─11263 /usr/sbin/httpd2-prefork -f /etc/apache2/httpd.conf -D [...]
├─11280 /usr/sbin/httpd2-prefork -f /etc/apache2/httpd.conf -D [...]
├─11281 /usr/sbin/httpd2-prefork -f /etc/apache2/httpd.conf -D [...]
├─11282 /usr/sbin/httpd2-prefork -f /etc/apache2/httpd.conf -D [...]
├─11283 /usr/sbin/httpd2-prefork -f /etc/apache2/httpd.conf -D [...]
└─11285 /usr/sbin/httpd2-prefork -f /etc/apache2/httpd.conf -D [...]

15.5 Journald Configuration

The behavior of the systemd-journald service can be adjusted by modifying /etc/sys-
temd/journald.conf . This section introduces only basic option settings. For a complete le
description, see man 5 journald.conf . Note that you need to restart the journal for the changes
to take effect with

tux > sudo systemctl restart systemd-journald

15.5.1 Changing the Journal Size Limit

If the journal log data is saved to a persistent location (see Section 15.1, “Making the Journal Persis-
tent”), it uses up to 10% of the le system the /var/log/journal resides on. For example, if /
var/log/journal is located on a 30 GB /var partition, the journal may use up to 3 GB of the
disk space. To change this limit, change (and uncomment) the SystemMaxUse option:

SystemMaxUse=50M

15.5.2 Forwarding the Journal to /dev/ttyX

You can forward the journal to a terminal device to inform you about system messages on a
preferred terminal screen, for example /dev/tty12 . Change the following journald options to

ForwardToConsole=yes
TTYPath=/dev/tty12

221 Journald Configuration SLED 15

15.5.3 Forwarding the Journal to Syslog Facility
Journald is backward compatible with traditional syslog implementations such as rsyslog .
Make sure the following is valid:

rsyslog is installed.

tux > sudo rpm -q rsyslog

rsyslog-7.4.8-2.16.x86_64

rsyslog service is enabled.

tux > sudo systemctl is-enabled rsyslog

enabled

Forwarding to syslog is enabled in /etc/systemd/journald.conf .

ForwardToSyslog=yes

15.6 Using YaST to Filter the systemd Journal

For an easy way of filtering the systemd journal (without dealing with the journalctl syntax),
you can use the YaST journal module. After installing it with sudo zypper in yast2-journal ,
start it from YaST by selecting System Systemd Journal. Alternatively, start it from command
line by entering sudo yast2 journal .

FIGURE 15.1: YAST SYSTEMD JOURNAL

222 Forwarding the Journal to Syslog Facility SLED 15

The module displays the log entries in a table. The search box on top allows you to search for
entries that contain certain characters, similar to using grep . To filter the entries by date and
time, unit, le, or priority, click Change filters and set the respective options.

15.7 Viewing Logs in GNOME

You can view the journal with GNOME Logs. Start it from the application menu. To view system
log messages, it needs to be run as root, for example with xdg-su gnome-logs . This command
can be executed when pressing Alt – F2 .

223 Viewing Logs in GNOME SLED 15

16 update-alternatives: Managing Multiple Ver-
sions of Commands and Files

Often, there are several versions of the same tool installed on a system. To give ad-
ministrators a choice and to make it possible to install and use different versions
side by side, the alternatives system allows managing such versions consistently.

16.1 Overview
On SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop, some programs perform the same or similar tasks. For ex-
ample, if Java 1.7 and Java 1.8 are both installed on the system, the alternatives system script
( update-alternatives ) is called from inside the RPM package. By default, the alternatives
system will refer to version 1.8: Higher versions also have a higher priority. However, the ad-
ministrator can change the default and can point the generic name to version 1.7.
The following terminology is used in this chapter:

TERMINOLOGY

Administrative directory
The default /var/lib/rpm/alternatives directory contains information about the cur-
rent state of alternatives.

Alternative
The name of a specific le in the le system, which can be made accessible via a generic
name using the alternatives system.

Alternatives directory
The default /etc/alternatives directory containing symbolic links.

Generic name
A name (for example, /usr/bin/edit ) that refers to one le out of several available using
the alternatives system.

Link group
A set of related symbolic links that can be updated as a group.

Master link

224 Overview SLED 15

 The link in a link group that determines how the other links in the group are configured.

Slave link
A link in a link group controlled by the master link.

Symbolic link (Symlink)

A le that is a reference to another le in the same le system. The alternatives system
uses symbolic links in the alternatives directory to switch between versions of a le.
Symbolic links in the alternatives directory can be modified by the administrator through
the update-alternatives command.

The alternatives system provides the update-alternatives command to create, remove, main-
tain, and show information about symbolic links. While these symbolic links usually point to
commands, they can also point to JAR archives, man pages, and other les. Examples in this
chapter use commands and man pages, but they are also applicable to other le types.
The alternatives system uses the alternatives directory to collect links to possible alternatives.
When a new package with an alternative is installed, the new alternative is added to the system.
Whether the new package's alternative is selected as the default depends on its priority and on
the mode that is set. Usually, packages with a higher version also have a higher priority. The
alternatives system can operate in two modes:

Automatic Mode. In this mode, the alternatives system ensures that the links in the group
point to the highest priority alternatives appropriate for the group.

Manual Mode. In this mode, the alternatives system does not make any changes to the
system administrator's settings.

For example, the java command has the following link hierarchy in the alternatives system:

EXAMPLE 16.1: ALTERNATIVES SYSTEM OF THE java COMMAND

/usr/bin/java 1

-> /etc/alternatives/java 2

-> /usr/lib64/jvm/jre-10-openjdk/bin/java 3

1 The generic name.

2 The symbolic link in the alternatives directory.
3 One of the alternatives.

225 Overview SLED 15

16.2 Use Cases
By default, the update-alternatives script is called from inside an RPM package. When a
package is installed or removed, the script takes care of all its symbolic links. But you can run
it manually from the command line for:

displaying the current alternatives for a generic name.

changing the defaults of an alternative.

creating a set of related les for an alternative.

16.3 Getting an Overview of Alternatives

To retrieve the names of all configured alternatives, use:

tux > ls /var/lib/alternatives

To get an overview of all configured alternatives and their values, use

tux > sudo update-alternatives --get-selections

asadmin auto /usr/bin/asadmin-2.7
awk auto /usr/bin/gawk
chardetect auto /usr/bin/chardetect-3.6
dbus-launch auto /usr/bin/dbus-launch.x11
default-displaymanager auto /usr/lib/X11/displaymanagers/gdm
[...]

16.4 Viewing Details on Specific Alternatives

The easiest way to check the alternatives is to follow the symbolic links of your command.
For example, if you want to know what the java command is referring to, use the following
command:

tux > readlink --canonicalize /usr/bin/java

/usr/lib64/jvm/jre-10-openjdk/bin/java

If you see the same path (in our example, it is /usr/bin/java ), there are no alternatives avail-
able for this command.
To see the full alternatives (including slaves), use the --display option:

tux > sudo update-alternatives --display java

226 Use Cases SLED 15

java - auto mode
link best version is /usr/lib64/jvm/jre-1.8.0-openjdk/bin/java
link currently points to /usr/lib64/jvm/jre-1.8.0-openjdk/bin/java
link java is /usr/bin/java
slave java.1.gz is /usr/share/man/man1/java.1.gz
slave jre is /usr/lib64/jvm/jre
slave jre_exports is /usr/lib64/jvm-exports/jre
slave keytool is /usr/bin/keytool
slave keytool.1.gz is /usr/share/man/man1/keytool.1.gz
slave orbd is /usr/bin/orbd
slave orbd.1.gz is /usr/share/man/man1/orbd.1.gz
[...]

16.5 Setting the Default Version of Alternatives

By default, commands in /usr/bin refer to the alternatives directory with the highest priority.
For example, by default, the command java shows the following version number:

tux > java -version

openjdk version "10.0.1" 2018-04-17
OpenJDK Runtime Environment (build 10.0.1+10-suse-lp150.1.11-x8664)
OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM (build 10.0.1+10-suse-lp150.1.11-x8664, mixed mode)

To change the default java command to refer to a previous version, run:

tux > sudo update-alternatives --config java

root's password:
There are 2 choices for the alternative java (providing /usr/bin/java).

Selection Path Priority Status

------------------------------------------------------------
* 0 /usr/lib64/jvm/jre-10-openjdk/bin/java 2005 auto mode
1 /usr/lib64/jvm/jre-1.8.0-openjdk/bin/java 1805 manual mode
2 /usr/lib64/jvm/jre-10-openjdk/bin/java 2005 manual mode
3 /usr/lib64/jvm/jre-11-openjdk/bin/java 0 manual mode

Press <enter> to keep the current choice[*], or type selection number:

Depending on your system and installed versions, the exact Java version number will be differ-
ent. After you have selected 1 , java shows the following version number:

tux > java -version

java version "1.8.0_171"
OpenJDK Runtime Environment (IcedTea 3.8.0) (build 1.8.0_171-b11 suse-lp150.2.3.1-x86_64)
OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM (build 25.171-b11, mixed mode)

227 Setting the Default Version of Alternatives SLED 15

Also, keep in mind the following points:

When working in manual mode and installing another Java version, the alternatives system
neither touches the links nor changes the generic name.

When working in automatic mode and installing another Java version, the alternatives
system changes the Java master link and all slave links (as you can see in Section 16.4,
“Viewing Details on Specific Alternatives”). To check the master-slave relationships, use:

tux > sudo update-alternatives --display java

16.6 Installing Custom Alternatives

This section describes how to set up custom alternatives on a system. The example makes the
following assumptions:

There are two scripts, foo-2 and foo-3 , with similar functionality.

The scripts are stored in the /usr/local/bin directory to avoid any conflicts with the
system tools in /usr/bin .

There is a master link foo that points to either foo-2 or foo-3 .

To provide alternatives on your system, follow these steps:

1. Copy your scripts into the /usr/local/bin directory.

2. Make the scripts executable:

tux > sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/foo-{2,3}

3. Run update-alternatives for both scripts:

tux > sudo update-alternatives --install \

/usr/local/bin/foo 1 \
foo 2 \
/usr/local/bin/foo-2 3 \
200 4

tux > sudo update-alternatives --install \

/usr/local/bin/foo 1 \
foo 2 \
/usr/local/bin/foo-3 3 \
300 4

228 Installing Custom Alternatives SLED 15

 The options after --install have the following meanings:

1 The generic name. To avoid confusion, this is usually the script name without any
version numbers.
2 The name of the master link. Must be the same.
3 The path to the original script(s) located in /usr/local/bin .
4 The priority. We give foo-2 a lower priority than foo-3 . It is good practice to use
a significant number increase to separate priorities. For example, a priority of 200
for foo-2 and 300 for foo-3 .

4. Check the master link:

tux > sudo update-alternatives --display foo

foo - auto mode
link best version is /usr/local/bin/foo-3
link currently points to /usr/local/bin/foo-3
link foo is /usr/local/bin/foo
/usr/local/bin/foo-2 - priority 200
/usr/local/bin/foo-3 - priority 300

After you completed the described steps, you can use the master link /usr/local/bin/foo .
If needed, you can install additional alternatives. To remove an alternative, use the following
command:

tux > sudo update-alternatives --remove foo /usr/local/bin/foo-2

After this script has been removed, the alternatives system for the foo group looks like this:

tux > sudo update-alternatives --display foo

foo - auto mode
link best version is /usr/local/bin/foo-3
link currently points to /usr/local/bin/foo-3
link foo is /usr/local/bin/foo
/usr/local/bin/foo-3 - priority 300

16.7 Defining Dependent Alternatives

If you have alternatives, the script itself is not enough. Most commands are not completely stand-
alone: They usually ship with additional les, such as extensions, configurations, or man pages.
To create alternatives which are dependent on a master link, use slave alternatives.

229 Defining Dependent Alternatives SLED 15

Let us assume we want to extend our example in Section 16.6, “Installing Custom Alternatives” and
provide man pages and configuration les:

Two man pages, foo-2.1.gz and foo-3.1.gz stored in the /usr/local/man/man1 di-
rectory.

Two configuration les, foo-2.conf and foo-3.conf , stored in /etc .

Follow these steps to add the additional les to your alternatives:

1. Copy the configuration les into /etc :

tux > sudo cp foo-{2,3}.conf /etc

2. Copy the man pages into the /usr/local/man/man1 directory:

tux > sudo cp foo-{2,3}.1.gz /usr/local/man/man1/

3. Add the slave links to the main scripts with the --slave option:

tux > sudo update-alternatives --install \

/usr/local/bin/foo foo /usr/local/bin/foo-2 200 \
--slave /usr/local/man/man1/foo.1.gz \
foo.1.gz \
/usr/local/man/man1/foo-2.1.gz \
--slave /etc/foo.conf \
foo.conf \
/etc/foo-2.conf
tux > sudo update-alternatives --install \
/usr/local/bin/foo foo /usr/local/bin/foo-3 300 \
--slave /usr/local/man/man1/foo.1.gz \
foo.1.gz \
/usr/local/man/man1/foo-3.1.gz \
--slave /etc/foo.conf \
foo.conf \
/etc/foo-3.conf

4. Check the master link:

foo - auto mode

link best version is /usr/local/bin/foo-3
link currently points to /usr/local/bin/foo-3
link foo is /usr/local/bin/foo
slave foo.1.gz is /usr/local/man/man1/foo.1.gz
slave foo.conf is /etc/foo.conf

230 Defining Dependent Alternatives SLED 15

 /usr/local/bin/foo-2 - priority 200
slave foo.1.gz: /usr/local/man/man1/foo-2.1.gz
slave foo.conf: /etc/foo-2.conf
/usr/local/bin/foo-3 - priority 300
slave foo.1.gz: /usr/local/man/man1/foo-3.1.gz
slave foo.conf: /etc/foo-3.conf

If you change the links with update-alternatives --config foo to foo-2 , then all slave
links will change as well.

231 Defining Dependent Alternatives SLED 15

17 Basic Networking

Linux offers the necessary networking tools and features for integration into all
types of network structures. Network access using a network card can be configured
with YaST. Manual configuration is also possible. In this chapter only the funda-
mental mechanisms and the relevant network configuration les are covered.
Linux and other Unix operating systems use the TCP/IP protocol. It is not a single network
protocol, but a family of network protocols that offer various services. The protocols listed
in Several Protocols in the TCP/IP Protocol Family, are provided for exchanging data between two
machines via TCP/IP. Networks combined by TCP/IP, comprising a worldwide network, are also
called “the Internet.”
RFC stands for Request for Comments. RFCs are documents that describe various Internet pro-
tocols and implementation procedures for the operating system and its applications. The RFC
documents describe the setup of Internet protocols. For more information about RFCs, see http://
www.ietf.org/rfc.html .

SEVERAL PROTOCOLS IN THE TCP/IP PROTOCOL FAMILY

TCP
Transmission Control Protocol: a connection-oriented secure protocol. The data to transmit
is rst sent by the application as a stream of data and converted into the appropriate format
by the operating system. The data arrives at the respective application on the destination
host in the original data stream format it was initially sent. TCP determines whether any
data has been lost or jumbled during the transmission. TCP is implemented wherever the
data sequence matters.

UDP
User Datagram Protocol: a connectionless, insecure protocol. The data to transmit is sent
in the form of packets generated by the application. The order in which the data arrives at
the recipient is not guaranteed and data loss is possible. UDP is suitable for record-oriented
applications. It features a smaller latency period than TCP.

ICMP
Internet Control Message Protocol: This is not a protocol for the end user, but a special
control protocol that issues error reports and can control the behavior of machines partic-
ipating in TCP/IP data transfer. In addition, it provides a special echo mode that can be
viewed using the program ping.

232 SLED 15
IGMP
Internet Group Management Protocol: This protocol controls machine behavior when im-
plementing IP multicast.

As shown in Figure 17.1, “Simplified Layer Model for TCP/IP”, data exchange takes place in different
layers. The actual network layer is the insecure data transfer via IP (Internet protocol). On top
of IP, TCP (transmission control protocol) guarantees, to a certain extent, security of the data
transfer. The IP layer is supported by the underlying hardware-dependent protocol, such as
Ethernet.

TCP/IP Model OSI Model

Application Layer

Application Layer Presentation Layer

Session Layer

Transport Layer Transport Layer

Internet Layer Network Layer

Data Link Layer

Network Access Layer
Physical Layer

FIGURE 17.1: SIMPLIFIED LAYER MODEL FOR TCP/IP

233 SLED 15
The diagram provides one or two examples for each layer. The layers are ordered according to
abstraction levels. The lowest layer is very close to the hardware. The uppermost layer, however,
is almost a complete abstraction from the hardware. Every layer has its own special function.
The special functions of each layer are mostly implicit in their description. The data link and
physical layers represent the physical network used, such as Ethernet.
Almost all hardware protocols work on a packet-oriented basis. The data to transmit is collected
into packets (it cannot be sent all at once). The maximum size of a TCP/IP packet is approximately
64 KB. Packets are normally quite smaller, as the network hardware can be a limiting factor.
The maximum size of a data packet on an Ethernet is about fifteen hundred bytes. The size of a
TCP/IP packet is limited to this amount when the data is sent over an Ethernet. If more data is
transferred, more data packets need to be sent by the operating system.
For the layers to serve their designated functions, additional information regarding each layer
must be saved in the data packet. This takes place in the header of the packet. Every layer
attaches a small block of data, called the protocol header, to the front of each emerging packet.
A sample TCP/IP data packet traveling over an Ethernet cable is illustrated in Figure 17.2, “TCP/
IP Ethernet Packet”. The proof sum is located at the end of the packet, not at the beginning. This
simplifies things for the network hardware.

FIGURE 17.2: TCP/IP ETHERNET PACKET

When an application sends data over the network, the data passes through each layer, all im-
plemented in the Linux kernel except the physical layer. Each layer is responsible for preparing
the data so it can be passed to the next layer. The lowest layer is ultimately responsible for
sending the data. The entire procedure is reversed when data is received. Like the layers of an
onion, in each layer the protocol headers are removed from the transported data. Finally, the
transport layer is responsible for making the data available for use by the applications at the
destination. In this manner, one layer only communicates with the layer directly above or below
it. For applications, it is irrelevant whether data is transmitted via a 100 Mbit/s FDDI network
or via a 56-Kbit/s modem line. Likewise, it is irrelevant for the data line which kind of data is
transmitted, as long as packets are in the correct format.

234 SLED 15
17.1 IP Addresses and Routing
The discussion in this section is limited to IPv4 networks. For information about IPv6 protocol,
the successor to IPv4, refer to Section 17.2, “IPv6—The Next Generation Internet”.

17.1.1 IP Addresses
Every computer on the Internet has a unique 32-bit address. These 32  bits (or 4  bytes) are
normally written as illustrated in the second row in Example 17.1, “Writing IP Addresses”.

EXAMPLE 17.1: WRITING IP ADDRESSES

IP Address (binary): 11000000 10101000 00000000 00010100

IP Address (decimal): 192. 168. 0. 20

In decimal form, the four bytes are written in the decimal number system, separated by periods.
The IP address is assigned to a host or a network interface. It can be used only once throughout
the world. There are exceptions to this rule, but these are not relevant to the following passages.
The points in IP addresses indicate the hierarchical system. Until the 1990s, IP addresses were
strictly categorized in classes. However, this system proved too inflexible and was discontinued.
Now, classless routing (CIDR, classless interdomain routing) is used.

17.1.2 Netmasks and Routing

Netmasks are used to define the address range of a subnet. If two hosts are in the same subnet,
they can reach each other directly. If they are not in the same subnet, they need the address
of a gateway that handles all the traffic for the subnet. To check if two IP addresses are in the
same subnet, simply “AND” both addresses with the netmask. If the result is identical, both IP
addresses are in the same local network. If there are differences, the remote IP address, and thus
the remote interface, can only be reached over a gateway.
To understand how the netmask works, look at Example 17.2, “Linking IP Addresses to the Netmask”.
The netmask consists of 32 bits that identify how much of an IP address belongs to the network.
All those bits that are 1 mark the corresponding bit in the IP address as belonging to the network.
All bits that are 0 mark bits inside the subnet. This means that the more bits are 1 , the smaller
the subnet is. Because the netmask always consists of several successive 1 bits, it is also possible
to count the number of bits in the netmask. In Example 17.2, “Linking IP Addresses to the Netmask”
the rst net with 24 bits could also be written as 192.168.0.0/24 .

235 IP Addresses and Routing SLED 15

EXAMPLE 17.2: LINKING IP ADDRESSES TO THE NETMASK

IP address (192.168.0.20): 11000000 10101000 00000000 00010100

Netmask (255.255.255.0): 11111111 11111111 11111111 00000000
---------------------------------------------------------------
Result of the link: 11000000 10101000 00000000 00000000
In the decimal system: 192. 168. 0. 0

IP address (213.95.15.200): 11010101 10111111 00001111 11001000

Netmask (255.255.255.0): 11111111 11111111 11111111 00000000
---------------------------------------------------------------
Result of the link: 11010101 10111111 00001111 00000000
In the decimal system: 213. 95. 15. 0

To give another example: all machines connected with the same Ethernet cable are usually lo-
cated in the same subnet and are directly accessible. Even when the subnet is physically divided
by switches or bridges, these hosts can still be reached directly.
IP addresses outside the local subnet can only be reached if a gateway is configured for the
target network. In the most common case, there is only one gateway that handles all traffic that
is external. However, it is also possible to configure several gateways for different subnets.
If a gateway has been configured, all external IP packets are sent to the appropriate gateway.
This gateway then attempts to forward the packets in the same manner—from host to host—
until it reaches the destination host or the packet's TTL (time to live) expires.

SPECIFIC ADDRESSES

Base Network Address

This is the netmask AND any address in the network, as shown in Example 17.2, “Linking IP
Addresses to the Netmask” under Result . This address cannot be assigned to any hosts.

Broadcast Address
This could be paraphrased as: “Access all hosts in this subnet.” To generate this, the net-
mask is inverted in binary form and linked to the base network address with a logical OR.
The above example therefore results in 192.168.0.255. This address cannot be assigned
to any hosts.

Local Host
The address 127.0.0.1 is assigned to the “loopback device” on each host. A connection
can be set up to your own machine with this address and with all addresses from the
complete 127.0.0.0/8 loopback network as defined with IPv4. With IPv6 there is only
one loopback address ( ::1 ).

236 Netmasks and Routing SLED 15

Because IP addresses must be unique all over the world, you cannot select random addresses.
There are three address domains to use if you want to set up a private IP-based network. These
cannot get any connection from the rest of the Internet, because they cannot be transmitted over
the Internet. These address domains are specified in RFC 1597 and listed in Table 17.1, “Private
IP Address Domains”.

TABLE 17.1: PRIVATE IP ADDRESS DOMAINS

Network/Netmask Domain

10.0.0.0 / 255.0.0.0 10.x.x.x

172.16.0.0 / 255.240.0.0 172.16.x.x – 172.31.x.x

192.168.0.0 / 255.255.0.0 192.168.x.x

17.2 IPv6—The Next Generation Internet

Because of the emergence of the World Wide Web (WWW), the Internet has experienced explo-
sive growth, with an increasing number of computers communicating via TCP/IP in the past
fifteen years. Since Tim Berners-Lee at CERN (http://public.web.cern.ch ) invented the WWW in
1990, the number of Internet hosts has grown from a few thousand to about a hundred million.
As mentioned, an IPv4 address consists of only 32 bits. Also, quite a few IP addresses are lost
—they cannot be used because of the way in which networks are organized. The number of
addresses available in your subnet is two to the power of the number of bits, minus two. A
subnet has, for example, 2, 6, or 14 addresses available. To connect 128 hosts to the Internet,
for example, you need a subnet with 256 IP addresses, from which only 254 are usable, because
two IP addresses are needed for the structure of the subnet itself: the broadcast and the base
network address.
Under the current IPv4 protocol, DHCP or NAT (network address translation) are the typical
mechanisms used to circumvent the potential address shortage. Combined with the convention
to keep private and public address spaces separate, these methods can certainly mitigate the
shortage. The problem with them lies in their configuration, which is a chore to set up and a
burden to maintain. To set up a host in an IPv4 network, you need several address items, such
as the host's own IP address, the subnetmask, the gateway address and maybe a name server
address. All these items need to be known and cannot be derived from somewhere else.

237 IPv6—The Next Generation Internet SLED 15

With IPv6, both the address shortage and the complicated configuration should be a thing of
the past. The following sections tell more about the improvements and benefits brought by IPv6
and about the transition from the old protocol to the new one.

17.2.1 Advantages
The most important and most visible improvement brought by the new protocol is the enormous
expansion of the available address space. An IPv6 address is made up of 128 bit values instead
of the traditional 32 bits. This provides for as many as several quadrillion IP addresses.
However, IPv6 addresses are not only different from their predecessors with regard to their
length. They also have a different internal structure that may contain more specific information
about the systems and the networks to which they belong. More details about this are found in
Section 17.2.2, “Address Types and Structure”.

The following is a list of other advantages of the new protocol:

Autoconfiguration
IPv6 makes the network “plug and play” capable, which means that a newly set up system
integrates into the (local) network without any manual configuration. The new host uses its
automatic configuration mechanism to derive its own address from the information made
available by the neighboring routers, relying on a protocol called the neighbor discovery
(ND) protocol. This method does not require any intervention on the administrator's part
and there is no need to maintain a central server for address allocation—an additional
advantage over IPv4, where automatic address allocation requires a DHCP server.
Nevertheless if a router is connected to a switch, the router should send periodic advertise-
ments with ags telling the hosts of a network how they should interact with each other.
For more information, see RFC 2462 and the radvd.conf(5) man page, and RFC 3315.

Mobility
IPv6 makes it possible to assign several addresses to one network interface at the same time.
This allows users to access several networks easily, something that could be compared with
the international roaming services offered by mobile phone companies. When you take
your mobile phone abroad, the phone automatically logs in to a foreign service when it
enters the corresponding area, so you can be reached under the same number everywhere
and can place an outgoing call, as you would in your home area.

Secure Communication

238 Advantages SLED 15

 With IPv4, network security is an add-on function. IPv6 includes IPsec as one of its core
features, allowing systems to communicate over a secure tunnel to avoid eavesdropping
by outsiders on the Internet.

Backward Compatibility
Realistically, it would be impossible to switch the entire Internet from IPv4 to IPv6 at one
time. Therefore, it is crucial that both protocols can coexist not only on the Internet, but
also on one system. This is ensured by compatible addresses (IPv4 addresses can easily be
translated into IPv6 addresses) and by using several tunnels. See Section 17.2.3, “Coexistence
of IPv4 and IPv6”. Also, systems can rely on a dual stack IP technique to support both protocols
at the same time, meaning that they have two network stacks that are completely separate,
such that there is no interference between the two protocol versions.

Custom Tailored Services through Multicasting

With IPv4, some services, such as SMB, need to broadcast their packets to all hosts in
the local network. IPv6 allows a much more ne-grained approach by enabling servers to
address hosts through multicasting, that is by addressing several hosts as parts of a group.
This is different from addressing all hosts through broadcasting or each host individually
through unicasting. Which hosts are addressed as a group may depend on the concrete
application. There are some predefined groups to address all name servers (the all name
servers multicast group), for example, or all routers (the all routers multicast group).

17.2.2 Address Types and Structure

As mentioned, the current IP protocol has two major limitations: there is an increasing shortage
of IP addresses, and configuring the network and maintaining the routing tables is becoming
a more complex and burdensome task. IPv6 solves the rst problem by expanding the address
space to 128 bits. The second one is mitigated by introducing a hierarchical address structure
combined with sophisticated techniques to allocate network addresses, and multihoming (the
ability to assign several addresses to one device, giving access to several networks).
When dealing with IPv6, it is useful to know about three different types of addresses:

Unicast
Addresses of this type are associated with exactly one network interface. Packets with such
an address are delivered to only one destination. Accordingly, unicast addresses are used
to transfer packets to individual hosts on the local network or the Internet.

Multicast

239 Address Types and Structure SLED 15

 Addresses of this type relate to a group of network interfaces. Packets with such an address
are delivered to all destinations that belong to the group. Multicast addresses are mainly
used by certain network services to communicate with certain groups of hosts in a well-
directed manner.

Anycast
Addresses of this type are related to a group of interfaces. Packets with such an address
are delivered to the member of the group that is closest to the sender, according to the
principles of the underlying routing protocol. Anycast addresses are used to make it easier
for hosts to nd out about servers offering certain services in the given network area. All
servers of the same type have the same anycast address. Whenever a host requests a service,
it receives a reply from the server with the closest location, as determined by the routing
protocol. If this server should fail for some reason, the protocol automatically selects the
second closest server, then the third one, and so forth.

An IPv6 address is made up of eight four-digit elds, each representing 16 bits, written in hexa-
decimal notation. They are separated by colons ( : ). Any leading zero bytes within a given eld
may be dropped, but zeros within the eld or at its end may not. Another convention is that
more than four consecutive zero bytes may be collapsed into a double colon. However, only
one such :: is allowed per address. This kind of shorthand notation is shown in Example 17.3,
“Sample IPv6 Address”, where all three lines represent the same address.

EXAMPLE 17.3: SAMPLE IPV6 ADDRESS

fe80 : 0000 : 0000 : 0000 : 0000 : 10 : 1000 : 1a4

fe80 : 0 : 0 : 0 : 0 : 10 : 1000 : 1a4
fe80 : : 10 : 1000 : 1a4

Each part of an IPv6 address has a defined function. The rst bytes form the prefix and specify
the type of address. The center part is the network portion of the address, but it may be unused.
The end of the address forms the host part. With IPv6, the netmask is defined by indicating the
length of the prefix after a slash at the end of the address. An address, as shown in Example 17.4,
“IPv6 Address Specifying the Prefix Length”, contains the information that the rst 64 bits form the
network part of the address and the last 64 form its host part. In other words, the 64 means that
the netmask is lled with 64 1-bit values from the left. As with IPv4, the IP address is combined
with AND with the values from the netmask to determine whether the host is located in the
same subnet or in another one.
EXAMPLE 17.4: IPV6 ADDRESS SPECIFYING THE PREFIX LENGTH

fe80::10:1000:1a4/64

240 Address Types and Structure SLED 15

IPv6 knows about several predefined types of prefixes. Some are shown in Various IPv6 Prefixes.
VARIOUS IPV6 PREFIXES

00
IPv4 addresses and IPv4 over IPv6 compatibility addresses. These are used to maintain
compatibility with IPv4. Their use still requires a router able to translate IPv6 packets into
IPv4 packets. Several special addresses, such as the one for the loopback device, have this
prefix as well.

2 or 3 as the first digit

Aggregatable global unicast addresses. As is the case with IPv4, an interface can be as-
signed to form part of a certain subnet. Currently, there are the following address spaces:
2001::/16 (production quality address space) and 2002::/16 (6to4 address space).

fe80::/10
Link-local addresses. Addresses with this prefix should not be routed and should therefore
only be reachable from within the same subnet.

fec0::/10
Site-local addresses. These may be routed, but only within the network of the organization
to which they belong. In effect, they are the IPv6 equivalent of the current private network
address space, such as 10.x.x.x .

ff
These are multicast addresses.

A unicast address consists of three basic components:

Public Topology
The rst part (which also contains one of the prefixes mentioned above) is used to route
packets through the public Internet. It includes information about the company or institu-
tion that provides the Internet access.

Site Topology
The second part contains routing information about the subnet to which to deliver the
packet.

Interface ID
The third part identifies the interface to which to deliver the packet. This also allows for the
MAC to form part of the address. Given that the MAC is a globally unique, xed identifier
coded into the device by the hardware maker, the configuration procedure is substantially

241 Address Types and Structure SLED 15

 simplified. In fact, the rst 64 address bits are consolidated to form the EUI-64 token,
with the last 48 bits taken from the MAC, and the remaining 24 bits containing special
information about the token type. This also makes it possible to assign an EUI-64 token
to interfaces that do not have a MAC, such as those based on PPP.

On top of this basic structure, IPv6 distinguishes between ve different types of unicast address-
es:

:: (unspecified)
This address is used by the host as its source address when the interface is initialized for
the rst time (at which point, the address cannot yet be determined by other means).

::1 (loopback)
The address of the loopback device.

IPv4 Compatible Addresses

The IPv6 address is formed by the IPv4 address and a prefix consisting of 96 zero bits.
This type of compatibility address is used for tunneling (see Section 17.2.3, “Coexistence of
IPv4 and IPv6”) to allow IPv4 and IPv6 hosts to communicate with others operating in a
pure IPv4 environment.

IPv4 Addresses Mapped to IPv6

This type of address specifies a pure IPv4 address in IPv6 notation.

Local Addresses
There are two address types for local use:

link-local
This type of address can only be used in the local subnet. Packets with a source or
target address of this type should not be routed to the Internet or other subnets. These
addresses contain a special prefix ( fe80::/10 ) and the interface ID of the network
card, with the middle part consisting of zero bytes. Addresses of this type are used
during automatic configuration to communicate with other hosts belonging to the
same subnet.

site-local
Packets with this type of address may be routed to other subnets, but not to the wider
Internet—they must remain inside the organization's own network. Such addresses
are used for intranets and are an equivalent of the private address space defined by
IPv4. They contain a special prefix ( fec0::/10 ), the interface ID, and a 16 bit eld
specifying the subnet ID. Again, the rest is lled with zero bytes.

242 Address Types and Structure SLED 15

As a completely new feature introduced with IPv6, each network interface normally gets several
IP addresses, with the advantage that several networks can be accessed through the same inter-
face. One of these networks can be configured completely automatically using the MAC and a
known prefix with the result that all hosts on the local network can be reached when IPv6 is en-
abled (using the link-local address). With the MAC forming part of it, any IP address used in the
world is unique. The only variable parts of the address are those specifying the site topology and
the public topology, depending on the actual network in which the host is currently operating.
For a host to go back and forth between different networks, it needs at least two addresses. One
of them, the home address, not only contains the interface ID but also an identifier of the home
network to which it normally belongs (and the corresponding prefix). The home address is a
static address and, as such, it does not normally change. Still, all packets destined to the mobile
host can be delivered to it, regardless of whether it operates in the home network or somewhere
outside. This is made possible by the completely new features introduced with IPv6, such as
stateless autoconfiguration and neighbor discovery. In addition to its home address, a mobile host
gets one or more additional addresses that belong to the foreign networks where it is roaming.
These are called care-of addresses. The home network has a facility that forwards any packets
destined to the host when it is roaming outside. In an IPv6 environment, this task is performed
by the home agent, which takes all packets destined to the home address and relays them through
a tunnel. On the other hand, those packets destined to the care-of address are directly transferred
to the mobile host without any special detours.

17.2.3 Coexistence of IPv4 and IPv6

The migration of all hosts connected to the Internet from IPv4 to IPv6 is a gradual process.
Both protocols will coexist for some time to come. The coexistence on one system is guaranteed
where there is a dual stack implementation of both protocols. That still leaves the question of
how an IPv6 enabled host should communicate with an IPv4 host and how IPv6 packets should
be transported by the current networks, which are predominantly IPv4-based. The best solutions
offer tunneling and compatibility addresses (see Section 17.2.2, “Address Types and Structure”).
IPv6 hosts that are more or less isolated in the (worldwide) IPv4 network can communicate
through tunnels: IPv6 packets are encapsulated as IPv4 packets to move them across an IPv4
network. Such a connection between two IPv4 hosts is called a tunnel. To achieve this, packets
must include the IPv6 destination address (or the corresponding prefix) and the IPv4 address of
the remote host at the receiving end of the tunnel. A basic tunnel can be configured manually
according to an agreement between the hosts' administrators. This is also called static tunneling.

243 Coexistence of IPv4 and IPv6 SLED 15

However, the configuration and maintenance of static tunnels is often too labor-intensive to use
them for daily communication needs. Therefore, IPv6 provides for three different methods of
dynamic tunneling:

6over4
IPv6 packets are automatically encapsulated as IPv4 packets and sent over an IPv4 network
capable of multicasting. IPv6 is tricked into seeing the whole network (Internet) as a huge
local area network (LAN). This makes it possible to determine the receiving end of the IPv4
tunnel automatically. However, this method does not scale very well and is also hampered
because IP multicasting is far from widespread on the Internet. Therefore, it only provides a
solution for smaller corporate or institutional networks where multicasting can be enabled.
The specifications for this method are laid down in RFC 2529.

6to4
With this method, IPv4 addresses are automatically generated from IPv6 addresses, en-
abling isolated IPv6 hosts to communicate over an IPv4 network. However, several prob-
lems have been reported regarding the communication between those isolated IPv6 hosts
and the Internet. The method is described in RFC 3056.

IPv6 Tunnel Broker

This method relies on special servers that provide dedicated tunnels for IPv6 hosts. It is
described in RFC 3053.

17.2.4 Configuring IPv6

To configure IPv6, you normally do not need to make any changes on the individual worksta-
tions. IPv6 is enabled by default. To disable or enable IPv6 on an installed system, use the YaST
Network Settings module. On the Global Options tab, select or deselect the Enable IPv6 option as
necessary. To enable it temporarily until the next reboot, enter modprobe -i ipv6 as root .
It is impossible to unload the IPv6 module after it has been loaded.
Because of the autoconfiguration concept of IPv6, the network card is assigned an address in
the link-local network. Normally, no routing table management takes place on a workstation.
The network routers can be queried by the workstation, using the router advertisement protocol,
for what prefix and gateways should be implemented. The radvd program can be used to set
up an IPv6 router. This program informs the workstations which prefix to use for the IPv6
addresses and which routers. Alternatively, use zebra/quagga for automatic configuration of
both addresses and routing.

244 Configuring IPv6 SLED 15

For information about how to set up various types of tunnels using the /etc/sysconfig/net-
work les, see the man page of ifcfg-tunnel ( man ifcfg-tunnel ).

17.2.5 For More Information

The above overview does not cover the topic of IPv6 comprehensively. For a more in-depth look
at the new protocol, refer to the following online documentation and books:

http://www.ipv6.org/
The starting point for everything about IPv6.

http://www.ipv6day.org
All information needed to start your own IPv6 network.

http://www.ipv6-to-standard.org/
The list of IPv6-enabled products.

http://www.bieringer.de/linux/IPv6/
Here, nd the Linux IPv6-HOWTO and many links related to the topic.

RFC 2460
The fundamental RFC about IPv6.

IPv6 Essentials
A book describing all the important aspects of the topic is IPv6 Essentials by Silvia Hagen
(ISBN 0-596-00125-8).

17.3 Name Resolution

DNS assists in assigning an IP address to one or more names and assigning a name to an IP
address. In Linux, this conversion is usually carried out by a special type of software known as
bind. The machine that takes care of this conversion is called a name server. The names make
up a hierarchical system in which each name component is separated by a period. The name
hierarchy is, however, independent of the IP address hierarchy described above.
Consider a complete name, such as jupiter.example.com , written in the format host-
name.domain . A full name, called a fully qualified domain name (FQDN), consists of a host name
and a domain name ( example.com ). The latter also includes the top level domain or TLD ( com ).

245 For More Information SLED 15

TLD assignment has become quite confusing for historical reasons. Traditionally, three-letter
domain names are used in the USA. In the rest of the world, the two-letter ISO national codes
are the standard. In addition to that, longer TLDs were introduced in 2000 that represent certain
spheres of activity (for example, .info , .name , .museum ).
In the early days of the Internet (before 1990), the le /etc/hosts was used to store the names
of all the machines represented over the Internet. This quickly proved to be impractical in the
face of the rapidly growing number of computers connected to the Internet. For this reason, a
decentralized database was developed to store the host names in a widely distributed manner.
This database, similar to the name server, does not have the data pertaining to all hosts in the
Internet readily available, but can dispatch requests to other name servers.
The top of the hierarchy is occupied by root name servers. These root name servers manage the
top level domains and are run by the Network Information Center (NIC). Each root name server
knows about the name servers responsible for a given top level domain. Information about top
level domain NICs is available at http://www.internic.net .
DNS can do more than resolve host names. The name server also knows which host is receiving
e-mails for an entire domain—the mail exchanger (MX).
For your machine to resolve an IP address, it must know about at least one name server and its
IP address. Easily specify such a name server using YaST.
The protocol whois is closely related to DNS. With this program, quickly nd out who is re-
sponsible for a given domain.

Note: MDNS and .local Domain Names

The .local top level domain is treated as link-local domain by the resolver. DNS requests
are send as multicast DNS requests instead of normal DNS requests. If you already use
the .local domain in your name server configuration, you must switch this option o
in /etc/host.conf . For more information, see the host.conf manual page.
To switch o MDNS during installation, use nomdns=1 as a boot parameter.
For more information on multicast DNS, see http://www.multicastdns.org .

246 Name Resolution SLED 15

17.4 Configuring a Network Connection with YaST
There are many supported networking types on Linux. Most of them use different device names
and the configuration les are spread over several locations in the le system. For a detailed
overview of the aspects of manual network configuration, see Section 17.6, “Configuring a Network
Connection Manually”.

On SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop, where NetworkManager is active by default, all network
cards are configured. If NetworkManager is not active, only the rst interface with link up (with
a network cable connected) is automatically configured. Additional hardware can be configured
any time on the installed system. The following sections describe the network configuration for
all types of network connections supported by SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop.

17.4.1 Configuring the Network Card with YaST

To configure your Ethernet or Wi-Fi/Bluetooth card in YaST, select System Network Settings.
After starting the module, YaST displays the Network Settings dialog with four tabs: Global Op-
tions, Overview, Hostname/DNS and Routing.
The Global Options tab allows you to set general networking options such as the network setup
method, IPv6, and general DHCP options. For more information, see Section 17.4.1.1, “Configuring
Global Networking Options”.

The Overview tab contains information about installed network interfaces and configurations.
Any properly detected network card is listed with its name. You can manually configure new
cards, remove or change their configuration in this dialog. To manually configure a card that
was not automatically detected, see Section 17.4.1.3, “Configuring an Undetected Network Card”. To
change the configuration of an already configured card, see Section 17.4.1.2, “Changing the Config-
uration of a Network Card”.

The Hostname/DNS tab allows to set the host name of the machine and name the servers to be
used. For more information, see Section 17.4.1.4, “Configuring Host Name and DNS”.
The Routing tab is used for the configuration of routing. See Section 17.4.1.5, “Configuring Routing”
for more information.

247 Configuring a Network Connection with YaST SLED 15

FIGURE 17.3: CONFIGURING NETWORK SETTINGS

17.4.1.1 Configuring Global Networking Options

The Global Options tab of the YaST Network Settings module allows you to set important global
networking options, such as the use of NetworkManager, IPv6 and DHCP client options. These
settings are applicable for all network interfaces.
In the Network Setup Method choose the way network connections are managed. If you want a
NetworkManager desktop applet to manage connections for all interfaces, choose NetworkMan-
ager Service. NetworkManager is well suited for switching between multiple wired and wireless
networks. If you do not run a desktop environment, or if your computer is a Xen server, virtual
system, or provides network services such as DHCP or DNS in your network, use the Wicked
Service method. If NetworkManager is used, nm-applet should be used to configure network
options and the Overview, Hostname/DNS and Routing tabs of the Network Settings module are
disabled. For more information on NetworkManager, see Chapter 25, Using NetworkManager.
In the IPv6 Protocol Settings choose whether to use the IPv6 protocol. It is possible to use IPv6
together with IPv4. By default, IPv6 is enabled. However, in networks not using IPv6 protocol,
response times can be faster with IPv6 protocol disabled. To disable IPv6, deactivate Enable
IPv6. If IPv6 is disabled, the kernel no longer loads the IPv6 module automatically. This setting
will be applied after reboot.

248 Configuring the Network Card with YaST SLED 15

In the DHCP Client Options configure options for the DHCP client. The DHCP Client Identifier must
be different for each DHCP client on a single network. If left empty, it defaults to the hardware
address of the network interface. However, if you are running several virtual machines using
the same network interface and, therefore, the same hardware address, specify a unique free-
form identifier here.
The Hostname to Send specifies a string used for the host name option eld when the DHCP client
sends messages to DHCP server. Some DHCP servers update name server zones (forward and
reverse records) according to this host name (Dynamic DNS). Also, some DHCP servers require
the Hostname to Send option eld to contain a specific string in the DHCP messages from clients.
Leave AUTO to send the current host name (that is the one defined in /etc/HOSTNAME ). Make
the option eld empty for not sending any host name.
If you do not want to change the default route according to the information from DHCP, deac-
tivate Change Default Route via DHCP.

17.4.1.2 Changing the Configuration of a Network Card

To change the configuration of a network card, select a card from the list of the detected cards
in Network Settings Overview in YaST and click Edit. The Network Card Setup dialog appears in
which to adjust the card configuration using the General, Address and Hardware tabs.

17.4.1.2.1 Configuring IP Addresses

You can set the IP address of the network card or the way its IP address is determined in the
Address tab of the Network Card Setup dialog. Both IPv4 and IPv6 addresses are supported. The
network card can have No IP Address (which is useful for bonding devices), a Statically Assigned
IP Address (IPv4 or IPv6) or a Dynamic Address assigned via DHCP or Zeroconf or both.
If using Dynamic Address, select whether to use DHCP Version 4 Only (for IPv4), DHCP Version
6 Only (for IPv6) or DHCP Both Version 4 and 6.
If possible, the rst network card with link that is available during the installation is automati-
cally configured to use automatic address setup via DHCP. On SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop,
where NetworkManager is active by default, all network cards are configured.

249 Configuring the Network Card with YaST SLED 15

DHCP should also be used if you are using a DSL line but with no static IP assigned by the
ISP (Internet Service Provider). If you decide to use DHCP, configure the details in DHCP Client
Options in the Global Options tab of the Network Settings dialog of the YaST network card config-
uration module. If you have a virtual host setup where different hosts communicate through the
same interface, an DHCP Client Identifier is necessary to distinguish them.
DHCP is a good choice for client configuration but it is not ideal for server configuration. To
set a static IP address, proceed as follows:

1. Select a card from the list of detected cards in the Overview tab of the YaST network card
configuration module and click Edit.

2. In the Address tab, choose Statically Assigned IP Address.

3. Enter the IP Address. Both IPv4 and IPv6 addresses can be used. Enter the network mask in
Subnet Mask. If the IPv6 address is used, use Subnet Mask for prefix length in format /64 .
Optionally, you can enter a fully qualified Hostname for this address, which will be written
to the /etc/hosts configuration le.

4. Click Next.

5. To activate the configuration, click OK.

Note: Interface Activation and Link Detection

During activation of a network interface, wicked checks for a carrier and only applies
the IP configuration when a link has been detected. If you need to apply the configuration
regardless of the link status (for example, when you want to test a service listening to a
certain address), you can skip link detection by adding the variable LINK_REQUIRED=no
to the configuration le of the interface in /etc/sysconfig/network/ifcfg .
Additionally, you can use the variable LINK_READY_WAIT=5 to specify the timeout for
waiting for a link in seconds.
For more information about the ifcfg-* configuration les, refer to Section 17.6.2.5, “/
etc/sysconfig/network/ifcfg-*” and man 5 ifcfg .

If you use the static address, the name servers and default gateway are not configured automat-
ically. To configure name servers, proceed as described in Section 17.4.1.4, “Configuring Host Name
and DNS”. To configure a gateway, proceed as described in Section 17.4.1.5, “Configuring Routing”.

250 Configuring the Network Card with YaST SLED 15

17.4.1.2.2 Configuring Multiple Addresses

One network device can have multiple IP addresses.

Note: Aliases Are a Compatibility Feature

These so-called aliases or labels, respectively, work with IPv4 only. With IPv6 they will
be ignored. Using iproute2 network interfaces can have one or more addresses.

Using YaST to set additional addresses for your network card, proceed as follows:

1. Select a card from the list of detected cards in the Overview tab of the YaST Network Settings
dialog and click Edit.

2. In the Address Additional Addresses tab, click Add.

3. Enter IPv4 Address Label, IP Address, and Netmask. Do not include the interface name in
the alias name.

4. To activate the configuration, confirm the settings.

17.4.1.2.3 Changing the Device Name and Udev Rules

It is possible to change the device name of the network card when it is used. It is also possible
to determine whether the network card should be identified by udev via its hardware (MAC)
address or via the bus ID. The latter option is preferable in large servers to simplify hotplugging
of cards. To set these options with YaST, proceed as follows:

1. Select a card from the list of detected cards in the Overview tab of the YaST Network Settings
dialog and click Edit.

2. Go to the Hardware tab. The current device name is shown in Udev Rules. Click Change.

3. Select whether udev should identify the card by its MAC Address or Bus ID. The current
MAC address and bus ID of the card are shown in the dialog.

4. To change the device name, check the Change Device Name option and edit the name.

5. To activate the configuration, confirm the settings.

251 Configuring the Network Card with YaST SLED 15

17.4.1.2.4 Changing Network Card Kernel Driver

For some network cards, several kernel drivers may be available. If the card is already config-
ured, YaST allows you to select a kernel driver to be used from a list of available suitable dri-
vers. It is also possible to specify options for the kernel driver. To set these options with YaST,
proceed as follows:

1. Select a card from the list of detected cards in the Overview tab of the YaST Network
Settings module and click Edit.

2. Go to the Hardware tab.

3. Select the kernel driver to be used in Module Name. Enter any options for the selected
driver in Options in the form = = VALUE . If more options are used, they should be space-
separated.

4. To activate the configuration, confirm the settings.

17.4.1.2.5 Activating the Network Device

If you use the method with wicked , you can configure your device to either start during boot,
on cable connection, on card detection, manually, or never. To change device start-up, proceed
as follows:

1. In YaST select a card from the list of detected cards in System Network Settings and click
Edit.

2. In the General tab, select the desired entry from Device Activation.
Choose At Boot Time to start the device during the system boot. With On Cable Connection,
the interface is watched for any existing physical connection. With On Hotplug, the inter-
face is set when available. It is similar to the At Boot Time option, and only differs in that
no error occurs if the interface is not present at boot time. Choose Manually to control the
interface manually with ifup . Choose Never to not start the device. The On NFSroot is
similar to At Boot Time, but the interface does not shut down with the systemctl stop
network command; the network service also cares about the wicked service if wicked
is active. Use this if you use an NFS or iSCSI root le system.

3. To activate the configuration, confirm the settings.

252 Configuring the Network Card with YaST SLED 15

 Tip: NFS as a Root File System
On (diskless) systems where the root partition is mounted via network as an NFS share,
you need to be careful when configuring the network device with which the NFS share
is accessible.
When shutting down or rebooting the system, the default processing order is to turn o
network connections, then unmount the root partition. With NFS root, this order causes
problems as the root partition cannot be cleanly unmounted as the network connection
to the NFS share is already not activated. To prevent the system from deactivating the
relevant network device, open the network device configuration tab as described in Sec-
tion 17.4.1.2.5, “Activating the Network Device” and choose On NFSroot in the Device Activation
pane.

17.4.1.2.6 Setting Up Maximum Transfer Unit Size

You can set a maximum transmission unit (MTU) for the interface. MTU refers to the largest
allowed packet size in bytes. A higher MTU brings higher bandwidth efficiency. However, large
packets can block up a slow interface for some time, increasing the lag for further packets.

1. In YaST select a card from the list of detected cards in System Network Settings and click
Edit.

2. In the General tab, select the desired entry from the Set MTU list.

3. To activate the configuration, confirm the settings.

17.4.1.2.7 PCIe Multifunction Devices

Multifunction devices that support LAN, iSCSI, and FCoE are supported. The YaST FCoE client
( yast2 fcoe-client ) shows the private ags in additional columns to allow the user to select
the device meant for FCoE. The YaST network module ( yast2 lan ) excludes “storage only
devices” for network configuration.

17.4.1.2.8 Infiniband Configuration for IP-over-InfiniBand (IPoIB)

1. In YaST select the InfiniBand device in System Network Settings and click Edit.

253 Configuring the Network Card with YaST SLED 15

 2. In the General tab, select one of the IP-over-InfiniBand (IPoIB) modes: connected (default)
or datagram.

3. To activate the configuration, confirm the settings.

For more information about InfiniBand, see /usr/src/linux/Documentation/infini-

band/ipoib.txt .

17.4.1.2.9 Configuring the Firewall

Without having to perform the detailed firewall setup as described in Book “Security Guide”,
Chapter 16 “Masquerading and Firewalls”, Section 16.4 “firewalld”, you can determine the basic
firewall configuration for your device as part of the device setup. Proceed as follows:

1. Open the YaST System Network Settings module. In the Overview tab, select a card from
the list of detected cards and click Edit.

2. Enter the General tab of the Network Settings dialog.

3. Determine the Firewall Zone to which your interface should be assigned. The following
options are available:

Firewall Disabled
This option is available only if the firewall is disabled and the firewall does not run.
Only use this option if your machine is part of a greater network that is protected
by an outer firewall.

Automatically Assign Zone

This option is available only if the firewall is enabled. The firewall is running and
the interface is automatically assigned to a firewall zone. The zone which contains
the keyword any or the external zone will be used for such an interface.

Internal Zone (Unprotected)

The firewall is running, but does not enforce any rules to protect this interface. Use
this option if your machine is part of a greater network that is protected by an outer
firewall. It is also useful for the interfaces connected to the internal network, when
the machine has more network interfaces.

Demilitarized Zone

254 Configuring the Network Card with YaST SLED 15

 A demilitarized zone is an additional line of defense in front of an internal network
and the (hostile) Internet. Hosts assigned to this zone can be reached from the inter-
nal network and from the Internet, but cannot access the internal network.

External Zone
The firewall is running on this interface and fully protects it against other—presum-
ably hostile—network traffic. This is the default option.

4. To activate the configuration, confirm the settings.

17.4.1.3 Configuring an Undetected Network Card

If a network card is not detected correctly, the card is not included in the list of detected cards.
If you are sure that your system includes a driver for your card, you can configure it manually.
You can also configure special network device types, such as bridge, bond, TUN or TAP. To
configure an undetected network card (or a special device) proceed as follows:

1. In the System Network Settings Overview dialog in YaST click Add.

2. In the Hardware dialog, set the Device Type of the interface from the available options and
Configuration Name. If the network card is a USB device, activate the respective check box
and exit this dialog with Next. Otherwise, you can define the kernel Module Name to be
used for the card and its Options, if necessary.
In Ethtool Options, you can set ethtool options used by ifup for the interface. For infor-
mation about available options, see the ethtool manual page.
If the option string starts with a - (for example, -K INTERFACE_NAME rx on ), the second
word in the string is replaced with the current interface name. Otherwise (for example,
autoneg off speed 10 ) ifup adds -s INTERFACE_NAME to the beginning.

3. Click Next.

4. Configure any needed options, such as the IP address, device activation or firewall zone
for the interface in the General, Address, and Hardware tabs. For more information about
the configuration options, see Section 17.4.1.2, “Changing the Configuration of a Network Card”.

5. If you selected Wireless as the device type of the interface, configure the wireless connec-
tion in the next dialog.

6. To activate the new network configuration, confirm the settings.

255 Configuring the Network Card with YaST SLED 15

17.4.1.4 Configuring Host Name and DNS

If you did not change the network configuration during installation and the Ethernet card was
already available, a host name was automatically generated for your computer and DHCP was
activated. The same applies to the name service information your host needs to integrate into
a network environment. If DHCP is used for network address setup, the list of domain name
servers is automatically lled with the appropriate data. If a static setup is preferred, set these
values manually.
To change the name of your computer and adjust the name server search list, proceed as follows:

1. Go to the Network Settings Hostname/DNS tab in the System module in YaST.

2. Enter the Hostname and, if needed, the Domain Name. The domain is especially important
if the machine is a mail server. Note that the host name is global and applies to all set
network interfaces.
If you are using DHCP to get an IP address, the host name of your computer will be
automatically set by the DHCP. You should disable this behavior if you connect to different
networks, because they may assign different host names and changing the host name at
runtime may confuse the graphical desktop. To disable using DHCP to get an IP address
deactivate Change Hostname via DHCP.
Assign Hostname to Loopback IP associates your host name with 127.0.0.2 (loopback)
IP address in /etc/hosts . This is a useful option if you want to have the host name
resolvable at all times, even without active network.

3. In Modify DNS Configuration, select the way the DNS configuration (name servers, search
list, the content of the /etc/resolv.conf le) is modified.
If the Use Default Policy option is selected, the configuration is handled by the netconfig
script which merges the data defined statically (with YaST or in the configuration les)
with data obtained dynamically (from the DHCP client or NetworkManager). This default
policy is usually sufficient.
If the Only Manually option is selected, netconfig is not allowed to modify the /etc/
resolv.conf le. However, this le can be edited manually.
If the Custom Policy option is selected, a Custom Policy Rule string defining the merge policy
should be specified. The string consists of a comma-separated list of interface names to be
considered a valid source of settings. Except for complete interface names, basic wild cards

256 Configuring the Network Card with YaST SLED 15

 to match multiple interfaces are allowed, as well. For example, eth* ppp? will rst target
all eth and then all ppp0-ppp9 interfaces. There are two special policy values that indicate
how to apply the static settings defined in the /etc/sysconfig/network/config le:

STATIC
The static settings need to be merged together with the dynamic settings.

STATIC_FALLBACK
The static settings are used only when no dynamic configuration is available.

For more information, see the man page of netconfig (8) ( man 8 netconfig ).

4. Enter the Name Servers and ll in the Domain Search list. Name servers must be specified
by IP addresses, such as 192.168.1.116, not by host names. Names specified in the Domain
Search tab are domain names used for resolving host names without a specified domain.
If more than one Domain Search is used, separate domains with commas or white space.

5. To activate the configuration, confirm the settings.

It is also possible to edit the host name using YaST from the command line. The changes made
by YaST take effect immediately (which is not the case when editing the /etc/HOSTNAME le
manually). To change the host name, use the following command:

root # yast dns edit hostname=HOSTNAME

To change the name servers, use the following commands:

root # yast dns edit nameserver1=192.168.1.116

root # yast dns edit nameserver2=192.168.1.117
root # yast dns edit nameserver3=192.168.1.118

17.4.1.5 Configuring Routing

To make your machine communicate with other machines and other networks, routing infor-
mation must be given to make network traffic take the correct path. If DHCP is used, this infor-
mation is automatically provided. If a static setup is used, this data must be added manually.

1. In YaST go to Network Settings Routing.

2. Enter the IP address of the Default Gateway (IPv4 and IPv6 if necessary). The default
gateway matches every possible destination, but if a routing table entry exists that matches
the required address, this will be used instead of the default route via the Default Gateway.

257 Configuring the Network Card with YaST SLED 15

 3. More entries can be entered in the Routing Table. Enter the Destination network IP address,
Gateway IP address and the Netmask. Select the Device through which the traffic to the
defined network will be routed (the minus sign stands for any device). To omit any of
these values, use the minus sign - . To enter a default gateway into the table, use default
in the Destination eld.

Note: Route Prioritization

If more default routes are used, it is possible to specify the metric option to de-
termine which route has a higher priority. To specify the metric option, enter -
metric NUMBER in Options. The route with the highest metric is used as default.
If the network device is disconnected, its route will be removed and the next one
will be used. However, the current kernel does not use metric in static routing, only
routing daemons like multipathd do.

4. If the system is a router, enable IPv4 Forwarding and IPv6 Forwarding in the Network Settings
as needed.

5. To activate the configuration, confirm the settings.

17.5 NetworkManager
NetworkManager is the ideal solution for laptops and other portable computers. With Network-
Manager, you do not need to worry about configuring network interfaces and switching between
networks when you are moving.

17.5.1 NetworkManager and wicked

However, NetworkManager is not a suitable solution for all cases, so you can still choose be-
tween the wicked controlled method for managing network connections and NetworkManager.
If you want to manage your network connection with NetworkManager, enable NetworkMan-
ager in the YaST Network Settings module as described in Section 25.2, “Enabling or Disabling Net-
workManager” and configure your network connections with NetworkManager. For a list of use
cases and a detailed description of how to configure and use NetworkManager, refer to Chap-
ter 25, Using NetworkManager.

258 NetworkManager SLED 15

Some differences between wicked and NetworkManager:

root Privileges
If you use NetworkManager for network setup, you can easily switch, stop or start your
network connection at any time from within your desktop environment using an applet.
NetworkManager also makes it possible to change and configure wireless card connections
without requiring root privileges. For this reason, NetworkManager is the ideal solution
for a mobile workstation.
wicked also provides some ways to switch, stop or start the connection with or without
user intervention, like user-managed devices. However, this always requires root privi-
leges to change or configure a network device. This is often a problem for mobile comput-
ing, where it is not possible to preconfigure all the connection possibilities.

Types of Network Connections

Both wicked and NetworkManager can handle network connections with a wireless net-
work (with WEP, WPA-PSK, and WPA-Enterprise access) and wired networks using DHCP
and static configuration. They also support connection through dial-up and VPN. With
NetworkManager you can also connect a mobile broadband (3G) modem or set up a DSL
connection, which is not possible with the traditional configuration.
NetworkManager tries to keep your computer connected at all times using the best con-
nection available. If the network cable is accidentally disconnected, it tries to reconnect.
It can nd the network with the best signal strength from the list of your wireless con-
nections and automatically use it to connect. To get the same functionality with wicked ,
more configuration effort is required.

17.5.2 NetworkManager Functionality and Configuration Files

The individual network connection settings created with NetworkManager are stored in con-
figuration profiles. The system connections configured with either NetworkManager or YaST
are saved in /etc/NetworkManager/system-connections/* or in /etc/sysconfig/net-
work/ifcfg-* . For GNOME, all user-defined connections are stored in GConf.

In case no profile is configured, NetworkManager automatically creates one and names it Auto
$INTERFACE-NAME . That is made in an attempt to work without any configuration for as many
cases as (securely) possible. If the automatically created profiles do not suit your needs, use the
network connection configuration dialogues provided by GNOME to modify them as desired.
For more information, see Section 25.3, “Configuring Network Connections”.

259 NetworkManager Functionality and Configuration Files SLED 15

17.5.3 Controlling and Locking Down NetworkManager Features
On centrally administered machines, certain NetworkManager features can be controlled or dis-
abled with PolKit, for example if a user is allowed to modify administrator defined connections
or if a user is allowed to define their own network configurations. To view or change the respec-
tive NetworkManager policies, start the graphical Authorizations tool for PolKit. In the tree on
the left side, nd them below the network-manager-settings entry. For an introduction to PolKit
and details on how to use it, refer to Book “Security Guide”, Chapter 9 “Authorization with PolKit”.

17.6 Configuring a Network Connection Manually

Manual configuration of the network software should be the last alternative. Using YaST is
recommended. However, this background information about the network configuration can also
assist your work with YaST.

17.6.1 The wicked Network Configuration

The tool and library called wicked provides a new framework for network configuration.
One of the challenges with traditional network interface management is that different layers
of network management get jumbled together into one single script, or at most two different
scripts. These scripts interact with each other in a way that is not well defined. This leads to un-
predictable issues, obscure constraints and conventions, etc. Several layers of special hacks for a
variety of different scenarios increase the maintenance burden. Address configuration protocols
are being used that are implemented via daemons like dhcpcd, which interact rather poorly with
the rest of the infrastructure. Funky interface naming schemes that require heavy udev support
are introduced to achieve persistent identification of interfaces.
The idea of wicked is to decompose the problem in several ways. None of them is entirely novel,
but trying to put ideas from different projects together is hopefully going to create a better
solution overall.
One approach is to use a client/server model. This allows wicked to define standardized facilities
for things like address configuration that are well integrated with the overall framework. For
example, using a specific address configuration, the administrator may request that an interface
should be configured via DHCP or IPv4 zeroconf. In this case, the address configuration service
simply obtains the lease from its server and passes it on to the wicked server process that installs
the requested addresses and routes.

260 Controlling and Locking Down NetworkManager Features SLED 15

The other approach to decomposing the problem is to enforce the layering aspect. For any type
of network interface, it is possible to define a dbus service that configures the network interface's
device layer—a VLAN, a bridge, a bonding, or a paravirtualized device. Common functionality,
such as address configuration, is implemented by joint services that are layered on top of these
device specific services without having to implement them specifically.
The wicked framework implements these two aspects by using a variety of dbus services, which
get attached to a network interface depending on its type. Here is a rough overview of the
current object hierarchy in wicked.
Each network interface is represented via a child object of /org/opensuse/Network/Inter-
faces . The name of the child object is given by its ifindex. For example, the loopback interface,
which usually gets ifindex 1, is /org/opensuse/Network/Interfaces/1 , the rst Ethernet in-
terface registered is /org/opensuse/Network/Interfaces/2 .
Each network interface has a “class” associated with it, which is used to select the dbus interfaces
it supports. By default, each network interface is of class netif , and wickedd will automatically
attach all interfaces compatible with this class. In the current implementation, this includes the
following interfaces:

org.opensuse.Network.Interface
Generic network interface functions, such as taking the link up or down, assigning an MTU,
etc.

org.opensuse.Network.Addrconf.ipv4.dhcp,
org.opensuse.Network.Addrconf.ipv6.dhcp,
org.opensuse.Network.Addrconf.ipv4.auto
Address configuration services for DHCP, IPv4 zeroconf, etc.

Beyond this, network interfaces may require or offer special configuration mechanisms. For an
Ethernet device, for example, you should be able to control the link speed, offloading of check-
summing, etc. To achieve this, Ethernet devices have a class of their own, called netif-ether-
net , which is a subclass of netif . As a consequence, the dbus interfaces assigned to an Ether-
net interface include all the services listed above, plus the org.opensuse.Network.Ethernet
service available only to objects belonging to the netif-ethernet class.
Similarly, there exist classes for interface types like bridges, VLANs, bonds, or infinibands.

261 The wicked Network Configuration SLED 15

How do you interact with an interface like VLAN (which is really a virtual network interface that
sits on top of an Ethernet device) that needs to be created rst? For this, wicked defines factory
interfaces, such as org.opensuse.Network.VLAN.Factory . Such a factory interface offers a
single function that lets you create an interface of the requested type. These factory interfaces
are attached to the /org/opensuse/Network/Interfaces list node.

17.6.1.1 wicked Architecture and Features

The wicked service comprises several parts as depicted in Figure 17.4, “wicked architecture”.

FIGURE 17.4: wicked ARCHITECTURE

wicked currently supports the following:

Configuration le back-ends to parse SUSE style /etc/sysconfig/network les.

An internal configuration back-end to represent network interface configuration in XML.

Bring up and shutdown of “normal” network interfaces such as Ethernet or InfiniBand,

VLAN, bridge, bonds, tun, tap, dummy, macvlan, macvtap, hsi, qeth, iucv, and wireless
(currently limited to one wpa-psk/eap network) devices.

A built-in DHCPv4 client and a built-in DHCPv6 client.

262 The wicked Network Configuration SLED 15

 The nanny daemon (enabled by default) helps to automatically bring up configured inter-
faces when the device is available (interface hotplugging) and set up the IP configuration
when a link (carrier) is detected. See Section 17.6.1.3, “Nanny” for more information.

wicked was implemented as a group of DBus services that are integrated with systemd.
So the usual systemctl commands will apply to wicked .

17.6.1.2 Using wicked

On SUSE Linux Enterprise, wicked is running by default. If you want to check what is currently
enabled and whether it is running, call:

systemctl status network

If wicked is enabled, you will see something along these lines:

wicked.service - wicked managed network interfaces

Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/wicked.service; enabled)
...

In case something different is running (for example, NetworkManager) and you want to switch
to wicked , rst stop what is running and then enable wicked :

systemctl is-active network && \

systemctl stop network
systemctl enable --force wicked

This enables the wicked services, creates the network.service to wicked.service alias link,
and starts the network at the next boot.
Starting the server process:

systemctl start wickedd

This starts wickedd (the main server) and associated supplicants:

/usr/lib/wicked/bin/wickedd-auto4 --systemd --foreground

/usr/lib/wicked/bin/wickedd-dhcp4 --systemd --foreground
/usr/lib/wicked/bin/wickedd-dhcp6 --systemd --foreground
/usr/sbin/wickedd --systemd --foreground
/usr/sbin/wickedd-nanny --systemd --foreground

Then bringing up the network:

systemctl start wicked

263 The wicked Network Configuration SLED 15

Alternatively use the network.service alias:

systemctl start network

These commands are using the default or system configuration sources as defined in /etc/
wicked/client.xml .

To enable debugging, set WICKED_DEBUG in /etc/sysconfig/network/config , for example:

WICKED_DEBUG="all"

Or, to omit some:

WICKED_DEBUG="all,-dbus,-objectmodel,-xpath,-xml"

Use the client utility to display interface information for all interfaces or the interface specified
with IFNAME :

wicked show all

wicked show IFNAME

In XML output:

wicked show-xml all

wicked show-xml IFNAME

Bringing up one interface:

wicked ifup eth0

wicked ifup wlan0
...

Because there is no configuration source specified, the wicked client checks its default sources
of configuration defined in /etc/wicked/client.xml :

1. firmware: iSCSI Boot Firmware Table (iBFT)

2. compat: ifcfg les—implemented for compatibility

Whatever wicked gets from those sources for a given interface is applied. The intended order
of importance is firmware , then compat —this may be changed in the future.
For more information, see the wicked man page.

264 The wicked Network Configuration SLED 15

17.6.1.3 Nanny

Nanny is an event and policy driven daemon that is responsible for asynchronous or unsolicited
scenarios such as hotplugging devices. Thus the nanny daemon helps with starting or restarting
delayed or temporarily gone devices. Nanny monitors device and link changes, and integrates
new devices defined by the current policy set. Nanny continues to set up even if ifup already
exited because of specified timeout constraints.
By default, the nanny daemon is active on the system. It is enabled in the /etc/wicked/com-
mon.xml configuration le:

<config>
...
<use-nanny>true</use-nanny>
</config>

This setting causes ifup and ifreload to apply a policy with the effective configuration to the
nanny daemon; then, nanny configures wickedd and thus ensures hotplug support. It waits in
the background for events or changes (such as new devices or carrier on).

17.6.1.4 Bringing Up Multiple Interfaces

For bonds and bridges, it may make sense to define the entire device topology in one le (ifcfg-
bondX), and bring it up in one go. wicked then can bring up the whole configuration if you
specify the top level interface names (of the bridge or bond):

wicked ifup br0

This command automatically sets up the bridge and its dependencies in the appropriate order
without the need to list the dependencies (ports, etc.) separately.
To bring up multiple interfaces in one command:

wicked ifup bond0 br0 br1 br2

Or also all interfaces:

wicked ifup all

265 The wicked Network Configuration SLED 15

17.6.1.5 Using Tunnels with Wicked

When you need to use tunnels with Wicked, the TUNNEL_DEVICE is used for this. It permits to
specify an optional device name to bind the tunnel to the device. The tunneled packets will only
be routed via this device.
For more information, refer to man 5 ifcfg-tunnel .

17.6.1.6 Handling Incremental Changes

With wicked , there is no need to actually take down an interface to reconfigure it (unless
it is required by the kernel). For example, to add another IP address or route to a statically
configured network interface, add the IP address to the interface definition, and do another
“ifup” operation. The server will try hard to update only those settings that have changed. This
applies to link-level options such as the device MTU or the MAC address, and network-level
settings, such as addresses, routes, or even the address configuration mode (for example, when
moving from a static configuration to DHCP).
Things get tricky of course with virtual interfaces combining several real devices such as bridges
or bonds. For bonded devices, it is not possible to change certain parameters while the device
is up. Doing that will result in an error.
However, what should still work, is the act of adding or removing the child devices of a bond
or bridge, or choosing a bond's primary interface.

17.6.1.7 Wicked Extensions: Address Configuration

wicked is designed to be extensible with shell scripts. These extensions can be defined in the
config.xml le.

Currently, several classes of extensions are supported:

link configuration: these are scripts responsible for setting up a device's link layer according
to the configuration provided by the client, and for tearing it down again.

address configuration: these are scripts responsible for managing a device's address con-
figuration. Usually address configuration and DHCP are managed by wicked itself, but
can be implemented by means of extensions.

firewall extension: these scripts can apply firewall rules.

266 The wicked Network Configuration SLED 15

Typically, extensions have a start and a stop command, an optional “pid le”, and a set of
environment variables that get passed to the script.
To illustrate how this is supposed to work, look at a firewall extension defined in etc/serv-
er.xml :

<dbus-service interface="org.opensuse.Network.Firewall">
<action name="firewallUp" command="/etc/wicked/extensions/firewall up"/>
<action name="firewallDown" command="/etc/wicked/extensions/firewall down"/>

<!-- default environment for all calls to this extension script -->
<putenv name="WICKED_OBJECT_PATH" value="$object-path"/>
<putenv name="WICKED_INTERFACE_NAME" value="$property:name"/>
<putenv name="WICKED_INTERFACE_INDEX" value="$property:index"/>
</dbus-service>

The extension is attached to the <dbus-service> tag and defines commands to execute for the
actions of this interface. Further, the declaration can define and initialize environment variables
passed to the actions.

17.6.1.8 Wicked Extensions: Configuration Files

You can extend the handling of configuration les with scripts as well. For example, DNS up-
dates from leases are ultimately handled by the extensions/resolver script, with behavior
configured in server.xml :

<system-updater name="resolver">
<action name="backup" command="/etc/wicked/extensions/resolver backup"/>
<action name="restore" command="/etc/wicked/extensions/resolver restore"/>
<action name="install" command="/etc/wicked/extensions/resolver install"/>
<action name="remove" command="/etc/wicked/extensions/resolver remove"/>
</system-updater>

When an update arrives in wickedd , the system updater routines parse the lease and call the
appropriate commands ( backup , install , etc.) in the resolver script. This in turn configures
the DNS settings using /sbin/netconfig , or by manually writing /etc/resolv.conf as a
fallback.

17.6.2 Configuration Files

This section provides an overview of the network configuration les and explains their purpose
and the format used.

267 Configuration Files SLED 15

17.6.2.1 /etc/wicked/common.xml
The /etc/wicked/common.xml le contains common definitions that should be used by all
applications. It is sourced/included by the other configuration les in this directory. Although
you can use this le to enable debugging across all wicked components, we recommend to
use the le /etc/wicked/local.xml for this purpose. After applying maintenance updates you
might lose your changes as the /etc/wicked/common.xml might be overwritten. The /etc/
wicked/common.xml le includes the /etc/wicked/local.xml in the default installation, thus
you typically do not need to modify the /etc/wicked/common.xml .
In case you want to disable nanny by setting the <use-nanny> to false , restart the wicked-
d.service and then run the following command to apply all configurations and policies:

tux > sudo wicked ifup all

Note: Configuration Files

The wickedd , wicked , or nanny programs try to read /etc/wicked/common.xml if
their own configuration les do not exist.

17.6.2.2 /etc/wicked/server.xml
The le /etc/wicked/server.xml is read by the wickedd server process at start-up. The le
stores extensions to the /etc/wicked/common.xml . On top of that this le configures handling
of a resolver and receiving information from addrconf supplicants, for example DHCP.
We recommend to add changes required to this le into a separate le /etc/wicked/serv-
er-local.xml , that gets included by /etc/wicked/server.xml . By using a separate le you
avoid overwriting of your changes during maintenance updates.

17.6.2.3 /etc/wicked/client.xml
The /etc/wicked/client.xml is used by the wicked command. The le specifies the location
of a script used when discovering devices managed by ibft and configures locations of network
interface configurations.
We recommend to add changes required to this le into a separate le /etc/wicked/client-
local.xml , that gets included by /etc/wicked/server.xml . By using a separate le you avoid
overwriting of your changes during maintenance updates.

268 Configuration Files SLED 15

17.6.2.4 /etc/wicked/nanny.xml

The /etc/wicked/nanny.xml configures types of link layers. We recommend to add specific

configuration into a separate le: /etc/wicked/nanny-local.xml to avoid losing the changes
during maintenance updates.

17.6.2.5 /etc/sysconfig/network/ifcfg-*

These les contain the traditional configurations for network interfaces. In SUSE Linux Enter-
prise 11, this was the only supported format besides iBFT rmware.

Note: wicked and the ifcfg-* Files

wicked reads these les if you specify the compat: prefix. According to the SUSE Linux
Enterprise Desktop default configuration in /etc/wicked/client.xml , wicked tries
these les before the XML configuration les in /etc/wicked/ifconfig .
The --ifconfig switch is provided mostly for testing only. If specified, default config-
uration sources defined in /etc/wicked/ifconfig are not applied.

The ifcfg-* les include information such as the start mode and the IP address. Possible
parameters are described in the manual page of ifup . Additionally, most variables from the
dhcp and wireless les can be used in the ifcfg-* les if a general setting should be used
for only one interface. However, most of the /etc/sysconfig/network/config variables are
global and cannot be overridden in ifcfg-les. For example, NETCONFIG_* variables are global.
For configuring macvlan and macvtab interfaces, see the ifcfg-macvlan and ifcfg-macv-
tap man pages. For example, for a macvlan interface provide a ifcfg-macvlan0 with settings
as follows:

STARTMODE='auto'
MACVLAN_DEVICE='eth0'
#MACVLAN_MODE='vepa'
#LLADDR=02:03:04:05:06:aa

For ifcfg.template , see Section 17.6.2.6, “/etc/sysconfig/network/config, /etc/syscon-

fig/network/dhcp, and /etc/sysconfig/network/wireless”.

269 Configuration Files SLED 15

17.6.2.6 /etc/sysconfig/network/config, /etc/sysconfig/network/
dhcp, and /etc/sysconfig/network/wireless

The le config contains general settings for the behavior of ifup , ifdown and ifstatus .
dhcp contains settings for DHCP and wireless for wireless LAN cards. The variables in all three
configuration les are commented. Some variables from /etc/sysconfig/network/config
can also be used in ifcfg-* les, where they are given a higher priority. The /etc/syscon-
fig/network/ifcfg.template le lists variables that can be specified in a per interface scope.
However, most of the /etc/sysconfig/network/config variables are global and cannot be
overridden in ifcfg-les. For example, NETWORKMANAGER or NETCONFIG_* variables are global.

Note: Using DHCPv6

In SUSE Linux Enterprise 11, DHCPv6 used to work even on networks where IPv6 Router
Advertisements (RAs) were not configured properly. Starting with SUSE Linux Enter-
prise 12, DHCPv6 will correctly require that at least one of the routers on the network
sends out RAs that indicate that this network is managed by DHCPv6.
For networks where the router cannot be configured correctly, the ifcfg option allows
the user to override this behavior by specifying DHCLIENT6_MODE='managed' in the
ifcfg le. You can also activate this workaround with a boot parameter in the instal-
lation system:

ifcfg=eth0=dhcp6,DHCLIENT6_MODE=managed

17.6.2.7 /etc/sysconfig/network/routes and /etc/sysconfig/

network/ifroute-*

The static routing of TCP/IP packets is determined by the /etc/sysconfig/network/routes

and /etc/sysconfig/network/ifroute-* les. All the static routes required by the various
system tasks can be specified in /etc/sysconfig/network/routes : routes to a host, routes
to a host via a gateway and routes to a network. For each interface that needs individual rout-
ing, define an additional configuration le: /etc/sysconfig/network/ifroute-* . Replace
the wild card ( * ) with the name of the interface. The entries in the routing configuration les
look like this:

# Destination Gateway Netmask Interface Options

270 Configuration Files SLED 15

The route's destination is in the rst column. This column may contain the IP address of a
network or host or, in the case of reachable name servers, the fully qualified network or host
name. The network should be written in CIDR notation (address with the associated routing
prefix-length) such as 10.10.0.0/16 for IPv4 or fc00::/7 for IPv6 routes. The keyword default
indicates that the route is the default gateway in the same address family as the gateway. For
devices without a gateway use explicit 0.0.0.0/0 or ::/0 destinations.
The second column contains the default gateway or a gateway through which a host or network
can be accessed.
The third column is deprecated; it used to contain the IPv4 netmask of the destination. For IPv6
routes, the default route, or when using a prefix-length (CIDR notation) in the rst column,
enter a dash ( - ) here.
The fourth column contains the name of the interface. If you leave it empty using a dash ( - ), it
can cause unintended behavior in /etc/sysconfig/network/routes . For more information,
see the routes man page.
An (optional) fth column can be used to specify special options. For details, see the routes
man page.

EXAMPLE 17.5: COMMON NETWORK INTERFACES AND SOME STATIC ROUTES

# --- IPv4 routes in CIDR prefix notation:

# Destination [Gateway] - Interface
127.0.0.0/8 - - lo
204.127.235.0/24 - - eth0
default 204.127.235.41 - eth0
207.68.156.51/32 207.68.145.45 - eth1
192.168.0.0/16 207.68.156.51 - eth1

# --- IPv4 routes in deprecated netmask notation"

# Destination [Dummy/Gateway] Netmask Interface
#
127.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 255.255.255.0 lo
204.127.235.0 0.0.0.0 255.255.255.0 eth0
default 204.127.235.41 0.0.0.0 eth0
207.68.156.51 207.68.145.45 255.255.255.255 eth1
192.168.0.0 207.68.156.51 255.255.0.0 eth1

# --- IPv6 routes are always using CIDR notation:

# Destination [Gateway] - Interface
2001:DB8:100::/64 - - eth0
2001:DB8:100::/32 fe80::216:3eff:fe6d:c042 - eth0

271 Configuration Files SLED 15

17.6.2.8 /etc/resolv.conf
The domain to which the host belongs is specified in /etc/resolv.conf (keyword search ).
Up to six domains with a total of 256 characters can be specified with the search option. When
resolving a name that is not fully qualified, an attempt is made to generate one by attaching the
individual search entries. Up to 3 name servers can be specified with the nameserver option,
each on a line of its own. Comments are preceded by hash mark or semicolon signs ( # or ; ).
As an example, see Example 17.6, “/etc/resolv.conf”.
However, the /etc/resolv.conf should not be edited by hand. Instead, it is generated by the
netconfig script. To define static DNS configuration without using YaST, edit the appropriate
variables manually in the /etc/sysconfig/network/config le:

NETCONFIG_DNS_STATIC_SEARCHLIST
list of DNS domain names used for host name lookup

NETCONFIG_DNS_STATIC_SERVERS
list of name server IP addresses to use for host name lookup

NETCONFIG_DNS_FORWARDER
the name of the DNS forwarder that needs to be configured, for example bind or re-
solver

NETCONFIG_DNS_RESOLVER_OPTIONS
arbitrary options that will be written to /etc/resolv.conf , for example:

debug attempts:1 timeout:10

For more information, see the resolv.conf man page.

NETCONFIG_DNS_RESOLVER_SORTLIST
list of up to 10 items, for example:

130.155.160.0/255.255.240.0 130.155.0.0

For more information, see the resolv.conf man page.

To disable DNS configuration using netconfig, set NETCONFIG_DNS_POLICY='' . For more infor-
mation about netconfig , see the netconfig(8) man page ( man 8 netconfig ).
EXAMPLE 17.6: /etc/resolv.conf

# Our domain
search example.com
#

272 Configuration Files SLED 15

# We use dns.example.com (192.168.1.116) as nameserver
nameserver 192.168.1.116

17.6.2.9 /sbin/netconfig
netconfig is a modular tool to manage additional network configuration settings. It merges
statically defined settings with settings provided by autoconfiguration mechanisms as DHCP or
PPP according to a predefined policy. The required changes are applied to the system by calling
the netconfig modules that are responsible for modifying a configuration le and restarting a
service or a similar action.
netconfig recognizes three main actions. The netconfig modify and netconfig remove
commands are used by daemons such as DHCP or PPP to provide or remove settings to netconfig.
Only the netconfig update command is available for the user:

modify
The netconfig modify command modifies the current interface and service specific dy-
namic settings and updates the network configuration. Netconfig reads settings from stan-
dard input or from a le specified with the --lease-file FILENAME option and inter-
nally stores them until a system reboot (or the next modify or remove action). Already
existing settings for the same interface and service combination are overwritten. The in-
terface is specified by the -i INTERFACE_NAME parameter. The service is specified by the
-s SERVICE_NAME parameter.

remove
The netconfig remove command removes the dynamic settings provided by a modifica-
tory action for the specified interface and service combination and updates the network
configuration. The interface is specified by the -i INTERFACE_NAME parameter. The ser-
vice is specified by the -s SERVICE_NAME parameter.

update
The netconfig update command updates the network configuration using current set-
tings. This is useful when the policy or the static configuration has changed. Use the -m
MODULE_TYPE parameter to update a specified service only ( dns , nis , or ntp ).

The netconfig policy and the static configuration settings are defined either manually or using
YaST in the /etc/sysconfig/network/config le. The dynamic configuration settings pro-
vided by autoconfiguration tools such as DHCP or PPP are delivered directly by these tools with
the netconfig modify and netconfig remove actions. When NetworkManager is enabled,

273 Configuration Files SLED 15

netconfig (in policy mode auto ) uses only NetworkManager settings, ignoring settings from
any other interfaces configured using the traditional ifup method. If NetworkManager does not
provide any setting, static settings are used as a fallback. A mixed usage of NetworkManager
and the wicked method is not supported.
For more information about netconfig , see man 8 netconfig .

17.6.2.10 /etc/hosts
In this le, shown in Example 17.7, “/etc/hosts”, IP addresses are assigned to host names. If no
name server is implemented, all hosts to which an IP connection will be set up must be listed
here. For each host, enter a line consisting of the IP address, the fully qualified host name, and
the host name into the le. The IP address must be at the beginning of the line and the entries
separated by blanks and tabs. Comments are always preceded by the # sign.

EXAMPLE 17.7: /etc/hosts

127.0.0.1 localhost
192.168.2.100 jupiter.example.com jupiter
192.168.2.101 venus.example.com venus

17.6.2.11 /etc/networks
Here, network names are converted to network addresses. The format is similar to that of the
hosts le, except the network names precede the addresses. See Example 17.8, “/etc/networks”.

EXAMPLE 17.8: /etc/networks

loopback 127.0.0.0
localnet 192.168.0.0

17.6.2.12 /etc/host.conf
Name resolution—the translation of host and network names via the resolver library—is con-
trolled by this le. This le is only used for programs linked to libc4 or libc5. For current glibc
programs, refer to the settings in /etc/nsswitch.conf . Each parameter must always be en-
tered on a separate line. Comments are preceded by a # sign. Table 17.2, “Parameters for /etc/
host.conf” shows the parameters available. A sample /etc/host.conf is shown in Example 17.9,
“/etc/host.conf”.

274 Configuration Files SLED 15

TABLE 17.2: PARAMETERS FOR /ETC/HOST.CONF

order hosts, bind Specifies in which order the services are ac-
cessed for the name resolution. Available ar-
guments are (separated by blank spaces or
commas):

hosts: searches the /etc/hosts le

bind: accesses a name server

nis: uses NIS

multi on/o Defines if a host entered in /etc/hosts can

have multiple IP addresses.

nospoof on spoofalert on/o These parameters influence the name serv-

er spoofing but do not exert any influence on
the network configuration.

trim domainname The specified domain name is separated from

the host name after host name resolution
(as long as the host name includes the do-
main name). This option is useful only if
names from the local domain are in the /
etc/hosts le, but should still be recog-
nized with the attached domain names.

EXAMPLE 17.9: /etc/host.conf

# We have named running

order hosts bind
# Allow multiple address
multi on

17.6.2.13 /etc/nsswitch.conf

The introduction of the GNU C Library 2.0 was accompanied by the introduction of the Name
Service Switch (NSS). Refer to the nsswitch.conf(5) man page and The GNU C Library Reference
Manual for details.

275 Configuration Files SLED 15

The order for queries is defined in the le /etc/nsswitch.conf . A sample nsswitch.conf
is shown in Example 17.10, “/etc/nsswitch.conf”. Comments are preceded by # signs. In this
example, the entry under the hosts database means that a request is sent to /etc/hosts
( files ) via DNS.

EXAMPLE 17.10: /etc/nsswitch.conf

passwd: compat
group: compat

hosts: files dns

networks: files dns

services: db files
protocols: db files
rpc: files
ethers: files
netmasks: files
netgroup: files nis
publickey: files

bootparams: files
automount: files nis
aliases: files nis
shadow: compat

The “databases” available over NSS are listed in Table  17.3, “Databases Available via /etc/nss-
witch.conf”. The configuration options for NSS databases are listed in Table 17.4, “Configuration
Options for NSS “Databases””.

TABLE 17.3: DATABASES AVAILABLE VIA /ETC/NSSWITCH.CONF

aliases Mail aliases implemented by sendmail ; see

man   5 aliases .

ethers Ethernet addresses.

netmasks List of networks and their subnet masks. On-

ly needed, if you use subnetting.

group User groups used by getgrent . See also the

man page for group .

276 Configuration Files SLED 15

 hosts Host names and IP addresses, used by geth-
ostbyname and similar functions.

netgroup Valid host and user lists in the network for

controlling access permissions; see the net-
group(5) man page.

networks Network names and addresses, used by get-

netent .

publickey Public and secret keys for Secure_RPC used

by NFS and NIS+.

passwd User passwords, used by getpwent ; see the

passwd(5) man page.

protocols Network protocols, used by getprotoent ;

see the protocols(5) man page.

rpc Remote procedure call names and address-

es, used by getrpcbyname and similar func-
tions.

services Network services, used by getservent .

shadow Shadow passwords of users, used by getsp-

nam ; see the shadow(5) man page.

TABLE 17.4: CONFIGURATION OPTIONS FOR NSS “DATABASES”

files directly access les, for example, /etc/

aliases

db access via a database

nis , nisplus NIS, see also Book “Security Guide”, Chapter 3

“Using NIS”

dns can only be used as an extension for hosts

and networks

277 Configuration Files SLED 15

 compat can only be used as an extension for pass-
wd , shadow and group

17.6.2.14 /etc/nscd.conf

This le is used to configure nscd (name service cache daemon). See the nscd(8) and
nscd.conf(5) man pages. By default, the system entries of passwd , groups and hosts are
cached by nscd. This is important for the performance of directory services, like NIS and LDAP,
because otherwise the network connection needs to be used for every access to names, groups
or hosts.
If the caching for passwd is activated, it usually takes about fifteen seconds until a newly added
local user is recognized. Reduce this waiting time by restarting nscd with:

tux > sudo systemctl restart nscd

17.6.2.15 /etc/HOSTNAME

/etc/HOSTNAME contains the fully qualified host name (FQHN). The fully qualified host name
is the host name with the domain name attached. This le must contain only one line (in which
the host name is set). It is read while the machine is booting.

17.6.3 Testing the Configuration

Before you write your configuration to the configuration les, you can test it. To set up a test
configuration, use the ip command. To test the connection, use the ping command.
The command ip changes the network configuration directly without saving it in the configu-
ration le. Unless you enter your configuration in the correct configuration les, the changed
network configuration is lost on reboot.

Note: ifconfig and route Are Obsolete

The ifconfig and route tools are obsolete. Use ip instead. ifconfig , for example,
limits interface names to 9 characters.

278 Testing the Configuration SLED 15

17.6.3.1 Configuring a Network Interface with ip
ip is a tool to show and configure network devices, routing, policy routing, and tunnels.

ip is a very complex tool. Its common syntax is ip   OPTIONS OBJECT COMMAND . You can work
with the following objects:

link
This object represents a network device.

address
This object represents the IP address of device.

neighbor
This object represents an ARP or NDISC cache entry.

route
This object represents the routing table entry.

rule
This object represents a rule in the routing policy database.

maddress
This object represents a multicast address.

mroute
This object represents a multicast routing cache entry.

tunnel
This object represents a tunnel over IP.

If no command is given, the default command is used (usually list ).

Change the state of a device with the command ip link set   DEVICE_NAME   . For example,
to deactivate device eth0, enter ip link set eth0 down . To activate it again, use ip link
set eth0 up .

After activating a device, you can configure it. To set the IP address, use ip addr
add   IP_ADDRESS + dev DEVICE_NAME . For example, to set the address of the interface
eth0 to 192.168.12.154/30 with standard broadcast (option brd ), enter ip addr   add
192.168.12.154/30 brd + dev eth0 .

To have a working connection, you must also configure the default gateway. To set a gateway
for your system, enter ip route add   gateway_ip_address . To translate one IP address to
another, use nat : ip route add nat   ip_address   via   other_ip_address .

279 Testing the Configuration SLED 15

To display all devices, use ip link ls . To display the running interfaces only, use ip link
ls up . To print interface statistics for a device, enter ip -s link ls   device_name . To view
addresses of your devices, enter ip addr . In the output of the ip addr , also nd information
about MAC addresses of your devices. To show all routes, use ip route show .
For more information about using ip , enter ip   help or see the ip(8) man page. The help
option is also available for all ip subcommands. If, for example, you need help for ip   addr ,
enter ip   addr help . Find the ip manual in /usr/share/doc/packages/iproute2/ip-cre-
f.pdf .

17.6.3.2 Testing a Connection with ping

The ping command is the standard tool for testing whether a TCP/IP connection works. It uses
the ICMP protocol to send a small data packet, ECHO_REQUEST datagram, to the destination
host, requesting an immediate reply. If this works, ping displays a message to that effect. This
indicates that the network link is functioning.
ping does more than only test the function of the connection between two computers: it also
provides some basic information about the quality of the connection. In Example 17.11, “Output
of the Command ping”, you can see an example of the ping output. The second-to-last line con-
tains information about the number of transmitted packets, packet loss, and total time of ping
running.
As the destination, you can use a host name or IP address, for example, ping   example.com or
ping   192.168.3.100 . The program sends packets until you press Ctrl –C .
If you only need to check the functionality of the connection, you can limit the number of
the packets with the -c option. For example to limit ping to three packets, enter ping   -c 3
example.com .

EXAMPLE 17.11: OUTPUT OF THE COMMAND PING

ping -c 3 example.com
PING example.com (192.168.3.100) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from example.com (192.168.3.100): icmp_seq=1 ttl=49 time=188 ms
64 bytes from example.com (192.168.3.100): icmp_seq=2 ttl=49 time=184 ms
64 bytes from example.com (192.168.3.100): icmp_seq=3 ttl=49 time=183 ms
--- example.com ping statistics ---
3 packets transmitted, 3 received, 0% packet loss, time 2007ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 183.417/185.447/188.259/2.052 ms

280 Testing the Configuration SLED 15

The default interval between two packets is one second. To change the interval, ping provides
the option -i . For example, to increase the ping interval to ten seconds, enter ping   -i 10
example.com .

In a system with multiple network devices, it is sometimes useful to send the ping through a
specific interface address. To do so, use the -I option with the name of the selected device, for
example, ping   -I wlan1 example.com .
For more options and information about using ping, enter ping   -h or see the ping (8) man
page.

Tip: Pinging IPv6 Addresses

For IPv6 addresses use the ping6 command. Note, to ping link-local addresses, you must
specify the interface with -I . The following command works, if the address is reachable
via eth1 :

ping6 -I eth1 fe80::117:21ff:feda:a425

17.6.4 Unit Files and Start-Up Scripts

Apart from the configuration les described above, there are also systemd unit les and various
scripts that load the network services while the machine is booting. These are started when the
system is switched to the multi-user.target target. Some of these unit les and scripts are
described in Some Unit Files and Start-Up Scripts for Network Programs. For more information about
systemd , see Chapter 13, The systemd Daemon and for more information about the systemd
targets, see the man page of systemd.special ( man systemd.special ).
SOME UNIT FILES AND START-UP SCRIPTS FOR NETWORK PROGRAMS

network.target
network.target is the systemd target for networking, but its mean depends on the set-
tings provided by the system administrator.
For more information, see http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd/NetworkTar-
get/ .

multi-user.target
multi-user.target is the systemd target for a multiuser system with all required net-
work services.

281 Unit Files and Start-Up Scripts SLED 15

rpcbind
Starts the rpcbind utility that converts RPC program numbers to universal addresses. It is
needed for RPC services, such as an NFS server.

ypserv
Starts the NIS server.

ypbind
Starts the NIS client.

/etc/init.d/nfsserver
Starts the NFS server.

/etc/init.d/postfix
Controls the postfix process.

17.7 Setting Up Bonding Devices

For some systems, there is a desire to implement network connections that comply to more than
the standard data security or availability requirements of a typical Ethernet device. In these
cases, several Ethernet devices can be aggregated to a single bonding device.
The configuration of the bonding device is done by means of bonding module options. The be-
havior is mainly affected by the mode of the bonding device. By default, this is active-back-
up which means that a different slave device will become active if the active slave fails. The
following bonding modes are available:

0 (balance-rr)
Packets are transmitted in round-robin fashion from the rst to the last available interface.
Provides fault tolerance and load balancing.

1 (active-backup)
Only one network interface is active. If it fails, a different interface becomes active. This
setting is the default for SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop. Provides fault tolerance.

2 (balance-xor)
Traffic is split between all available interfaces based on the following policy: [(source
MAC address XOR'd with destination MAC address XOR packet type ID) modu-
lo slave count] Requires support from the switch. Provides fault tolerance and load
balancing.

282 Setting Up Bonding Devices SLED 15

3 (broadcast)
All traffic is broadcast on all interfaces. Requires support from the switch. Provides fault
tolerance.

4 (802.3ad)
Aggregates interfaces into groups that share the same speed and duplex settings. Requires
ethtool support in the interface drivers, and a switch that supports and is configured for
IEEE 802.3ad Dynamic link aggregation. Provides fault tolerance and load balancing.

5 (balance-tlb)
Adaptive transmit load balancing. Requires ethtool support in the interface drivers but
no switch support. Provides fault tolerance and load balancing.

6 (balance-alb)
Adaptive load balancing. Requires ethtool support in the interface drivers but no switch
support. Provides fault tolerance and load balancing.

For a more detailed description of the modes, see https://www.kernel.org/doc/Documenta-

tion/networking/bonding.txt .

Tip: Bonding and Xen

Using bonding devices is only of interest for machines where you have multiple real net-
work cards available. In most configurations, this means that you should use the bonding
configuration only in Dom0. Only if you have multiple network cards assigned to a VM
Guest system it may also be useful to set up the bond in a VM Guest.

To configure a bonding device, use the following procedure:

1. Run YaST System Network Settings.

2. Use Add and change the Device Type to Bond. Proceed with Next.

283 Setting Up Bonding Devices SLED 15

 3. Select how to assign the IP address to the bonding device. Three methods are at your
disposal:

No IP Address

Dynamic Address (with DHCP or Zeroconf)

Statically assigned IP Address

Use the method that is appropriate for your environment.

4. In the Bond Slaves tab, select the Ethernet devices that should be included into the bond
by activating the related check box.

5. Edit the Bond Driver Options and choose a bonding mode.

6. Make sure that the parameter miimon=100 is added to the Bond Driver Options. Without
this parameter, the data integrity is not checked regularly.

7. Click Next and leave YaST with OK to create the device.

284 Setting Up Bonding Devices SLED 15

17.7.1 Hotplugging of Bonding Slaves
In specific network environments (such as High Availability), there are cases when you need
to replace a bonding slave interface with another one. The reason may be a constantly failing
network device. The solution is to set up hotplugging of bonding slaves.
The bond is configured as usual (according to man 5 ifcfg-bonding ), for example:

ifcfg-bond0
STARTMODE='auto' # or 'onboot'
BOOTPROTO='static'
IPADDR='192.168.0.1/24'
BONDING_MASTER='yes'
BONDING_SLAVE_0='eth0'
BONDING_SLAVE_1='eth1'
BONDING_MODULE_OPTS='mode=active-backup miimon=100'

The slaves are specified with STARTMODE=hotplug and BOOTPROTO=none :

ifcfg-eth0
STARTMODE='hotplug'
BOOTPROTO='none'

ifcfg-eth1
STARTMODE='hotplug'
BOOTPROTO='none'

BOOTPROTO=none uses the ethtool options (when provided), but does not set the link up on
ifup eth0 . The reason is that the slave interface is controlled by the bond master.

STARTMODE=hotplug causes the slave interface to join the bond automatically when it is avail-
able.
The udev rules in /etc/udev/rules.d/70-persistent-net.rules need to be changed to
match the device by bus ID (udev KERNELS keyword equal to "SysFS BusID" as visible in hwin-
fo --netcard ) instead of by MAC address. This allows replacement of defective hardware (a
network card in the same slot but with a different MAC) and prevents confusion when the bond
changes the MAC address of all its slaves.
For example:

SUBSYSTEM=="net", ACTION=="add", DRIVERS=="?*",

KERNELS=="0000:00:19.0", ATTR{dev_id}=="0x0", ATTR{type}=="1",
KERNEL=="eth*", NAME="eth0"

285 Hotplugging of Bonding Slaves SLED 15

At boot time, the systemd network.service does not wait for the hotplug slaves, but for the
bond to become ready, which requires at least one available slave. When one of the slave in-
terfaces gets removed (unbind from NIC driver, rmmod of the NIC driver or true PCI hotplug
remove) from the system, the kernel removes it from the bond automatically. When a new card
is added to the system (replacement of the hardware in the slot), udev renames it using the
bus-based persistent name rule to the name of the slave, and calls ifup for it. The ifup call
automatically joins it into the bond.

17.8 Setting Up Team Devices for Network Teaming

The term “link aggregation” is the general term which describes combining (or aggregating) a
network connection to provide a logical layer. Sometimes you nd the terms “channel teaming”,
“Ethernet bonding”, “port truncating”, etc. which are synonyms and refer to the same concept.
This concept is widely known as “bonding” and was originally integrated into the Linux kernel
(see Section 17.7, “Setting Up Bonding Devices” for the original implementation). The term Network
Teaming is used to refer to the new implementation of this concept.
The main difference between bonding and Network Teaming is that teaming supplies a set of
small kernel modules responsible for providing an interface for teamd instances. Everything
else is handled in user space. This is different from the original bonding implementation which
contains all of its functionality exclusively in the kernel. For a comparison refer to Table 17.5,
“Feature Comparison between Bonding and Team”.

TABLE 17.5: FEATURE COMPARISON BETWEEN BONDING AND TEAM

Feature Bonding Team

broadcast, round-robin TX yes yes

policy

active-backup TX policy yes yes

LACP (802.3ad) support yes yes

hash-based TX policy yes yes

user can set hash function no yes

TX load-balancing support yes yes

(TLB)

286 Setting Up Team Devices for Network Teaming SLED 15

Feature Bonding Team

TX load-balancing support no yes

for LACP

Ethtool link monitoring yes yes

ARP link monitoring yes yes

NS/NA (IPV6) link monitor- no yes

ing

RCU locking on TX/RX paths no yes

port prio and stickiness no yes

separate per-port link moni- no yes

toring setup

multiple link monitoring set- limited yes

up

VLAN support yes yes

multiple device stacking yes yes

Source: http://libteam.org/files/teamdev.pp.pdf

Both implementations, bonding and Network Teaming, can be used in parallel. Network Team-
ing is an alternative to the existing bonding implementation. It does not replace bonding.
Network Teaming can be used for different use cases. The two most important use cases are
explained later and involve:

Load balancing between different network devices.

Failover from one network device to another in case one of the devices should fail.

Currently, there is no YaST module to support creating a teaming device. You need to configure
Network Teaming manually. The general procedure is shown below which can be applied for
all your Network Teaming configurations:

PROCEDURE 17.1: GENERAL PROCEDURE

1. Make sure you have all the necessary packages installed. Install the packages libteam-
tools , libteamdctl0 , and python-libteam .

287 Setting Up Team Devices for Network Teaming SLED 15

 2. Create a configuration le under /etc/sysconfig/network/ . Usually it will be ifcfg-
team0 . If you need more than one Network Teaming device, give them ascending numbers.
This configuration le contains several variables which are explained in the man pages
(see man ifcfg and man ifcfg-team ). An example configuration can be found in your
system in the le /etc/sysconfig/network/ifcfg.template .

3. Remove the configuration les of the interfaces which will be used for the teaming device
(usually ifcfg-eth0 and ifcfg-eth1 ).
It is recommended to make a backup and remove both les. Wicked will re-create the
configuration les with the necessary parameters for teaming.

4. Optionally, check if everything is included in Wicked's configuration le:

tux > sudo wicked show-config

5. Start the Network Teaming device team0 :

tux > sudo wicked ifup all team0

In case you need additional debug information, use the option --debug all after the
all subcommand.

6. Check the status of the Network Teaming device. This can be done by the following com-
mands:

Get the state of the teamd instance from Wicked:

tux > sudo wicked ifstatus --verbose team0

Get the state of the entire instance:

tux > sudo teamdctl team0 state

Get the systemd state of the teamd instance:

tux > sudo systemctl status teamd@team0

Each of them shows a slightly different view depending on your needs.

288 Setting Up Team Devices for Network Teaming SLED 15

 7. In case you need to change something in the ifcfg-team0 le afterward, reload its con-
figuration with:

tux > sudo wicked ifreload team0

Do not use systemctl for starting or stopping the teaming device! Instead, use the wicked
command as shown above.
To completely remove the team device, use this procedure:

PROCEDURE 17.2: REMOVING A TEAM DEVICE

1. Stop the Network Teaming device team0 :

tux > sudo wicked ifdown team0

2. Rename the le /etc/sysconfig/network/ifcfg-team0 to /etc/sysconfig/net-

work/.ifcfg-team0 . Inserting a dot in front of the le name makes it “invisible” for
wicked. If you really do not need the configuration anymore, you can also remove the le.

3. Reload the configuration:

tux > sudo wicked ifreload all

17.8.1 Use Case: Load Balancing with Network Teaming

Load balancing is used to improve bandwidth. Use the following configuration le to create a
Network Teaming device with load balancing capabilities. Proceed with Procedure 17.1, “General
Procedure” to set up the device. Check the output with teamdctl .

EXAMPLE 17.12: CONFIGURATION FOR LOAD BALANCING WITH NETWORK TEAMING

STARTMODE=auto 1

BOOTPROTO=static 2

IPADDRESS="192.168.1.1/24" 2

IPADDR6="fd00:deca:fbad:50::1/64" 2

TEAM_RUNNER="loadbalance" 3

TEAM_LB_TX_HASH="ipv4,ipv6,eth,vlan"
TEAM_LB_TX_BALANCER_NAME="basic"
TEAM_LB_TX_BALANCER_INTERVAL="100"

TEAM_PORT_DEVICE_0="eth0" 4

289 Use Case: Load Balancing with Network Teaming SLED 15

TEAM_PORT_DEVICE_1="eth1" 4

TEAM_LW_NAME="ethtool" 5

TEAM_LW_ETHTOOL_DELAY_UP="10" 6

TEAM_LW_ETHTOOL_DELAY_DOWN="10" 6

1 Controls the start of the teaming device. The value of auto means, the interface will be set
up when the network service is available and will be started automatically on every reboot.
In case you need to control the device yourself (and prevent it from starting automatically),
set STARTMODE to manual .
2 Sets a static IP address (here 192.168.1.1 for IPv4 and fd00:deca:fbad:50::1 for IPv6).
If the Network Teaming device should use a dynamic IP address, set BOOTPROTO="dhcp"
and remove (or comment) the line with IPADDRESS and IPADDR6 .
3 Sets TEAM_RUNNER to loadbalance to activate the load balancing mode.
4 Specifies one or more devices which should be aggregated to create the Network Teaming
device.
5 Defines a link watcher to monitor the state of subordinate devices. The default value eth-
tool checks only if the device is up and accessible. This makes this check fast enough.
However, it does not check if the device can really send or receive packets.
If you need a higher confidence in the connection, use the arp_ping option. This sends
pings to an arbitrary host (configured in the TEAM_LW_ARP_PING_TARGET_HOST variable).
The Network Teaming device is considered to be up only if the replies are received.
6 Defines the delay in milliseconds between the link coming up (or down) and the runner
being notified.

17.8.2 Use Case: Failover with Network Teaming

Failover is used to ensure high availability of a critical Network Teaming device by involving
a parallel backup network device. The backup network device is running all the time and takes
over if and when the main device fails.
Use the following configuration le to create a Network Teaming device with failover capabili-
ties. Proceed with Procedure 17.1, “General Procedure” to set up the device. Check the output with
teamdctl .

EXAMPLE 17.13: CONFIGURATION FOR DHCP NETWORK TEAMING DEVICE

STARTMODE=auto 1

290 Use Case: Failover with Network Teaming SLED 15

BOOTPROTO=static 2

IPADDR="192.168.1.2/24" 2

IPADDR6="fd00:deca:fbad:50::2/64" 2

TEAM_RUNNER=activebackup 3

TEAM_PORT_DEVICE_0="eth0" 4

TEAM_PORT_DEVICE_1="eth1" 4

TEAM_LW_NAME=ethtool 5

TEAM_LW_ETHTOOL_DELAY_UP="10" 6

TEAM_LW_ETHTOOL_DELAY_DOWN="10" 6

1 Controls the start of the teaming device. The value of auto means the interface will be set
up when the network service is available and will be started automatically on every reboot.
In case you need to control the device yourself (and prevent it from starting automatically),
set STARTMODE to manual .
2 Sets a static IP address (here 192.168.1.2 for IPv4 and fd00:deca:fbad:50::2 for IPv6).
If the Network Teaming device should use a dynamic IP address, set BOOTPROTO="dhcp"
and remove (or comment) the line with IPADDRESS and IPADDR6 .
3 Sets TEAM_RUNNER to activebackup to activate the failover mode.
4 Specifies one or more devices which should be aggregated to create the Network Teaming
device.
5 Defines a link watcher to monitor the state of subordinate devices. The default value eth-
tool checks only if the device is up and accessible. This makes this check fast enough.
However, it does not check if the device can really send or receive packets.
If you need a higher confidence in the connection, use the arp_ping option. This sends
pings to an arbitrary host (configured in the TEAM_LW_ARP_PING_TARGET_HOST variable).
Only if the replies are received, the Network Teaming device is considered to be up.
6 Defines the delay in milliseconds between the link coming up (or down) and the runner
being notified.

17.8.3 Use Case: VLAN over Team Device

VLAN is an abbreviation of Virtual Local Area Network. It allows the running of multiple logical
(virtual) Ethernets over one single physical Ethernet. It logically splits the network into different
broadcast domains so that packets are only switched between ports that are designated for the
same VLAN.

291 Use Case: VLAN over Team Device SLED 15

The following use case creates two static VLANs on top of a team device:

vlan0 , bound to the IP address 192.168.10.1

vlan1 , bound to the IP address 192.168.20.1

Proceed as follows:

1. Enable the VLAN tags on your switch. To use load balancing for your team device, your
switch needs to be capable of Link Aggregation Control Protocol (LACP) (802.3ad). Consult
your hardware manual about the details.

2. Decide if you want to use load balancing or failover for your team device. Set up your
team device as described in Section 17.8.1, “Use Case: Load Balancing with Network Teaming”
or Section 17.8.2, “Use Case: Failover with Network Teaming”.

3. In /etc/sysconfig/network create a le ifcfg-vlan0 with the following content:

STARTMODE="auto"
BOOTPROTO="static" 1

IPADDR='192.168.10.1/24' 2

ETHERDEVICE="team0" 3

VLAN_ID="0" 4

VLAN='yes'

1 Defines a xed IP address, specified in IPADDR .

2 Defines the IP address, here with its netmask.
3 Contains the real interface to use for the VLAN interface, here our team device
( team0 ).
4 Specifies a unique ID for the VLAN. Preferably, the le name and the VLAN_ID cor-
responds to the name ifcfg-vlanVLAN_ID . In our case VLAN_ID is 0 which leads
to the le name ifcfg-vlan0 .

4. Copy the le /etc/sysconfig/network/ifcfg-vlan0 to /etc/sysconfig/net-

work/ifcfg-vlan1 and change the following values:

IPADDR from 192.168.10.1/24 to 192.168.20.1/24 .

VLAN_ID from 0 to 1 .

5. Start the two VLANs:

root # wicked ifup vlan0 vlan1

292 Use Case: VLAN over Team Device SLED 15

 6. Check the output of ifconfig :

root # ifconfig -a
[...]
vlan0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 08:00:27:DC:43:98
inet addr:192.168.10.1 Bcast:192.168.10.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
inet6 addr: fe80::a00:27ff:fedc:4398/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:12 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:0 (0.0 b) TX bytes:816 (816.0 b)

vlan1 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 08:00:27:DC:43:98

inet addr:192.168.20.1 Bcast:192.168.20.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
inet6 addr: fe80::a00:27ff:fedc:4398/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:12 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:0 (0.0 b) TX bytes:816 (816.0 b)

293 Use Case: VLAN over Team Device SLED 15

18 Printer Operation

SUSE® Linux Enterprise Desktop supports printing with many types of printers, including re-
mote network printers. Printers can be configured manually or with YaST. For configuration
instructions, refer to Book “Deployment Guide”, Chapter 12 “Setting Up Hardware Components with
YaST”, Section 12.3 “Setting Up a Printer”. Both graphical and command line utilities are available for
starting and managing print jobs. If your printer does not work as expected, refer to Section 18.8,
“Troubleshooting”.

CUPS (Common Unix Printing System) is the standard print system in SUSE Linux Enterprise
Desktop.
Printers can be distinguished by interface, such as USB or network, and printer language. When
buying a printer, make sure that the printer has an interface that is supported (USB, Ethernet, or
Wi-Fi) and a suitable printer language. Printers can be categorized on the basis of the following
three classes of printer languages:

PostScript Printers
PostScript is the printer language in which most print jobs in Linux and Unix are generat-
ed and processed by the internal print system. If PostScript documents can be processed
directly by the printer and do not need to be converted in additional stages in the print
system, the number of potential error sources is reduced.
Currently PostScript is being replaced by PDF as the standard print job format. PostScript
+PDF printers that can directly print PDF (in addition to PostScript) already exist. For
traditional PostScript printers PDF needs to be converted to PostScript in the printing
workflow.

Standard Printers (Languages Like PCL and ESC/P)

In the case of known printer languages, the print system can convert PostScript jobs to
the respective printer language with Ghostscript. This processing stage is called interpret-
ing. The best-known languages are PCL (which is mostly used by HP printers and their
clones) and ESC/P (which is used by Epson printers). These printer languages are usually
supported by Linux and produce an adequate print result. Linux may not be able to address
some special printer functions. Except for HP and Epson, there are currently no printer
manufacturers who develop Linux drivers and make them available to Linux distributors
under an open source license.

Proprietary Printers (Also Called GDI Printers)

294 SLED 15
 These printers do not support any of the common printer languages. They use their own
undocumented printer languages, which are subject to change when a new edition of a
model is released. Usually only Windows drivers are available for these printers. See Sec-
tion 18.8.1, “Printers without Standard Printer Language Support” for more information.

Before you buy a new printer, refer to the following sources to check how well the printer you
intend to buy is supported:

http://www.linuxfoundation.org/OpenPrinting/
The OpenPrinting home page with the printer database. The database shows the latest
Linux support status. However, a Linux distribution can only integrate the drivers available
at production time. Accordingly, a printer currently rated as “perfectly supported” may not
have had this status when the latest SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop version was released.
Thus, the databases may not necessarily indicate the correct status, but only provide an
approximation.

http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/
The Ghostscript Web page.

/usr/share/doc/packages/ghostscript/catalog.devices
List of built-in Ghostscript drivers.

18.1 The CUPS Workflow

The user creates a print job. The print job consists of the data to print plus information for the
spooler. This includes the name of the printer or the name of the print queue, and optionally,
information for the filter, such as printer-specific options.
At least one dedicated print queue exists for every printer. The spooler holds the print job in the
queue until the desired printer is ready to receive data. When the printer is ready, the spooler
sends the data through the filter and back-end to the printer.
The filter converts the data generated by the application that is printing (usually PostScript or
PDF, but also ASCII, JPEG, etc.) into printer-specific data (PostScript, PCL, ESC/P, etc.). The
features of the printer are described in the PPD les. A PPD le contains printer-specific options
with the parameters needed to enable them on the printer. The filter system makes sure that
options selected by the user are enabled.

295 The CUPS Workflow SLED 15

If you use a PostScript printer, the filter system converts the data into printer-specific PostScript.
This does not require a printer driver. If you use a non-PostScript printer, the filter system con-
verts the data into printer-specific data. This requires a printer driver suitable for your printer.
The back-end receives the printer-specific data from the filter then passes it to the printer.

18.2 Methods and Protocols for Connecting Printers

There are various possibilities for connecting a printer to the system. The configuration of CUPS
does not distinguish between a local printer and a printer connected to the system over the
network. For more information about the printer connection, read the article CUPS in a Nutshell
at http://en.opensuse.org/SDB:CUPS_in_a_Nutshell .

Warning: Changing Cable Connections in a

Running System
When connecting the printer to the machine, do not forget that only USB devices can be
plugged in or unplugged during operation. To avoid damaging your system or printer,
shut down the system before changing any connections that are not USB.

18.3 Installing the Software

PPD (PostScript printer description) is the computer language that describes the properties, like
resolution, and options, such as the availability of a duplex unit. These descriptions are required
for using various printer options in CUPS. Without a PPD le, the print data would be forwarded
to the printer in a “raw” state, which is usually not desired.
To configure a PostScript printer, the best approach is to get a suitable PPD le. Many PPD les
are available in the packages manufacturer-PPDs and OpenPrintingPPDs-postscript . See
Section 18.7.3, “PPD Files in Various Packages” and Section 18.8.2, “No Suitable PPD File Available for a
PostScript Printer”.

New PPD les can be stored in the directory /usr/share/cups/model/ or added to the print
system with YaST as described in Book “Deployment Guide”, Chapter 12 “Setting Up Hardware Com-
ponents with YaST”, Section  12.3.1.1 “Adding Drivers with YaST”. Subsequently, the PPD le can be
selected during the printer setup.

296 Methods and Protocols for Connecting Printers SLED 15

Be careful if a printer manufacturer wants you to install entire software packages. This kind of
installation may result in the loss of the support provided by SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop.
Also, print commands may work differently and the system may no longer be able to address
devices of other manufacturers. For this reason, the installation of manufacturer software is not
recommended.

18.4 Network Printers

A network printer can support various protocols, some even concurrently. Although most of the
supported protocols are standardized, some manufacturers modify the standard. Manufacturers
then provide drivers for only a few operating systems. Unfortunately, Linux drivers are rarely
provided. The current situation is such that you cannot act on the assumption that every protocol
works smoothly in Linux. Therefore, you may need to experiment with various options to achieve
a functional configuration.
CUPS supports the socket , LPD , IPP and smb protocols.

socket
Socket refers to a connection in which the plain print data is sent directly to a TCP sock-
et. Some socket port numbers that are commonly used are 9100 or 35 . The device URI
(uniform resource identifier) syntax is: socket:// IP.OF.THE.PRINTER : PORT , for example:
socket://192.168.2.202:9100/ .

LPD (Line Printer Daemon)

The LPD protocol is described in RFC 1179. Under this protocol, some job-related data,
such as the ID of the print queue, is sent before the actual print data is sent. Therefore, a
print queue must be specified when configuring the LPD protocol. The implementations of
diverse printer manufacturers are flexible enough to accept any name as the print queue. If
necessary, the printer manual should indicate what name to use. LPT, LPT1, LP1 or similar
names are often used. The port number for an LPD service is 515 . An example device URI
is lpd://192.168.2.202/LPT1 .

IPP (Internet Printing Protocol)

IPP is a relatively new protocol (1999) based on the HTTP protocol. With IPP, more job-
related data is transmitted than with the other protocols. CUPS uses IPP for internal data
transmission. The name of the print queue is necessary to configure IPP correctly. The
port number for IPP is 631 . Example device URIs are ipp://192.168.2.202/ps and
ipp://192.168.2.202/printers/ps .

297 Network Printers SLED 15

SMB (Windows Share)
CUPS also supports printing on printers connected to Windows shares. The protocol used
for this purpose is SMB. SMB uses the port numbers 137 , 138 and 139 . Example de-
vice URIs are smb://user:password@workgroup/smb.example.com/printer , smb://
user:password@smb.example.com/printer , and smb://smb.example.com/printer .

The protocol supported by the printer must be determined before configuration. If the manufac-
turer does not provide the needed information, the command nmap (which comes with the nmap
package) can be used to ascertain the protocol. nmap checks a host for open ports. For example:

tux > nmap -p 35,137-139,515,631,9100-10000 IP.OF.THE.PRINTER

18.5 Configuring CUPS with Command Line Tools

CUPS can be configured with command line tools like lpinfo , lpadmin and lpoptions . You
need a device URI consisting of a back-end, such as USB, and parameters. To determine valid
device URIs on your system use the command lpinfo -v | grep ":/" :

tux > sudo lpinfo -v | grep ":/"

direct usb://ACME/FunPrinter%20XL
network socket://192.168.2.253

With lpadmin the CUPS server administrator can add, remove or manage print queues. To add
a print queue, use the following syntax:

tux > sudo lpadmin -p QUEUE -v DEVICE-URI -P PPD-FILE -E

Then the device ( -v ) is available as QUEUE ( -p ), using the specified PPD le ( -P ). This means
that you must know the PPD le and the device URI to configure the printer manually.
Do not use -E as the rst option. For all CUPS commands, -E as the rst argument sets use
of an encrypted connection. To enable the printer, -E must be used as shown in the following
example:

tux > sudo lpadmin -p ps -v usb://ACME/FunPrinter%20XL -P \

/usr/share/cups/model/Postscript.ppd.gz -E

298 Configuring CUPS with Command Line Tools SLED 15

The following example configures a network printer:

tux > sudo lpadmin -p ps -v socket://192.168.2.202:9100/ -P \

/usr/share/cups/model/Postscript-level1.ppd.gz -E

For more options of lpadmin , see the man page of lpadmin(8) .

During printer setup, certain options are set as default. These options can be modified for every
print job (depending on the print tool used). Changing these default options with YaST is also
possible. Using command line tools, set default options as follows:

1. First, list all options:

tux > sudo lpoptions -p QUEUE -l

Example:

Resolution/Output Resolution: 150dpi *300dpi 600dpi

The activated default option is identified by a preceding asterisk ( * ).

2. Change the option with lpadmin :

tux > sudo lpadmin -p QUEUE -o Resolution=600dpi

3. Check the new setting:

tux > sudo lpoptions -p QUEUE -l

Resolution/Output Resolution: 150dpi 300dpi *600dpi

When a normal user runs lpoptions , the settings are written to ~/.cups/lpoptions . How-
ever, root settings are written to /etc/cups/lpoptions .

18.6 Printing from the Command Line

To print from the command line, enter lp -d QUEUENAME FILENAME , substituting the corre-
sponding names for QUEUENAME and FILENAME .
Some applications rely on the lp command for printing. In this case, enter the correct command
in the application's print dialog, usually without specifying FILENAME , for example, lp -d
QUEUENAME .

299 Printing from the Command Line SLED 15

18.7 Special Features in SUSE Linux Enterprise
Desktop
Several CUPS features have been adapted for SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop. Some of the most
important changes are covered here.

18.7.1 CUPS and Firewall

After having performed a default installation of SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop, firewalld
is active and the network interfaces are configured to be in the public zone which blocks
incoming traffic. More information about the firewalld configuration is available in Book
“Security Guide”, Chapter 16 “Masquerading and Firewalls”, Section 16.4 “firewalld” and at http://
en.opensuse.org/SDB:CUPS_and_SANE_Firewall_settings .

18.7.1.1 CUPS Client

Normally, a CUPS client runs on a regular workstation located in a trusted network environment
behind a firewall. In this case it is recommended to configure the network interface to be in the
Internal Zone , so the workstation is reachable from within the network.

18.7.1.2 CUPS Server

If the CUPS server is part of a trusted network environment protected by a firewall, the network
interface should be configured to be in the Internal Zone of the firewall. It is not recommend-
ed to set up a CUPS server in an untrusted network environment unless you ensure that it is
protected by special firewall rules and secure settings in the CUPS configuration.

18.7.2 Browsing for Network Printers

CUPS servers regularly announce the availability and status information of shared printers over
the network. Clients can access this information to display a list of available printers in printing
dialogues, for example. This is called “browsing”.
CUPS servers announce their print queues over the network either via the traditional CUPS
browsing protocol or via Bonjour/DNS-SD. To be able to browse network print queues, the
service cups-browsed needs to run on all clients that print via CUPS servers. cups-browsed

300 Special Features in SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop SLED 15

is not started by default. To start it for the active session, use sudo systemctl start cups-
browsed . To ensure it is automatically started after booting, enable it with sudo systemctl
enable cups-browsed on all clients.

In case browsing does not work after having started cups-browsed , the CUPS server(s) probably
announce the network print queues via Bonjour/DNS-SD. In this case you need to additionally
install the package avahi and start the associated service with sudo systemctl start avahi-
daemon on all clients.

18.7.3 PPD Files in Various Packages

The YaST printer configuration sets up the queues for CUPS using the PPD les installed in /
usr/share/cups/model . To nd the suitable PPD les for the printer model, YaST compares
the vendor and model determined during hardware detection with the vendors and models in
all PPD les. For this purpose, the YaST printer configuration generates a database from the
vendor and model information extracted from the PPD les.
The configuration using only PPD les and no other information sources has the advantage that
the PPD les in /usr/share/cups/model can be modified freely. For example, if you have
PostScript printers the PPD les can be copied directly to /usr/share/cups/model (if they do
not already exist in the manufacturer-PPDs or OpenPrintingPPDs-postscript packages) to
achieve an optimum configuration for your printers.
Additional PPD les are provided by the following packages:

gutenprint: the Gutenprint driver and its matching PPDs

splix: the SpliX driver and its matching PPDs

OpenPrintingPPDs-ghostscript: PPDs for Ghostscript built-in drivers

OpenPrintingPPDs-hpijs: PPDs for the HPIJS driver for non-HP printers

18.8 Troubleshooting
The following sections cover some of the most frequently encountered printer hardware and
software problems and ways to solve or circumvent these problems. Among the topics covered
are GDI printers, PPD les and port configuration. Common network printer problems, defective
printouts, and queue handling are also addressed.

301 PPD Files in Various Packages SLED 15

18.8.1 Printers without Standard Printer Language Support
These printers do not support any common printer language and can only be addressed with
special proprietary control sequences. Therefore they can only work with the operating system
versions for which the manufacturer delivers a driver. GDI is a programming interface developed
by Microsoft* for graphics devices. Usually the manufacturer delivers drivers only for Windows,
and since the Windows driver uses the GDI interface these printers are also called GDI printers.
The actual problem is not the programming interface, but that these printers can only be ad-
dressed with the proprietary printer language of the respective printer model.
Some GDI printers can be switched to operate either in GDI mode or in one of the standard
printer languages. See the manual of the printer whether this is possible. Some models require
special Windows software to do the switch (note that the Windows printer driver may always
switch the printer back into GDI mode when printing from Windows). For other GDI printers
there are extension modules for a standard printer language available.
Some manufacturers provide proprietary drivers for their printers. The disadvantage of propri-
etary printer drivers is that there is no guarantee that these work with the installed print system
or that they are suitable for the various hardware platforms. In contrast, printers that support a
standard printer language do not depend on a special print system version or a special hardware
platform.
Instead of spending time trying to make a proprietary Linux driver work, it may be more cost-ef-
fective to purchase a printer which supports a standard printer language (preferably PostScript).
This would solve the driver problem once and for all, eliminating the need to install and con-
figure special driver software and obtain driver updates that may be required because of new
developments in the print system.

18.8.2 No Suitable PPD File Available for a PostScript Printer

If the manufacturer-PPDs or OpenPrintingPPDs-postscript packages do not contain a suit-
able PPD le for a PostScript printer, it should be possible to use the PPD le from the driver CD
of the printer manufacturer or download a suitable PPD le from the Web page of the printer
manufacturer.
If the PPD le is provided as a zip archive (.zip) or a self-extracting zip archive ( .exe ), unpack
it with unzip . First, review the license terms of the PPD le. Then use the cupstestppd util-
ity to check if the PPD le complies with “Adobe PostScript Printer Description File Format

302 Printers without Standard Printer Language Support SLED 15

Specification, version 4.3.” If the utility returns “FAIL,” the errors in the PPD les are serious
and are likely to cause major problems. The problem spots reported by cupstestppd should
be eliminated. If necessary, ask the printer manufacturer for a suitable PPD le.

18.8.3 Network Printer Connections

Identifying Network Problems

Connect the printer directly to the computer. For test purposes, configure the printer as a
local printer. If this works, the problems are related to the network.

Checking the TCP/IP Network

The TCP/IP network and name resolution must be functional.

Checking a Remote lpd

Use the following command to test if a TCP connection can be established to lpd (port
515 ) on HOST :

tux > netcat -z HOST 515 && echo ok || echo failed

If the connection to lpd cannot be established, lpd may not be active or there may be
basic network problems.
Provided that the respective lpd is active and the host accepts queries, run the following
command as root to query a status report for QUEUE on remote HOST :

root # echo -e "\004queue" \

| netcat -w 2 -p 722 HOST 515

If lpd does not respond, it may not be active or there may be basic network problems.
If lpd responds, the response should show why printing is not possible on the queue on
host . If you receive a response like that shown in Example 18.1, “Error Message from lpd”,
the problem is caused by the remote lpd .

EXAMPLE 18.1: ERROR MESSAGE FROM lpd

lpd: your host does not have line printer access

lpd: queue does not exist
printer: spooling disabled
printer: printing disabled

Checking a Remote cupsd

303 Network Printer Connections SLED 15

 A CUPS network server can broadcast its queues by default every 30 seconds on UDP
port 631 . Accordingly, the following command can be used to test whether there is a
broadcasting CUPS network server in the network. Make sure to stop your local CUPS
daemon before executing the command.

tux > netcat -u -l -p 631 & PID=$! ; sleep 40 ; kill $PID

If a broadcasting CUPS network server exists, the output appears as shown in Example 18.2,
“Broadcast from the CUPS Network Server”.

EXAMPLE 18.2: BROADCAST FROM THE CUPS NETWORK SERVER

ipp://192.168.2.202:631/printers/queue

The following command can be used to test if a TCP connection can be established to
cupsd (port 631 ) on HOST :

tux > netcat -z HOST 631 && echo ok || echo failed

If the connection to cupsd cannot be established, cupsd may not be active or there may
be basic network problems. lpstat -h HOST -l -t returns a (possibly very long) status
report for all queues on HOST , provided the respective cupsd is active and the host accepts
queries.
The next command can be used to test if the QUEUE on HOST accepts a print job consisting
of a single carriage-return character. Nothing should be printed. Possibly, a blank page
may be ejected.

tux > echo -en "\r" \

| lp -d queue -h HOST

Troubleshooting a Network Printer or Print Server Machine

Spoolers running in a print server machine sometimes cause problems when they need
to deal with multiple print jobs. Since this is caused by the spooler in the print server
machine, there no way to resolve this issue. As a work-around, circumvent the spooler in
the print server machine by addressing the printer connected to the print server machine
directly with the TCP socket. See Section 18.4, “Network Printers”.
In this way, the print server machine is reduced to a converter between the various forms of
data transfer (TCP/IP network and local printer connection). To use this method, you need
to know the TCP port on the print server machine. If the printer is connected to the print

304 Network Printer Connections SLED 15

 server machine and turned on, this TCP port can usually be determined with the nmap
utility from the nmap package some time after the print server machine is powered up. For
example, nmap  IP-address may deliver the following output for a print server machine:

Port State Service

23/tcp open telnet
80/tcp open http
515/tcp open printer
631/tcp open cups
9100/tcp open jetdirect

This output indicates that the printer connected to the print server machine can be ad-
dressed via TCP socket on port 9100 . By default, nmap only checks several commonly
known ports listed in /usr/share/nmap/nmap-services . To check all possible ports, use
the command nmap -p  FROM_PORT - TO_PORT   IP_ADDRESS . This may take some time.
For further information, refer to the man page of nmap .
Enter a command like

tux > echo -en "\rHello\r\f" | netcat -w 1 IP-address port

cat file | netcat -w 1 IP-address port

to send character strings or les directly to the respective port to test if the printer can
be addressed on this port.

18.8.4 Defective Printouts without Error Message

For the print system, the print job is completed when the CUPS back-end completes the data
transfer to the recipient (printer). If further processing on the recipient fails (for example, if
the printer is not able to print the printer-specific data) the print system does not notice this.
If the printer cannot print the printer-specific data, select a PPD le that is more suitable for
the printer.

18.8.5 Disabled Queues

If the data transfer to the recipient fails entirely after several attempts, the CUPS back-end, such
as USB or socket , reports an error to the print system (to cupsd ). The back-end determines
how many unsuccessful attempts are appropriate until the data transfer is reported as impossible.

305 Defective Printouts without Error Message SLED 15

As further attempts would be in vain, cupsd disables printing for the respective queue. After
eliminating the cause of the problem, the system administrator must re-enable printing with the
command cupsenable .

18.8.6 CUPS Browsing: Deleting Print Jobs

If a CUPS network server broadcasts its queues to the client hosts via browsing and a suitable
local cupsd is active on the client hosts, the client cupsd accepts print jobs from applications
and forwards them to the cupsd on the server. When cupsd on the server accepts a print job, it
is assigned a new job number. Therefore, the job number on the client host is different from the
job number on the server. As a print job is usually forwarded immediately, it cannot be deleted
with the job number on the client host This is because the client cupsd regards the print job as
completed when it has been forwarded to the server cupsd .
To delete the print job on the server, use a command such as lpstat -h cups.example.com
-o to determine the job number on the server. This assumes that the server has not already
completed the print job (that is, sent it completely to the printer). Use the obtained job number
to delete the print job on the server as follows:

tux > cancel -h cups.example.com QUEUE-JOBNUMBER

18.8.7 Defective Print Jobs and Data Transfer Errors

If you switch the printer o or shut down the computer during the printing process, print jobs
remain in the queue. Printing resumes when the computer (or the printer) is switched back on.
Defective print jobs must be removed from the queue with cancel .
If a print job is corrupted or an error occurs in the communication between the host and the
printer, the printer cannot process the data correctly and prints numerous sheets of paper with
unintelligible characters. To x the problem, follow these steps:

1. To stop printing, remove all paper from ink jet printers or open the paper trays of laser
printers. High-quality printers have a button for canceling the current printout.

2. The print job may still be in the queue, because jobs are only removed after they are sent
completely to the printer. Use lpstat -o or lpstat -h cups.example.com -o to check
which queue is currently printing. Delete the print job with cancel QUEUE - JOBNUMBER
or cancel -h cups.example.com QUEUE - JOBNUMBER .

306 CUPS Browsing: Deleting Print Jobs SLED 15

 3. Some data may still be transferred to the printer even though the print job has been deleted
from the queue. Check if a CUPS back-end process is still running for the respective queue
and terminate it.

4. Reset the printer completely by switching it o for some time. Then insert the paper and
turn on the printer.

18.8.8 Debugging CUPS

Use the following generic procedure to locate problems in CUPS:

1. Set LogLevel debug in /etc/cups/cupsd.conf .

2. Stop cupsd .

3. Remove /var/log/cups/error_log* to avoid having to search through very large log

les.

4. Start cupsd .

5. Repeat the action that led to the problem.

6. Check the messages in /var/log/cups/error_log* to identify the cause of the problem.

18.8.9 For More Information

In-depth information about printing on SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop is presented in the
openSUSE Support Database at http://en.opensuse.org/Portal:Printing . Solutions to many spe-
cific problems are presented in the SUSE Knowledgebase (http://www.suse.com/support/ ). Lo-
cate the relevant articles with a text search for CUPS .

307 Debugging CUPS SLED 15

19 Graphical User Interface

SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop includes the X.org server, Wayland and the GNOME
desktop. This chapter describes the configuration of the graphical user interface for
all users.

19.1 X Window System

The X.org server is the de facto standard for implementing the X11 protocol. X is network-based,
enabling applications started on one host to be displayed on another host connected over any
kind of network (LAN or Internet).
Usually, the X Window System needs no configuration. The hardware is dynamically detected
during X start-up. The use of xorg.conf is therefore deprecated. If you still need to specify
custom options to change the way X behaves, you can still do so by modifying configuration
les under /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/ .
In SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 15 Wayland is included as an alternative to the X.org server.
It can be selected during the installation.
Install the package xorg-docs to get more in-depth information about X11. man 5 xorg.conf
tells you more about the format of the manual configuration (if needed). More information on
the X11 development can be found on the project's home page at http://www.x.org .
Drivers are found in xf86-video-* packages, for example xf86-video-ati . Many of the dri-
vers delivered with these packages are described in detail in the related manual page. For ex-
ample, if you use the ati driver, nd more information about this driver in man 4 ati .
Information about third-party drivers is available in /usr/share/doc/packages/<pack-
age_name> . For example, the documentation of x11-video-nvidiaG03 is available in /usr/
share/doc/packages/x11-video-nvidiaG04 after the package was installed.

19.2 Installing and Configuring Fonts

Fonts in Linux can be categorized into two parts:

Outline or Vector Fonts

308 X Window System SLED 15

 Contains a mathematical description as drawing instructions about the shape of a glyph.
As such, each glyph can be scaled to arbitrary sizes without loss of quality. Before such
a font (or glyph) can be used, the mathematical descriptions need to be transformed into
a raster (grid). This process is called font rasterization. Font hinting (embedded inside the
font) improves and optimizes the rendering result for a particular size. Rasterization and
hinting is done with the FreeType library.
Common formats under Linux are PostScript Type 1 and Type 2, TrueType, and OpenType.

Bitmap or Raster Fonts

Consists of an array of pixels designed for a specific font size. Bitmap fonts are extremely
fast and simple to render. However, compared to vector fonts, bitmap fonts cannot be
scaled without losing quality. As such, these fonts are usually distributed in different sizes.
These days, bitmap fonts are still used in the Linux console and sometimes in terminals.
Under Linux, Portable Compiled Format (PCF) or Glyph Bitmap Distribution Format (BDF)
are the most common formats.

The appearance of these fonts can be influenced by two main aspects:

choosing a suitable font family,

rendering the font with an algorithm that achieves results comfortable for the receiver's
eyes.

The last point is only relevant to vector fonts. Although the above two points are highly subjec-
tive, some defaults need to be created.
Linux font rendering systems consist of several libraries with different relations. The basic font
rendering library is FreeType (http://www.freetype.org/) , which converts font glyphs of support-
ed formats into optimized bitmap glyphs. The rendering process is controlled by an algorithm
and its parameters (which may be subject to patent issues).
Every program or library which uses FreeType should consult the Fontconfig (http://www.font-
config.org/) library. This library gathers font configuration from users and from the system.
When a user amends their Fontconfig setting, this change will result in Fontconfig-aware appli-
cations.
More sophisticated OpenType shaping needed for scripts such as Arabic, Han or Phags-Pa and
other higher level text processing is done using Harfbuzz (http://www.harfbuzz.org/) or Pango
(http://www.pango.org/) .

309 Installing and Configuring Fonts SLED 15

19.2.1 Showing Installed Fonts
To get an overview about which fonts are installed on your system, ask the commands rpm
or fc-list . Both will give you a good answer, but may return a different list depending on
system and user configuration:

rpm
Invoke rpm to see which software packages containing fonts are installed on your system:

tux > rpm -qa '*fonts*'

Every font package should satisfy this expression. However, the command may return some
false positives like fonts-config (which is neither a font nor does it contain fonts).

fc-list
Invoke fc-list to get an overview about what font families can be accessed, whether
they are installed on the system or in your home:

tux > fc-list ':' family

Note: Command fc-list

The command fc-list is a wrapper to the Fontconfig library. It is possible to query
a lot of interesting information from Fontconfig—or, to be more precise, from its
cache. See man 1 fc-list for more details.

19.2.2 Viewing Fonts

If you want to know what an installed font family looks like, either use the command
ftview (package ft2demos ) or visit http://fontinfo.opensuse.org/ . For example, to display
the FreeMono font in 14 point, use ftview like this:

tux > ftview 14 /usr/share/fonts/truetype/FreeMono.ttf

If you need further information, go to http://fontinfo.opensuse.org/ to nd out which styles

(regular, bold, italic, etc.) and languages are supported.

19.2.3 Querying Fonts

To query which font is used when a pattern is given, use the fc-match command.

310 Showing Installed Fonts SLED 15

For example, if your pattern contains an already installed font, fc-match returns the le name,
font family, and the style:

tux > fc-match 'Liberation Serif'

LiberationSerif-Regular.ttf: "Liberation Serif" "Regular"

If the desired font does not exist on your system, Fontconfig's matching rules take place and try
to nd the most similar fonts available. This means, your request is substituted:

tux > fc-match 'Foo Family'

DejaVuSans.ttf: "DejaVu Sans" "Book"

Fontconfig supports aliases: a name is substituted with another family name. A typical example
are the generic names such as “sans-serif”, “serif”, and “monospace”. These alias names can be
substituted by real family names or even a preference list of family names:

tux > for font in serif sans mono; do fc-match "$font" ; done
DejaVuSerif.ttf: "DejaVu Serif" "Book"
DejaVuSans.ttf: "DejaVu Sans" "Book"
DejaVuSansMono.ttf: "DejaVu Sans Mono" "Book"

The result may vary on your system, depending on which fonts are currently installed.

Note: Similarity Rules according to Fontconfig

Fontconfig always returns a real family (if at least one is installed) according to the given
request, as similar as possible. “Similarity” depends on Fontconfig's internal metrics and
on the user's or administrator's Fontconfig settings.

19.2.4 Installing Fonts

To install a new font there are these major methods:

1. Manually install the font les such as *.ttf or *.otf to a known font directory. If it
needs to be system-wide, use the standard directory /usr/share/fonts . For installation
in your home directory, use ~/.config/fonts .

311 Installing Fonts SLED 15

 If you want to deviate from the standard directories, Fontconfig allows you to choose
another one. Let Fontconfig know by using the <dir> element, see Section 19.2.5.2, “Diving
into Fontconfig XML” for details.

2. Install fonts using zypper . Lots of fonts are already available as a package, be it on your
SUSE distribution or in the M17N:fonts (http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/M17N:/
fonts/) repository. Add the repository to your list using the following command. For
example, to add a repository for SLE 15:

tux > sudo zypper ar

http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/M17N:/fonts/SLE_15/

To search for your FONT_FAMILY_NAME use this command:

tux > zypper se 'FONT_FAMILY_NAME*fonts'

19.2.5 Configuring the Appearance of Fonts

Depending on the rendering medium, and font size, the result may be unsatisfactory. For exam-
ple, an average monitor these days has a resolution of 100dpi which makes pixels too big and
glyphs look clunky.
There are several algorithms available to deal with low resolutions, such as anti-aliasing
(grayscale smoothing), hinting (fitting to the grid), or subpixel rendering (tripling resolution in
one direction). These algorithms can also differ from one font format to another.

Important: Patent Issues with Subpixel Rendering

Subpixel rendering is not used in SUSE distributions. Although FreeType2 has support
for this algorithm, it is covered by several patents expiring at the end of the year 2019.
Therefore, setting subpixel rendering options in Fontconfig has no effect unless the system
has a FreeType2 library with subpixel rendering compiled in.

Via Fontconfig, it is possible to select a rendering algorithms for every font individually or for
a set of fonts.

312 Configuring the Appearance of Fonts SLED 15

19.2.5.1 Configuring Fonts via sysconfig
SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop comes with a sysconfig layer above Fontconfig. This is a good
starting point for experimenting with font configuration. To change the default settings, edit the
configuration le /etc/sysconfig/fonts-config . (or use the YaST sysconfig module). After
you have edited the le, run fonts-config :

tux > sudo /usr/sbin/fonts-config

Restart the application to make the effect visible. Keep in mind the following issues:

A few applications do need not to be restarted. For example, Firefox re-reads Fontconfig
configuration from time to time. Newly created or reloaded tabs get new font configura-
tions later.

The fonts-config script is called automatically after every package installation or re-
moval (if not, it is a bug of the font software package).

Every sysconfig variable can be temporarily overridden by the fonts-config command

line option. See fonts-config --help for details.

There are several sysconfig variables which can be altered. See man 1 fonts-config or the
help page of the YaST sysconfig module. The following variables are examples:

Usage of Rendering Algorithms

Consider FORCE_HINTSTYLE , FORCE_AUTOHINT , FORCE_BW , FORCE_BW_MONOSPACE ,
USE_EMBEDDED_BITMAPS and EMBEDDED_BITMAP_LANGAGES

Preference Lists of Generic Aliases

Use PREFER_SANS_FAMILIES , PREFER_SERIF_FAMILIES , PREFER_MONO_FAMILIES and
SEARCH_METRIC_COMPATIBLE

The following list provides some configuration examples, sorted from the “most readable” fonts
(more contrast) to “most beautiful” (more smoothed).

Bitmap Fonts
Prefer bitmap fonts via the PREFER_*_FAMILIES variables. Follow the example in the help
section for these variables. Be aware that these fonts are rendered black and white, not
smoothed and that bitmap fonts are available in several sizes only. Consider using

SEARCH_METRIC_COMPATIBLE="no"

to disable metric compatibility-driven family name substitutions.

313 Configuring the Appearance of Fonts SLED 15

Scalable Fonts Rendered Black and White
Scalable fonts rendered without antialiasing can result in a similar outcome to bitmap
fonts, while maintaining font scalability. Use well hinted fonts like the Liberation families.
Unfortunately, there is a lack of well hinted fonts though. Set the following variable to
force this method:

FORCE_BW="yes"

Monospaced Fonts Rendered Black and White

Render monospaced fonts without antialiasing only, otherwise use default settings:

FORCE_BW_MONOSPACE="yes"

Default Settings
All fonts are rendered with antialiasing. Well hinted fonts will be rendered with the byte
code interpreter (BCI) and the rest with autohinter ( hintstyle=hintslight ). Leave all
relevant sysconfig variables to the default setting.

CFF Fonts
Use fonts in CFF format. They can be considered also more readable than the default
TrueType fonts given the current improvements in FreeType2. Try them out by following
the example of PREFER_*_FAMILIES . Possibly make them more dark and bold with:

SEARCH_METRIC_COMPATIBLE="no"

as they are rendered by hintstyle=hintslight by default. Also consider using:

SEARCH_METRIC_COMPATIBLE="no"

Autohinter Exclusively
Even for a well hinted font, use FreeType2's autohinter. That can lead to thicker, sometimes
fuzzier letter shapes with lower contrast. Set the following variable to activate this:

FORCE_AUTOHINTER="yes"

Use FORCE_HINTSTYLE to control the level of hinting.

19.2.5.2 Diving into Fontconfig XML

Fontconfig's configuration format is the eXtensible Markup Language (XML). These few examples
are not a complete reference, but a brief overview. Details and other inspiration can be found
in man 5 fonts-conf or in /etc/fonts/conf.d/ .

314 Configuring the Appearance of Fonts SLED 15

The central Fontconfig configuration le is /etc/fonts/fonts.conf , which—along other work
—includes the whole /etc/fonts/conf.d/ directory. To customize Fontconfig, there are two
places where you can insert your changes:

FONTCONFIG CONFIGURATION FILES

1. System-wide changes. Edit the le /etc/fonts/local.conf (by default, it contains an

empty fontconfig element).

2. User-specific changes. Edit the le ~/.config/fontconfig/fonts.conf . Place Fontcon-

fig configuration les in the ~/.config/fontconfig/conf.d/ directory.

User-specific changes overwrite any system-wide settings.

Note: Deprecated User Configuration File

The le ~/.fonts.conf is marked as deprecated and should not be used anymore. Use
~/.config/fontconfig/fonts.conf instead.

Every configuration le needs to have a fontconfig element. As such, the minimal le looks
like this:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE fontconfig SYSTEM "fonts.dtd">
<fontconfig>
<!-- Insert your changes here -->
</fontconfig>

If the default directories are not enough, insert the dir element with the respective directory:

<dir>/usr/share/fonts2</dir>

Fontconfig searches recursively for fonts.

Font-rendering algorithms can be chosen with following Fontconfig snippet (see Example 19.1,
“Specifying Rendering Algorithms”):

EXAMPLE 19.1: SPECIFYING RENDERING ALGORITHMS

<match target="font">
<test name="family">
<string>FAMILY_NAME</string>
</test>
<edit name="antialias" mode="assign">

315 Configuring the Appearance of Fonts SLED 15

 <bool>true</bool>
</edit>
<edit name="hinting" mode="assign">
<bool>true</bool>
</edit>
<edit name="autohint" mode="assign">
<bool>false</bool>
</edit>
<edit name="hintstyle" mode="assign">
<const>hintfull</const>
</edit>
</match>

Various properties of fonts can be tested. For example, the <test> element can test for the
font family (as shown in the example), size interval, spacing, font format, and others. When
abandoning <test> completely, all <edit> elements will be applied to every font (global
change).

EXAMPLE 19.2: ALIASES AND FAMILY NAME SUBSTITUTIONS

Rule 1

<alias>
<family>Alegreya SC</family>
<default>
<family>serif</family>
</default>
</alias>

Rule 2

<alias>
<family>serif</family>
<prefer>
<family>Droid Serif</family>
</prefer>
</alias>

Rule 3

<alias>
<family>serif</family>
<accept>
<family>STIXGeneral</family>
</accept>
</alias>

316 Configuring the Appearance of Fonts SLED 15

The rules from Example 19.2, “Aliases and Family Name Substitutions” create a prioritized family list
(PFL). Depending on the element, different actions are performed:

<default> from Rule 1

This rule adds a serif family name at the end of the PFL.

<prefer> from Rule 2

This rule adds “Droid Serif” just before the rst occurrence of serif in the PFL, whenever
Alegreya SC is in PFL.

<accept> from Rule 3

This rule adds a “STIXGeneral” family name just after the rst occurrence of the serif
family name in the PFL.

Putting this together, when snippets occur in the order Rule 1 - Rule 2 - Rule 3 and the user
requests “Alegreya SC”, then the PFL is created as depicted in Table 19.1, “Generating PFL from
Fontconfig rules”.

TABLE 19.1: GENERATING PFL FROM FONTCONFIG RULES

Order Current PFL

Request Alegreya SC

Rule 1 Alegreya SC , serif

Rule 2 Alegreya SC , Droid Serif , serif

Rule 3 Alegreya SC , Droid Serif , serif , STIXGeneral

In Fontconfig's metrics, the family name has the highest priority over other patterns, like style,
size, etc. Fontconfig checks which family is currently installed on the system. If “Alegreya SC”
is installed, then Fontconfig returns it. If not, it asks for “Droid Serif”, etc.
Be careful. When the order of Fontconfig snippets is changed, Fontconfig can return different
results, as depicted in Table 19.2, “Results from Generating PFL from Fontconfig Rules with Changed
Order”.

TABLE 19.2: RESULTS FROM GENERATING PFL FROM FONTCONFIG RULES WITH CHANGED ORDER

Order Current PFL Note

Request Alegreya SC Same request performed.

317 Configuring the Appearance of Fonts SLED 15

 Order Current PFL Note

Rule 2 Alegreya SC serif not in PFL, nothing is

substituted

Rule 3 Alegreya SC serif not in PFL, nothing is

substituted

Rule 1 Alegreya SC , serif Alegreya SC present in

PFL, substitution is per-
formed

Note: Implication
Think of the <default> alias as a classification or inclusion of this group (if not installed).
As the example shows, <default> should always precede the <prefer> and <accept>
aliases of that group.
<default> classification is not limited to the generic aliases serif, sans-serif and
monospace. See /usr/share/fontconfig/conf.avail/30-metric-aliases.conf for
a complex example.

The following Fontconfig snippet in Example 19.3, “Aliases and Family Name Substitutions” creates
a serif group. Every family in this group could substitute others when a former font is not
installed.

EXAMPLE 19.3: ALIASES AND FAMILY NAME SUBSTITUTIONS

<alias>
<family>Alegreya SC</family>
<default>
<family>serif</family>
</default>
</alias>
<alias>
<family>Droid Serif</family>
<default>
<family>serif</family>
</default>
</alias>
<alias>
<family>STIXGeneral</family>

318 Configuring the Appearance of Fonts SLED 15

 <default>
<family>serif</family>
</default>
</alias>
<alias>
<family>serif</family>
<accept>
<family>Droid Serif</family>
<family>STIXGeneral</family>
<family>Alegreya SC</family>
</accept>
</alias>

Priority is given by the order in the <accept> alias. Similarly, stronger <prefer> aliases can
be used.
Example 19.2, “Aliases and Family Name Substitutions” is expanded by Example 19.4, “Aliases and Family
Names Substitutions”.

EXAMPLE 19.4: ALIASES AND FAMILY NAMES SUBSTITUTIONS

Rule 4

<alias>
<family>serif</family>
<accept>
<family>Liberation Serif</family>
</accept>
</alias>

Rule 5

<alias>
<family>serif</family>
<prefer>
<family>DejaVu Serif</family>
</prefer>
</alias>

The expanded configuration from Example 19.4, “Aliases and Family Names Substitutions” would lead
to the following PFL evolution:
TABLE 19.3: RESULTS FROM GENERATING PFL FROM FONTCONFIG RULES

Order Current PFL

Request Alegreya SC

319 Configuring the Appearance of Fonts SLED 15

Order Current PFL

Rule 1 Alegreya SC , serif

Rule 2 Alegreya SC , Droid Serif , serif

Rule 3 Alegreya SC , Droid Serif , serif , STIXGeneral

Rule 4 Alegreya SC , Droid Serif , serif , Liberation Serif , STIX-

General

Rule 5 Alegreya SC , Droid Serif , DejaVu Serif , serif , Liberation

Serif , STIXGeneral

Note: Implications.
In case multiple <accept> declarations for the same generic name exist, the dec-
laration that is parsed last “wins”. If possible, do not use <accept> after user ( /
etc/fonts/conf.d/*-user.conf ) when creating a system-wide configuration.

In case multiple <prefer declarations for the same generic name exist, the decla-
ration that is parsed last “wins”. If possible, do not use <prefer> before user in
the system-wide configuration.

Every <prefer> declaration overwrites <accept> declarations for the same gener-
ic name. If the administrator wants to allow the user to use even <accept> and
not only <prefer> ,the administrator should not use <prefer> in the system-wide
configuration. On the other hand, as users mostly use <prefer> , this should not
have any detrimental effect. We also see the use of <prefer> in system-wide con-
figurations.

320 Configuring the Appearance of Fonts SLED 15

19.3 GNOME Configuration for Administrators

19.3.1 The dconf System

Configuration of the GNOME desktop is managed with dconf . It is a hierarchically structured
database or registry that allows users to modify their personal settings, and system adminis-
trators to set default or mandatory values for all users. dconf replaces the gconf system of
GNOME 2.
Use dconf-editor to view the dconf options with a graphical user interface. Use dconf to
access and modify configuration options with the command line.
The GNOME Tweaks tool provides an easy-to-use user interface for additional configuration
options beyond the normal GNOME configuration. The tool can be started from the GNOME
application menu or from the command line with gnome-tweak-tool .

19.3.2 System-wide Configuration

Global dconf configuration parameters can be set in the /etc/dconf/db/ directory. This in-
cludes the configuration for GDM or locking certain configuration options for users.
Use the following procedure as an example to create a system-wide configuration:

1. Create a new directory that ends with a .d in /etc/dconf/db/ . This directory can con-
tain an arbitrary amount of text les with configuration options. For this example, create
the le /etc/dconf/db/network/00-proxy with the following content:

# This is a comment
[system/proxy/http]
host='10.0.0.1'
enabled=true

2. Parse the new configuration directives into the dconf database format:

tux > sudo dconf update

3. Add the new network configuration database to the default user profile, by creating the
le /etc/dconf/profiles/user . Then add the following content:

system-db:network

321 GNOME Configuration for Administrators SLED 15

 The le /etc/dconf/profiles/user is a GNOME default that will be used. Other profiles
can be defined in the environment variable DCONF_PROFILE .

4. Optional: To lock the proxy configuration for users, create the le /etc/dconf/db/net-
work/locks/proxy . Then add a line to this le with the keys that may not be changed:

/system/proxy/http/host
/system/proxy/http/enabled

You can use the graphical dconf-editor to create a profile with one user and then use dconf
dump / to list all configuration options. The configuration options can then be stored in a global
profile.
A detailed description of the global configuration is available at https://wiki.gnome.org/Projects/
dconf/SystemAdministrators .

19.3.3 More Information

For more information, see http://help.gnome.org/admin/ .

322 More Information SLED 15

20 Accessing File Systems with FUSE

FUSE is the acronym for le system in user space. This means you can configure and
mount a le system as an unprivileged user. Normally, you need to be root for this
task. FUSE alone is a kernel module. Combined with plug-ins, it allows you to ex-
tend FUSE to access almost all le systems like remote SSH connections, ISO im-
ages, and more.

20.1 Configuring FUSE

Before you can use FUSE, you need to install the package fuse . Depending which le system
you want to use, you need additional plug-ins available as separate packages.
Generally you do not need to configure FUSE. However, it is a good idea to create a directory
where all your mount points are combined. For example, you can create a directory ~/mounts
and insert your subdirectories for your different le systems there.

20.2 Mounting an NTFS Partition

NTFS, the New Technology File System, is the default le system of Windows. Since under normal
circumstances the unprivileged user cannot mount NTFS block devices using the external FUSE
library, the process of mounting a Windows partition described below requires root privileges.

1. Become root and install the package ntfs-3g .

2. Create a directory that is to be used as a mount point, for example ~/mounts/windows .

3. Find out which Windows partition you need. Use YaST and start the partitioner module
to see which partition belongs to Windows, but do not modify anything. Alternatively,
become root and execute /sbin/fdisk -l . Look for partitions with a partition type
of HPFS/NTFS .

4. Mount the partition in read-write mode. Replace the placeholder DEVICE with your re-
spective Windows partition:

tux > ntfs-3g /dev/DEVICE MOUNT POINT

323 Configuring FUSE SLED 15

 To use your Windows partition in read-only mode, append -o ro :

tux > ntfs-3g /dev/DEVICE MOUNT POINT -o ro

The command ntfs-3g uses the current user (UID) and group (GID) to mount the given
device. If you want to set the write permissions to a different user, use the command id
USER to get the output of the UID and GID values. Set it with:

root # id tux
uid=1000(tux) gid=100(users) groups=100(users),16(dialout),33(video)
ntfs-3g /dev/DEVICE MOUNT POINT -o uid=1000,gid=100

Find additional options in the man page.

To unmount the resource, run fusermount -u MOUNT POINT .

20.3 For More Information

See the home page http://fuse.sourceforge.net of FUSE for more information.

324 For More Information SLED 15

21 Managing Kernel Modules
Although Linux is a monolithic kernel, it can be extended using kernel modules. These are special
objects that can be inserted into the kernel and removed on demand. In practical terms, kernel
modules make it possible to add and remove drivers and interfaces that are not included in the
kernel itself. Linux provides several commands for managing kernel modules.

21.1 Listing Loaded Modules with lsmod and

modinfo
Use the lsmod command to view what kernel modules are currently loaded. The output of the
command may look as follows:

tux > lsmod

Module Size Used by
snd_usb_audio 188416 2
snd_usbmidi_lib 36864 1 snd_usb_audio
hid_plantronics 16384 0
snd_rawmidi 36864 1 snd_usbmidi_lib
snd_seq_device 16384 1 snd_rawmidi
fuse 106496 3
nfsv3 45056 1
nfs_acl 16384 1 nfsv3

The output is divided into three columns. The Module column lists the names of the loaded
modules, while the Size column displays the size of each module. The Used by column shows
the number of referring modules and their names. Note that this list may be incomplete.
To view detailed information about a specific kernel module, use the modinfo MODULE_NAME
command, where MODULE_NAME is the name of the desired kernel module. Note that the mod-
info binary resides in the /sbin directory that is not in the user's PATH environment variable.
This means that you must specify the full path to the binary when running modinfo command
as a regular user:

tux > /sbin/modinfo kvm

filename: /lib/modules/4.4.57-18.3-default/kernel/arch/x86/kvm/kvm.ko
license: GPL
author: Qumranet
srcversion: BDFD8098BEEA517CB75959B
depends: irqbypass

325 Listing Loaded Modules with lsmod and modinfo SLED 15

intree: Y
vermagic: 4.4.57-18.3-default SMP mod_unload modversions
signer: openSUSE Secure Boot Signkey
sig_key: 03:32:FA:9C:BF:0D:88:BF:21:92:4B:0D:E8:2A:09:A5:4D:5D:EF:C8
sig_hashalgo: sha256
parm: ignore_msrs:bool
parm: min_timer_period_us:uint
parm: kvmclock_periodic_sync:bool
parm: tsc_tolerance_ppm:uint
parm: lapic_timer_advance_ns:uint
parm: halt_poll_ns:uint
parm: halt_poll_ns_grow:int
parm: halt_poll_ns_shrink:int

21.2 Adding and Removing Kernel Modules

While it is possible to use insmod and rmmod to add and remove kernel modules, it is recom-
mended to use the modprobe tool instead. modprobe offers several important advantages, in-
cluding automatic dependency resolution and blacklisting.
When used without any parameters, the modprobe command installs a specified kernel module.
modprobe must be run with root privileges:

tux > sudo modprobe acpi

To remove a kernel module, use the -r parameter:

tux > sudo modprobe -r acpi

21.2.1 Loading Kernel Modules Automatically on Boot

Instead of loading kernel modules manually, you can load them automatically during the boot
process using the system-modules-load.service service. To enable a kernel module, add a
.conf le to the /etc/modules-load.d/ directory. It is good practice to give the configuration
le the same name as the module, for example:

/etc/modules-load.d/rt2800usb.conf

The configuration le must contain the name of the desired kernel module (for example,
rt2800usb ).

326 Adding and Removing Kernel Modules SLED 15

The described technique allows you to load kernel modules without any parameters. If you need
to load a kernel module with specific options, add a configuration le to the /etc/modprobe.d/
directory instead. The le must have the .conf extension. The name of the le should adhere
to the following naming convention: priority-modulename.conf , for example: 50-think-
fan.conf . The configuration le must contain the name of the kernel module and the desired
parameters. You can use the example command below to create a configuration le containing
the name of the kernel module and its parameters:

tux > echo "options thinkpad_acpi fan_control=1" | sudo tee /etc/modprobe.d/thinkfan.conf

Note: Loading Kernel Modules

Most kernel modules are loaded by the system automatically when a device is detected
or user space requests specific functionality. Thus, adding modules manually to /etc/
modules-load.d/ is rarely required.

21.2.2 Blacklisting Kernel Modules with modprobe

Blacklisting a kernel module prevents it from loading during the boot process. This can be useful
when you want to disable a module that you suspect is causing problems on your system. Note
that you can still load blacklisted kernel modules manually using the insmod or modprobe tools.
To blacklist a module, add the blacklist MODULE_NAME line to the /etc/mod-
probe.d/50-blacklist.conf le. For example:

blacklist nouveau

Run the mkinitrd command as root to generate a new initrd image, then reboot your ma-
chine. These steps can be performed using the following command:

tux > su
echo "blacklist nouveau" >> /etc/modprobe.d/50-blacklist.conf && mkinitrd && reboot

To disable a kernel module temporarily only, blacklist it on-the-y during the boot. To do this,
press the E key when you see the boot screen. This drops you into a minimal editor that allows
you to modify boot parameters. Locate the line that looks as follows:

linux /boot/vmlinuz...splash= silent quiet showopts

327 Blacklisting Kernel Modules with modprobe SLED 15

Add the modprobe.blacklist=MODULE_NAME command to the end of the line. For example:

linux /boot/vmlinuz...splash= silent quiet showopts modprobe.blacklist=nouveau

Press F10 or Ctrl – X to boot with the specified configuration.

To blacklist a kernel module permanently via GRUB, open the /etc/default/grub le for
editing, and add the modprobe.blacklist=MODULE_NAME option to the GRUB_CMD_LINUX com-
mand. Then run the sudo grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/grub2/grub.cfg command to enable
the changes.

328 Blacklisting Kernel Modules with modprobe SLED 15

22 Dynamic Kernel Device Management with udev

The kernel can add or remove almost any device in a running system. Changes in the device
state (whether a device is plugged in or removed) need to be propagated to user space. Devices
need to be configured when they are plugged in and recognized. Users of a certain device need
to be informed about any changes in this device's recognized state. udev provides the needed
infrastructure to dynamically maintain the device node les and symbolic links in the /dev
directory. udev rules provide a way to plug external tools into the kernel device event process-
ing. This allows you to customize udev device handling by adding certain scripts to execute as
part of kernel device handling, or request and import additional data to evaluate during device
handling.

22.1 The /dev Directory

The device nodes in the /dev directory provide access to the corresponding kernel devices.
With udev , the /dev directory reflects the current state of the kernel. Every kernel device has
one corresponding device le. If a device is disconnected from the system, the device node is
removed.
The content of the /dev directory is kept on a temporary le system and all les are rendered
at every system start-up. Manually created or modified les do not, by design, survive a reboot.
Static les and directories that should always be in the /dev directory regardless of the state of
the corresponding kernel device can be created with systemd-tmpfiles. The configuration les
are found in /usr/lib/tmpfiles.d/ and /etc/tmpfiles.d/ ; for more information, see the
systemd-tmpfiles(8) man page.

22.2 Kernel uevents and udev

The required device information is exported by the sysfs le system. For every device the
kernel has detected and initialized, a directory with the device name is created. It contains
attribute les with device-specific properties.
Every time a device is added or removed, the kernel sends a uevent to notify udev of the change.
The udev daemon reads and parses all rules from the /usr/lib/udev/rules.d/*.rules and
/etc/udev/rules.d/*.rules les at start-up and keeps them in memory. If rules les are

329 The /dev Directory SLED 15

changed, added or removed, the daemon can reload their in-memory representation with the
command udevadm control --reload . For more details on udev rules and their syntax, refer
to Section 22.6, “Influencing Kernel Device Event Handling with udev Rules”.
Every received event is matched against the set of provides rules. The rules can add or change
event environment keys, request a specific name for the device node to create, add symbolic
links pointing to the node or add programs to run after the device node is created. The driver
core uevents are received from a kernel netlink socket.

22.3 Drivers, Kernel Modules and Devices

The kernel bus drivers probe for devices. For every detected device, the kernel creates an internal
device structure while the driver core sends a uevent to the udev daemon. Bus devices identify
themselves by a specially-formatted ID, which tells what kind of device it is. Usually these IDs
consist of vendor and product ID and other subsystem-specific values. Every bus has its own
scheme for these IDs, called MODALIAS . The kernel takes the device information, composes a
MODALIAS ID string from it and sends that string along with the event. For a USB mouse, it
looks like this:

MODALIAS=usb:v046DpC03Ed2000dc00dsc00dp00ic03isc01ip02

Every device driver carries a list of known aliases for devices it can handle. The list is contained
in the kernel module le itself. The program depmod reads the ID lists and creates the le
modules.alias in the kernel's /lib/modules directory for all currently available modules.
With this infrastructure, module loading is as easy as calling modprobe for every event that
carries a MODALIAS key. If modprobe $MODALIAS is called, it matches the device alias composed
for the device with the aliases provided by the modules. If a matching entry is found, that module
is loaded. All this is automatically triggered by udev .

22.4 Booting and Initial Device Setup

All device events happening during the boot process before the udev daemon is running are
lost, because the infrastructure to handle these events resides on the root le system and is
not available at that time. To cover that loss, the kernel provides a uevent le located in the
device directory of every device in the sysfs le system. By writing add to that le, the kernel
resends the same event as the one lost during boot. A simple loop over all uevent les in /sys
triggers all events again to create the device nodes and perform device setup.

330 Drivers, Kernel Modules and Devices SLED 15

As an example, a USB mouse present during boot may not be initialized by the early boot logic,
because the driver is not available at that time. The event for the device discovery was lost
and failed to nd a kernel module for the device. Instead of manually searching for connected
devices, udev requests all device events from the kernel after the root le system is available, so
the event for the USB mouse device runs again. Now it nds the kernel module on the mounted
root le system and the USB mouse can be initialized.
From user space, there is no visible difference between a device coldplug sequence and a device
discovery during runtime. In both cases, the same rules are used to match and the same config-
ured programs are run.

22.5 Monitoring the Running udev Daemon

The program udevadm monitor can be used to visualize the driver core events and the timing
of the udev event processes.

UEVENT[1185238505.276660] add /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.2/usb3/3-1 (usb)

UDEV [1185238505.279198] add /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.2/usb3/3-1 (usb)
UEVENT[1185238505.279527] add /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.2/usb3/3-1/3-1:1.0 (usb)
UDEV [1185238505.285573] add /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.2/usb3/3-1/3-1:1.0 (usb)
UEVENT[1185238505.298878] add /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.2/usb3/3-1/3-1:1.0/input/
input10 (input)
UDEV [1185238505.305026] add /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.2/usb3/3-1/3-1:1.0/input/
input10 (input)
UEVENT[1185238505.305442] add /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.2/usb3/3-1/3-1:1.0/input/
input10/mouse2 (input)
UEVENT[1185238505.306440] add /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.2/usb3/3-1/3-1:1.0/input/
input10/event4 (input)
UDEV [1185238505.325384] add /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.2/usb3/3-1/3-1:1.0/input/
input10/event4 (input)
UDEV [1185238505.342257] add /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.2/usb3/3-1/3-1:1.0/input/
input10/mouse2 (input)

The UEVENT lines show the events the kernel has sent over netlink. The UDEV lines show the
finished udev event handlers. The timing is printed in microseconds. The time between UEVENT
and UDEV is the time udev took to process this event or the udev daemon has delayed its
execution to synchronize this event with related and already running events. For example, events
for hard disk partitions always wait for the main disk device event to finish, because the partition
events may rely on the data that the main disk event has queried from the hardware.

331 Monitoring the Running udev Daemon SLED 15

udevadm monitor --env shows the complete event environment:

ACTION=add
DEVPATH=/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.2/usb3/3-1/3-1:1.0/input/input10
SUBSYSTEM=input
SEQNUM=1181
NAME="Logitech USB-PS/2 Optical Mouse"
PHYS="usb-0000:00:1d.2-1/input0"
UNIQ=""
EV=7
KEY=70000 0 0 0 0
REL=103
MODALIAS=input:b0003v046DpC03Ee0110-e0,1,2,k110,111,112,r0,1,8,amlsfw

udev also sends messages to syslog. The default syslog priority that controls which messages are
sent to syslog is specified in the udev configuration le /etc/udev/udev.conf . The log pri-
ority of the running daemon can be changed with udevadm control --log_priority= LEV-
EL/NUMBER .

22.6 Influencing Kernel Device Event Handling with

udev Rules
A udev rule can match any property the kernel adds to the event itself or any information that
the kernel exports to sysfs . The rule can also request additional information from external
programs. Events are matched against all rules provided in the directories /usr/lib/udev/
rules.d/ (for default rules) and /etc/udev/rules.d (system-specific configuration).

Every line in the rules le contains at least one key value pair. There are two kinds of keys,
match and assignment keys. If all match keys match their values, the rule is applied and the
assignment keys are assigned the specified value. A matching rule may specify the name of the
device node, add symbolic links pointing to the node or run a specified program as part of the
event handling. If no matching rule is found, the default device node name is used to create
the device node. Detailed information about the rule syntax and the provided keys to match or
import data are described in the udev man page. The following example rules provide a basic
introduction to udev rule syntax. The example rules are all taken from the udev default rule
set /usr/lib/udev/rules.d/50-udev-default.rules .

EXAMPLE 22.1: EXAMPLE udev RULES

# console

332 Influencing Kernel Device Event Handling with udev Rules SLED 15
KERNEL=="console", MODE="0600", OPTIONS="last_rule"

# serial devices
KERNEL=="ttyUSB*", ATTRS{product}=="[Pp]alm*Handheld*", SYMLINK+="pilot"

# printer
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", KERNEL=="lp*", NAME="usb/%k", SYMLINK+="usb%k", GROUP="lp"

# kernel firmware loader

SUBSYSTEM=="firmware", ACTION=="add", RUN+="firmware.sh"

The console rule consists of three keys: one match key ( KERNEL ) and two assign keys ( MODE ,
OPTIONS ). The KERNEL match rule searches the device list for any items of the type console .
Only exact matches are valid and trigger this rule to be executed. The MODE key assigns special
permissions to the device node, in this case, read and write permissions to the owner of this
device only. The OPTIONS key makes this rule the last rule to be applied to any device of this
type. Any later rule matching this particular device type does not have any effect.
The serial devices rule is not available in 50-udev-default.rules anymore, but it is
still worth considering. It consists of two match keys ( KERNEL and ATTRS ) and one assign key
( SYMLINK ). The KERNEL key searches for all devices of the ttyUSB type. Using the * wild card,
this key matches several of these devices. The second match key, ATTRS , checks whether the
product attribute le in sysfs for any ttyUSB device contains a certain string. The assign
key ( SYMLINK ) triggers the addition of a symbolic link to this device under /dev/pilot . The
operator used in this key ( += ) tells udev to additionally perform this action, even if previous
or later rules add other symbolic links. As this rule contains two match keys, it is only applied
if both conditions are met.
The printer rule deals with USB printers and contains two match keys which must both apply
to get the entire rule applied ( SUBSYSTEM and KERNEL ). Three assign keys deal with the naming
for this device type ( NAME ), the creation of symbolic device links ( SYMLINK ) and the group
membership for this device type ( GROUP ). Using the * wild card in the KERNEL key makes it
match several lp printer devices. Substitutions are used in both, the NAME and the SYMLINK
keys to extend these strings by the internal device name. For example, the symbolic link to the
rst lp USB printer would read /dev/usblp0 .
The kernel firmware loader rule makes udev load additional rmware by an external helper
script during runtime. The SUBSYSTEM match key searches for the firmware subsystem. The
ACTION key checks whether any device belonging to the firmware subsystem has been added.
The RUN+= key triggers the execution of the firmware.sh script to locate the rmware that
is to be loaded.

333 Influencing Kernel Device Event Handling with udev Rules SLED 15
Some general characteristics are common to all rules:

Each rule consists of one or more key value pairs separated by a comma.

A key's operation is determined by the operator. udev rules support several operators.

Each given value must be enclosed by quotation marks.

Each line of the rules le represents one rule. If a rule is longer than one line, use \ to
join the different lines as you would do in shell syntax.

udev rules support a shell-style pattern that matches the * , ? , and [] patterns.

udev rules support substitutions.

22.6.1 Using Operators in udev Rules

Creating keys you can choose from several operators, depending on the type of key you want
to create. Match keys will normally be used to nd a value that either matches or explicitly
mismatches the search value. Match keys contain either of the following operators:

==
Compare for equality. If the key contains a search pattern, all results matching this pattern
are valid.

!=
Compare for non-equality. If the key contains a search pattern, all results matching this
pattern are valid.

Any of the following operators can be used with assign keys:

=
Assign a value to a key. If the key previously consisted of a list of values, the key resets
and only the single value is assigned.

+=
Add a value to a key that contains a list of entries.

:=
Assign a final value. Disallow any later change by later rules.

334 Using Operators in udev Rules SLED 15

22.6.2 Using Substitutions in udev Rules
udev rules support the use of placeholders and substitutions. Use them in a similar fashion as
you would do in any other scripts. The following substitutions can be used with udev rules:

%r , $root
The device directory, /dev by default.

%p , $devpath
The value of DEVPATH .

%k , $kernel
The value of KERNEL or the internal device name.

%n , $number
The device number.

%N , $tempnode
The temporary name of the device le.

%M , $major
The major number of the device.

%m , $minor
The minor number of the device.

%s{ATTRIBUTE} , $attr{ATTRIBUTE}
The value of a sysfs attribute (specified by ATTRIBUTE ).

%E{VARIABLE} , $env{VARIABLE}
The value of an environment variable (specified by VARIABLE ).

%c , $result
The output of PROGRAM .

%%
The % character.

$$
The $ character.

335 Using Substitutions in udev Rules SLED 15

22.6.3 Using udev Match Keys
Match keys describe conditions that must be met before a udev rule can be applied. The fol-
lowing match keys are available:

ACTION
The name of the event action, for example, add or remove when adding or removing a
device.

DEVPATH
The device path of the event device, for example, DEVPATH=/bus/pci/drivers/ipw3945
to search for all events related to the ipw3945 driver.

KERNEL
The internal (kernel) name of the event device.

SUBSYSTEM
The subsystem of the event device, for example, SUBSYSTEM=usb for all events related to
USB devices.

ATTR{FILENAME}
sysfs attributes of the event device. To match a string contained in the vendor attribute
le name, you could use ATTR{vendor}=="On[sS]tream" , for example.

KERNELS
Let udev search the device path upward for a matching device name.

SUBSYSTEMS
Let udev search the device path upward for a matching device subsystem name.

DRIVERS
Let udev search the device path upward for a matching device driver name.

ATTRS{FILENAME}
Let udev search the device path upward for a device with matching sysfs attribute
values.

ENV{KEY}
The value of an environment variable, for example, ENV{ID_BUS}="ieee1394 to search
for all events related to the FireWire bus ID.

PROGRAM

336 Using udev Match Keys SLED 15

 Let udev execute an external program. To be successful, the program must return with
exit code zero. The program's output, printed to STDOUT, is available to the RESULT key.

RESULT
Match the output string of the last PROGRAM call. Either include this key in the same rule
as the PROGRAM key or in a later one.

22.6.4 Using udev Assign Keys

In contrast to the match keys described above, assign keys do not describe conditions that must
be met. They assign values, names and actions to the device nodes maintained by udev .

NAME
The name of the device node to be created. After a rule has set a node name, all other rules
with a NAME key for this node are ignored.

SYMLINK
The name of a symbolic link related to the node to be created. Multiple matching rules
can add symbolic links to be created with the device node. You can also specify multiple
symbolic links for one node in one rule using the space character to separate the symbolic
link names.

OWNER, GROUP, MODE

The permissions for the new device node. Values specified here overwrite anything that
has been compiled in.

ATTR{KEY}
Specify a value to be written to a sysfs attribute of the event device. If the == operator
is used, this key is also used to match against the value of a sysfs attribute.

ENV{KEY}
Tell udev to export a variable to the environment. If the == operator is used, this key is
also used to match against an environment variable.

RUN
Tell udev to add a program to the list of programs to be executed for this device. Keep in
mind to restrict this to very short tasks to avoid blocking further events for this device.

LABEL
Add a label where a GOTO can jump to.

337 Using udev Assign Keys SLED 15

GOTO
Tell udev to skip several rules and continue with the one that carries the label referenced
by the GOTO key.

IMPORT{TYPE}
Load variables into the event environment such as the output of an external program.
udev imports variables of several types. If no type is specified, udev tries to determine
the type itself based on the executable bit of the le permissions.

program tells udev to execute an external program and import its output.

file tells udev to import a text le.

parent tells udev to import the stored keys from the parent device.

WAIT_FOR_SYSFS
Tells udev to wait for the specified sysfs le to be created for a certain device. For
example, WAIT_FOR_SYSFS="ioerr_cnt" informs udev to wait until the ioerr_cnt le
has been created.

OPTIONS
The OPTION key may have several values:

last_rule tells udev to ignore all later rules.

ignore_device tells udev to ignore this event completely.

ignore_remove tells udev to ignore all later remove events for the device.

all_partitions tells udev to create device nodes for all available partitions on a
block device.

22.7 Persistent Device Naming

The dynamic device directory and the udev rules infrastructure make it possible to provide
stable names for all disk devices—regardless of their order of recognition or the connection
used for the device. Every appropriate block device the kernel creates is examined by tools
with special knowledge about certain buses, drive types or le systems. Along with the dynamic
kernel-provided device node name, udev maintains classes of persistent symbolic links pointing
to the device:

/dev/disk

338 Persistent Device Naming SLED 15

|-- by-id
| |-- scsi-SATA_HTS726060M9AT00_MRH453M4HWHG7B -> ../../sda
| |-- scsi-SATA_HTS726060M9AT00_MRH453M4HWHG7B-part1 -> ../../sda1
| |-- scsi-SATA_HTS726060M9AT00_MRH453M4HWHG7B-part6 -> ../../sda6
| |-- scsi-SATA_HTS726060M9AT00_MRH453M4HWHG7B-part7 -> ../../sda7
| |-- usb-Generic_STORAGE_DEVICE_02773 -> ../../sdd
| `-- usb-Generic_STORAGE_DEVICE_02773-part1 -> ../../sdd1
|-- by-label
| |-- Photos -> ../../sdd1
| |-- SUSE10 -> ../../sda7
| `-- devel -> ../../sda6
|-- by-path
| |-- pci-0000:00:1f.2-scsi-0:0:0:0 -> ../../sda
| |-- pci-0000:00:1f.2-scsi-0:0:0:0-part1 -> ../../sda1
| |-- pci-0000:00:1f.2-scsi-0:0:0:0-part6 -> ../../sda6
| |-- pci-0000:00:1f.2-scsi-0:0:0:0-part7 -> ../../sda7
| |-- pci-0000:00:1f.2-scsi-1:0:0:0 -> ../../sr0
| |-- usb-02773:0:0:2 -> ../../sdd
| |-- usb-02773:0:0:2-part1 -> ../../sdd1
`-- by-uuid
|-- 159a47a4-e6e6-40be-a757-a629991479ae -> ../../sda7
|-- 3e999973-00c9-4917-9442-b7633bd95b9e -> ../../sda6
`-- 4210-8F8C -> ../../sdd1

22.8 Files used by udev

/sys/*
Virtual le system provided by the Linux kernel, exporting all currently known devices.
This information is used by udev to create device nodes in /dev

/dev/*
Dynamically created device nodes and static content created with systemd-tmpfiles; for
more information, see the systemd-tmpfiles(8) man page.

The following les and directories contain the crucial elements of the udev infrastructure:

/etc/udev/udev.conf
Main udev configuration le.

/etc/udev/rules.d/*
System-specific udev event matching rules. You can add custom rules here to modify or
override the default rules from /usr/lib/udev/rules.d/* .

339 Files used by udev SLED 15

 Files are parsed in alphanumeric order. Rules from les with a higher priority modify or
override rules with lower priority. The lower the number, the higher the priority.

/usr/lib/udev/rules.d/*
Default udev event matching rules. The les in this directory are owned by packages and
will be overwritten by updates. Do not add, remove or edit les here, use /etc/udev/
rules.d instead.

/usr/lib/udev/*
Helper programs called from udev rules.

/usr/lib/tmpfiles.d/ and /etc/tmpfiles.d/

Responsible for static /dev content.

22.9 For More Information

For more information about the udev infrastructure, refer to the following man pages:

udev
General information about udev , keys, rules and other important configuration issues.

udevadm
udevadm can be used to control the runtime behavior of udev , request kernel events,
manage the event queue and provide simple debugging mechanisms.

udevd
Information about the udev event managing daemon.

340 For More Information SLED 15

23 Live Patching the Linux Kernel Using kGraft

This document describes the basic principles of the kGraft live patching technology
and provides usage guidelines for the SLE Live Patching service.
kGraft is a live patching technology for runtime patching of the Linux kernel, without stopping
the kernel. This maximizes system uptime, and thus system availability, which is important for
mission-critical systems. By allowing dynamic patching of the kernel, the technology also en-
courages users to install critical security updates without deferring them to a scheduled down-
time.
A kGraft patch is a kernel module, intended for replacing whole functions in the kernel. kGraft
primarily offers in-kernel infrastructure for integration of the patched code with base kernel
code at runtime.
SLE Live Patching is a service provided on top of regular SUSE Linux Enterprise Server main-
tenance. kGraft patches distributed through SLE Live Patching supplement regular SLES main-
tenance updates. Common update stack and procedures can be used for SLE Live Patching de-
ployment.
The information provided in this document is related to the AMD64/Intel 64 and POWER ar-
chitectures. If you are using a different architecture, procedures may vary.

23.1 Advantages of kGraft

Live kernel patching using kGraft is especially useful for quick response in emergencies (when
serious vulnerabilities are known and should be xed when possible or there are serious system
stability issues with a known x). It is not used for scheduled updates where time is not critical.
Typical use cases for kGraft include systems like memory databases with huge amounts of RAM,
where boot-up times of 15 minutes or more are not uncommon, large simulations that need
weeks or months without a restart, or infrastructure building blocks providing continuous ser-
vice to a many consumers.
The main advantage of kGraft is that it never requires stopping the kernel, not even for a short
time period.

341 Advantages of kGraft SLED 15

A kGraft patch is a .ko kernel module in an RPM package. It is inserted into the kernel using the
insmod command when the package is installed or updated. kGraft replaces whole functions in
the kernel, even if they are being executed. An updated kGraft module can replace an existing
patch if necessary.
kGraft is also lean—it contains only a small amount of code, because it leverages other standard
Linux technologies.

23.2 Low-level Function of kGraft

kGraft uses the ftrace infrastructure to perform patching. The following describes the implemen-
tation on the AMD64/Intel 64 architecture.
To patch a kernel function, kGraft needs some space at the start of the function to insert a jump to
a new function. This space is allocated during kernel compilation by GCC with function profiling
turned on. In particular, a 5-byte call instruction is injected to the start of kernel functions. When
such instrumented kernel is booting, profiling calls are replaced by 5-byte NOP (no operation)
instructions.
After patching starts, the rst byte is replaced by the INT3 (breakpoint) instruction. This ensures
atomicity of the 5-byte instruction replacement. The other four bytes are replaced by the address
to the new function. Finally, the rst byte is replaced by the JMP (long jump) opcode.
Inter-processor non-maskable interrupts (IPI NMI) are used throughout the process to ush spec-
ulative decoding queues of other CPUs in the system. This allows switching to the new function
without ever stopping the kernel, not even for a very short moment. The interruptions by IPI
NMIs can be measured in microseconds and are not considered service interruptions as they
happen while the kernel is running in any case.
Callers are never patched. Instead, the callee's NOPs are replaced by a JMP to the new function.
JMP instructions remain forever. This takes care of function pointers, including in structures,
and does not require saving any old data for the possibility of un-patching.
However, these steps alone would not be good enough: since the functions would be replaced
non-atomically, a new xed function in one part of the kernel could still be calling an old
function elsewhere or vice versa. If the semantics of the function interfaces changed in the patch,
chaos would ensue.
Thus, until all functions are replaced, kGraft uses an approach based on trampolines and similar
to RCU (read-copy-update), to ensure a consistent view of the world to each user space thread,
kernel thread and kernel interrupt. A per-thread ag is set on each kernel entry and exit. This

342 Low-level Function of kGraft SLED 15

way, an old function would always call another old function and a new function always a new
one. Once all processes have the "new universe" ag set, patching is complete, trampolines can
be removed and the code can operate at full speed without performance impact other than an
extra-long jump for each patched function.

23.3 Installing kGraft Patches

This section describes the activation of the SUSE Linux Enterprise Live Patching extension and
the installation of kGraft patches.

23.3.1 Activation of SLE Live Patching

To activate SLE Live Patching on your system, follow these steps:

1. If your SLES system is not yet registered, register it. Registration can be done during the
system installation or later using the YaST Product Registration module ( yast2 registra-
tion ). After registration, click Yes to see the list of available online updates.
If your SLES system is already registered, but SLE Live Patching is not yet activated, open
the YaST Product Registration module ( yast2 registration ) and click Select Extensions.

2. Select SUSE Linux Enterprise Live Patching 12 in the list of available extensions and click
Next.

3. Confirm the license terms and click Next.

4. Enter the SLE Live Patching registration code and click Next.

5. Check the Installation Summary and selected Patterns. The pattern Live Patching should
be selected for installation.

6. Click Accept to complete the installation. This will install the base kGraft components on
your system together with the initial live patch.

23.3.2 Updating System

1. SLE Live Patching updates are distributed in a form that allows using standard SLE update
stack for patch application. The initial live patch can be updated using zypper patch ,
YaST Online Update or equivalent method.

343 Installing kGraft Patches SLED 15

 2. The kernel is patched automatically during the package installation. However, invocations
of the old kernel functions are not completely eliminated until all sleeping processes wake
up and get out of the way. This can take a considerable amount of time. Despite this,
sleeping processes that use the old kernel functions are not considered a security issue.
Nevertheless, in the current version of kGraft, it is not possible to apply another kGraft
patch until all processes cross the kernel-user space boundary to stop using patched func-
tions from the previous patch.
To see the global status of patching, check the ag in /sys/kernel/kgraft/
in_progress . The value 1 signifies the existence of sleeping processes that still need to
be woken (the patching is still in progress). The value 0 signifies that all processes are
using solely the patched functions and patching has finished already. Alternatively, use
the kgr status command to obtain the same information.
The ag can be checked on a per-process basis too. Check the number in /proc/PRO-
CESS_NUMBER/kgr_in_progress for each process individually. Again, the value 1 signi-
fies sleeping process that still needs to be woken. Alternatively, use the kgr blocking
command to output the list of sleeping processes.

23.4 Patch Lifecycle

Expiration dates of live patches can be accessed with zypper lifecycle . Make sure that the
package lifecycle-data-sle-live-patching is installed.
When the expiration date of a patch is reached, no further live patches for this kernel version
will be supplied. Plan an update of your kernel before the end of the live patch lifecycle period.
For details about zypper lifecycle , see the Showing Life Cycle Information in the Admin Guide.

23.5 Removing a kGraft Patch

To remove a kGraft patch, use the following procedure:

1. First remove the patch itself using Zypper:

tux > sudo zypper rm kgraft-patch-3_12_32-25-default

2. Then reboot the machine.

344 Patch Lifecycle SLED 15

23.6 Stuck Kernel Execution Threads
Kernel threads need to be prepared to handle kGraft. Third-party software may not be ready for
kGraft adoption and its kernel modules may spawn kernel execution threads. These threads will
block the patching process indefinitely. As an emergency measure kGraft offers the possibility
to force finishing of the patching process without waiting for all execution threads to cross the
safety checkpoint. This can be achieved by writing 0 into /sys/kernel/kgraft/in_progress .
Consult SUSE support before performing this procedure.

23.7 The kgr Tool

Several kGraft management tasks can be simplified with the kgr tool. The available commands
are:

kgr status
Displays the overall status of kGraft patching ( ready or in_progress ).

kgr patches
Displays the list of loaded kGraft patches.

kgr blocking
Lists processes that are preventing kGraft patching from finishing. By default only the PIDs
are listed. Specifying -v prints command lines if available. Another -v displays also stack
traces.

For detailed information, see man kgr .

23.8 Scope of kGraft Technology

kGraft is based on replacing functions. Data structure alteration can be accomplished only in-
directly with kGraft. As a result, changes to kernel data structure require special care and, if
the change is too large, rebooting might be required. kGraft also might not be able to handle
situations where one compiler is used to compile the old kernel and another compiler is used
for compiling the patch.
Because of the way kGraft works, support for third-party modules that are spawning kernel
threads is limited.

345 Stuck Kernel Execution Threads SLED 15

23.9 Scope of SLE Live Patching
Fixes for SUSE Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS; SUSE CVSS is based on the CVSS
v3.0 system) level 7+ vulnerabilities and bug fixes related to system stability or data corruption
will be shipped in the scope of SLE Live Patching. It might not be possible to produce a live patch
for all kinds of fixes fulfilling the above criteria. SUSE reserves the right to skip fixes where
production of a kernel live patch is unviable because of technical reasons. For more information
on CVSS, which is the base for the SUSE CVSS rating, see https://www.first.org/cvss/ .

23.10 Interaction with the Support Processes

While resolving a technical difficulty with SUSE support, you may receive a so-called Program
Temporary Fix (PTF). PTFs may be issued for various packages including those forming the base
of SLE Live Patching.
kGraft PTFs complying with the conditions described in the previous section can be installed as
usual and SUSE will ensure that the system in question does not need to be rebooted and that
future live updates are applied cleanly.
PTFs issued for the base kernel disrupt the live patching process. First, installing the PTF kernel
means a reboot as the kernel cannot be replaced as a whole at runtime. Second, another reboot
is needed to replace the PTF with any regular maintenance updates for which the live patches
are issued.
PTFs for other packages in SLE Live Patching can be treated like regular PTFs with the usual
guarantees.

346 Scope of SLE Live Patching SLED 15

24 Special System Features

This chapter starts with information about various software packages, the virtual
consoles and the keyboard layout. We talk about software components like bash ,
cron and logrotate , because they were changed or enhanced during the last re-
lease cycles. Even if they are small or considered of minor importance, users should
change their default behavior, because these components are often closely coupled
with the system. The chapter concludes with a section about language and coun-
try-specific settings (I18N and L10N).

24.1 Information about Special Software Packages

The programs bash , cron , logrotate , locate , ulimit and free are very important for
system administrators and many users. Man pages and info pages are two useful sources of
information about commands, but both are not always available. GNU Emacs is a popular and
very configurable text editor.

24.1.1 The bash Package and /etc/profile

Bash is the default system shell. When used as a login shell, it reads several initialization les.
Bash processes them in the order they appear in this list:

1. /etc/profile

2. ~/.profile

3. /etc/bash.bashrc

4. ~/.bashrc

Make custom settings in ~/.profile or ~/.bashrc . To ensure the correct processing of

these les, it is necessary to copy the basic settings from /etc/skel/.profile or /etc/
skel/.bashrc into the home directory of the user. It is recommended to copy the settings from
/etc/skel after an update. Execute the following shell commands to prevent the loss of per-
sonal adjustments:

tux > mv ~/.bashrc ~/.bashrc.old

347 Information about Special Software Packages SLED 15

tux > cp /etc/skel/.bashrc ~/.bashrc
tux > mv ~/.profile ~/.profile.old
tux > cp /etc/skel/.profile ~/.profile

Then copy personal adjustments back from the *.old les.

24.1.2 The cron Package

Use cron to automatically run commands in the background at predefined times. cron uses
specially formatted time tables, and the tool comes with several default ones. Users can also
specify custom tables, if needed.
The cron tables are located in /var/spool/cron/tabs . /etc/crontab serves as a systemwide
cron table. Enter the user name to run the command directly after the time table and before
the command. In Example 24.1, “Entry in /etc/crontab”, root is entered. Package-specific tables,
located in /etc/cron.d , have the same format. See the cron man page ( man cron ).

EXAMPLE 24.1: ENTRY IN /ETC/CRONTAB

1-59/5 * * * * root test -x /usr/sbin/atrun && /usr/sbin/atrun

You cannot edit /etc/crontab by calling the command crontab -e . This le must be loaded
directly into an editor, then modified and saved.
Several packages install shell scripts to the directories /etc/cron.hourly , /etc/cron.daily ,
/etc/cron.weekly and /etc/cron.monthly , whose execution is controlled by /usr/lib/
cron/run-crons . /usr/lib/cron/run-crons is run every 15 minutes from the main table ( /
etc/crontab ). This guarantees that processes that may have been neglected can be run at the
proper time.
To run the hourly , daily or other periodic maintenance scripts at custom times, remove the
time stamp les regularly using /etc/crontab entries (see Example 24.2, “/etc/crontab: Remove
Time Stamp Files”, which removes the hourly one before every full hour, the daily one once
a day at 2:14 a.m., etc.).

EXAMPLE 24.2: /ETC/CRONTAB: REMOVE TIME STAMP FILES

59 * * * * root rm -f /var/spool/cron/lastrun/cron.hourly
14 2 * * * root rm -f /var/spool/cron/lastrun/cron.daily
29 2 * * 6 root rm -f /var/spool/cron/lastrun/cron.weekly

348 The cron Package SLED 15

44 2 1 * * root rm -f /var/spool/cron/lastrun/cron.monthly

Or you can set DAILY_TIME in /etc/sysconfig/cron to the time at which cron.daily should
start. The setting of MAX_NOT_RUN ensures that the daily tasks get triggered to run, even if the
user did not turn on the computer at the specified DAILY_TIME for a longer time. The maximum
value of MAX_NOT_RUN is 14 days.
The daily system maintenance jobs are distributed to various scripts for reasons of clarity. They
are contained in the package aaa_base . /etc/cron.daily contains, for example, the compo-
nents suse.de-backup-rpmdb , suse.de-clean-tmp or suse.de-cron-local .

24.1.3 Stopping Cron Status Messages

To avoid the mail-ood caused by cron status messages, the default value of
SEND_MAIL_ON_NO_ERROR in /etc/sysconfig/cron is set to " no " for new installations. Even
with this setting to " no ", cron data output will still be sent to the MAILTO address, as docu-
mented in the cron man page.
In the update case it is recommended to set these values according to your needs.

24.1.4 Log Files: Package logrotate

There are several system services (daemons) that, along with the kernel itself, regularly record
the system status and specific events onto log les. This way, the administrator can regularly
check the status of the system at a certain point in time, recognize errors or faulty functions and
troubleshoot them with pinpoint precision. These log les are normally stored in /var/log as
specified by FHS and grow on a daily basis. The logrotate package helps control the growth of
these les. For more details refer to Book “System Analysis and Tuning Guide”, Chapter 3 “Analyzing
and Managing System Log Files”, Section 3.3 “Managing Log Files with logrotate”.

24.1.5 The locate Command

locate , a command for quickly finding les, is not included in the standard scope of installed
software. If desired, install the package mlocate , the successor of the package findutils-lo-
cate . The updatedb process is started automatically every night or about 15  minutes after
booting the system.

349 Stopping Cron Status Messages SLED 15

24.1.6 The ulimit Command
With the ulimit (user limits) command, it is possible to set limits for the use of system resources
and to have these displayed. ulimit is especially useful for limiting available memory for
applications. With this, an application can be prevented from co-opting too much of the system
resources and slowing or even hanging up the operating system.
ulimit can be used with various options. To limit memory usage, use the options listed in
Table 24.1, “ulimit: Setting Resources for the User”.

TABLE 24.1: ulimit: SETTING RESOURCES FOR THE USER

-m The maximum resident set size

-v The maximum amount of virtual memory

available to the shell

-s The maximum size of the stack

-c The maximum size of core les created

-a All current limits are reported

Systemwide default entries are set in /etc/profile . Editing this le directly is not recommend-
ed, because changes will be overwritten during system upgrades. To customize systemwide pro-
file settings, use /etc/profile.local . Per-user settings should be made in ~USER/.bashrc .

EXAMPLE 24.3: ulimit: SETTINGS IN ~/.bashrc

# Limits maximum resident set size (physical memory):

ulimit -m 98304

# Limits of virtual memory:

ulimit -v 98304

Memory allocations must be specified in KB. For more detailed information, see man bash .

Important: ulimit Support

Not all shells support ulimit directives. PAM (for example, pam_limits ) offers com-
prehensive adjustment possibilities as an alternative to ulimit .

350 The ulimit Command SLED 15

24.1.7 The free Command
The free command displays the total amount of free and used physical memory and swap
space in the system and the buers and cache consumed by the kernel. The concept of available
RAM dates back to before the days of unified memory management. The slogan free memory is
bad memory applies well to Linux. As a result, Linux has always made the effort to balance out
caches without actually allowing free or unused memory.
The kernel does not have direct knowledge of any applications or user data. Instead, it manages
applications and user data in a page cache. If memory runs short, parts of it are written to the
swap partition or to les, from which they can initially be read using the mmap command (see
man mmap ).

The kernel also contains other caches, such as the slab cache, where the caches used for network
access are stored. This may explain the differences between the counters in /proc/meminfo .
Most, but not all, of them can be accessed via /proc/slabinfo .
However, if your goal is to nd out how much RAM is currently being used, nd this information
in /proc/meminfo .

24.1.8 Man Pages and Info Pages

For some GNU applications (such as tar), the man pages are no longer maintained. For these
commands, use the --help option to get a quick overview of the info pages, which provide
more in-depth instructions. Info is GNU's hypertext system. Read an introduction to this system
by entering info info . Info pages can be viewed with Emacs by entering emacs -f info
or directly in a console with info . You can also use tkinfo, xinfo or the help system to view
info pages.

24.1.9 Selecting Man Pages Using the man Command

To read a man page enter man MAN_PAGE . If a man page with the same name exists in different
sections, they will all be listed with the corresponding section numbers. Select the one to display.
If you do not enter a section number within a few seconds, the rst man page will be displayed.
To change this to the default system behavior, set MAN_POSIXLY_CORRECT=1 in a shell initial-
ization le such as ~/.bashrc .

351 The free Command SLED 15

24.1.10 Settings for GNU Emacs
GNU Emacs is a complex work environment. The following sections cover the configuration
les processed when GNU Emacs is started. More information is available at http://www.gnu.org/
software/emacs/ .
On start-up, Emacs reads several les containing the settings of the user, system administrator
and distributor for customization or preconfiguration. The initialization le ~/.emacs is in-
stalled to the home directories of the individual users from /etc/skel . .emacs , in turn, reads
the le /etc/skel/.gnu-emacs . To customize the program, copy .gnu-emacs to the home di-
rectory (with cp /etc/skel/.gnu-emacs ~/.gnu-emacs ) and make the desired settings there.
.gnu-emacs defines the le ~/.gnu-emacs-custom as custom-file . If users make settings
with the customize options in Emacs, the settings are saved to ~/.gnu-emacs-custom .
With SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop, the emacs package installs the le site-start.el in
the directory /usr/share/emacs/site-lisp . The le site-start.el is loaded before the
initialization le ~/.emacs . Among other things, site-start.el ensures that special config-
uration les distributed with Emacs add-on packages, such as psgml , are loaded automatically.
Configuration les of this type are located in /usr/share/emacs/site-lisp , too, and always
begin with suse-start- . The local system administrator can specify systemwide settings in
default.el .

More information about these les is available in the Emacs info le under Init File: in-
fo:/emacs/InitFile . Information about how to disable the loading of these les (if necessary)
is also provided at this location.
The components of Emacs are divided into several packages:

The base package emacs .

emacs-x11 (usually installed): the program with X11 support.

emacs-nox : the program without X11 support.

emacs-info : online documentation in info format.

emacs-el : the uncompiled library les in Emacs Lisp. These are not required at runtime.

Numerous add-on packages can be installed if needed: emacs-auctex (LaTeX), psgml

(SGML and XML), gnuserv (client and server operation) and others.

352 Settings for GNU Emacs SLED 15

24.2 Virtual Consoles
Linux is a multiuser and multitasking system. The advantages of these features can be appreci-
ated even on a stand-alone PC system. In text mode, there are six virtual consoles available.
Switch between them using Alt – F1 through Alt – F6 . The seventh console is reserved for X
and the tenth console shows kernel messages.
To switch to a console from X without shutting it down, use Ctrl – Alt – F1 to Ctrl – Alt – F6 .
To return to X, press Alt – F7 .

24.3 Keyboard Mapping

To standardize the keyboard mapping of programs, changes were made to the following les:

/etc/inputrc
/etc/X11/Xmodmap
/etc/skel/.emacs
/etc/skel/.gnu-emacs
/etc/skel/.vimrc
/etc/csh.cshrc
/etc/termcap
/usr/share/terminfo/x/xterm
/usr/share/X11/app-defaults/XTerm
/usr/share/emacs/VERSION/site-lisp/term/*.el

These changes only affect applications that use terminfo entries or whose configuration les
are changed directly ( vi , emacs , etc.). Applications not shipped with the system should be
adapted to these defaults.
Under X, the compose key (multikey) can be enabled as explained in /etc/X11/Xmodmap .
Further settings are possible using the X Keyboard Extension (XKB). This extension is also used
by the desktop environment GNOME (gswitchit).

Tip: For More Information

Information about XKB is available in the documents listed in /usr/share/doc/pack-
ages/xkeyboard-config (part of the xkeyboard-config package).

353 Virtual Consoles SLED 15

24.4 Language and Country-Specific Settings
The system is, to a very large extent, internationalized and can be modified for local needs. In-
ternationalization (I18N) allows specific localization (L10N). The abbreviations I18N and L10N
are derived from the rst and last letters of the words and, in between, the number of letters
omitted.
Settings are made with LC_ variables defined in the le /etc/sysconfig/language . This refers
not only to native language support, but also to the categories Messages (Language), Character Set,
Sort Order, Time and Date, Numbers and Money. Each of these categories can be defined directly
with its own variable or indirectly with a master variable in the le language (see the locale
man page).

RC_LC_MESSAGES , RC_LC_CTYPE , RC_LC_COLLATE , RC_LC_TIME , RC_LC_NUMERIC , RC_L-

C_MONETARY
These variables are passed to the shell without the RC_ prefix and represent the listed
categories. The shell profiles concerned are listed below. The current setting can be shown
with the command locale .

RC_LC_ALL
This variable, if set, overwrites the values of the variables already mentioned.

RC_LANG
If none of the previous variables are set, this is the fallback. By default, only RC_LANG is
set. This makes it easier for users to enter their own values.

ROOT_USES_LANG
A yes or no variable. If set to no , root always works in the POSIX environment.

The variables can be set with the YaST sysconfig editor. The value of such a variable contains the
language code, country code, encoding and modifier. The individual components are connected
by special characters:

LANG=<language>[[_<COUNTRY>].<Encoding>[@<Modifier>]]

354 Language and Country-Specific Settings SLED 15

24.4.1 Some Examples
You should always set the language and country codes together. Language settings follow
the standard ISO 639 available at http://www.evertype.com/standards/iso639/iso639-en.html
and http://www.loc.gov/standards/iso639-2/ . Country codes are listed in ISO 3166, see http://
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_3166 .
It only makes sense to set values for which usable description les can be found in /usr/lib/
locale . Additional description les can be created from the les in /usr/share/i18n using
the command localedef . The description les are part of the glibc-i18ndata package. A
description le for en_US.UTF-8 (for English and United States) can be created with:

localedef -i en_US -f UTF-8 en_US.UTF-8

LANG=en_US.UTF-8
This is the default setting if American English is selected during installation. If you selected
another language, that language is enabled but still with UTF-8 as the character encoding.

LANG=en_US.ISO-8859-1
This sets the language to English, country to United States and the character set to
ISO-8859-1 . This character set does not support the Euro sign, but it can be useful some-
times for programs that have not been updated to support UTF-8 . The string defining the
charset ( ISO-8859-1 in this case) is then evaluated by programs like Emacs.

LANG=en_IE@euro
The above example explicitly includes the Euro sign in a language setting. This setting
is obsolete now, as UTF-8 also covers the Euro symbol. It is only useful if an application
supports ISO-8859-15 and not UTF-8.

Changes to /etc/sysconfig/language are activated by the following process chain:

For the Bash: /etc/profile reads /etc/profile.d/lang.sh which, in turn, analyzes

/etc/sysconfig/language .

For tcsh: At login, /etc/csh.login reads /etc/profile.d/lang.csh which, in turn,

analyzes /etc/sysconfig/language .

This ensures that any changes to /etc/sysconfig/language are available at the next login to
the respective shell, without having to manually activate them.

355 Some Examples SLED 15

Users can override the system defaults by editing their ~/.bashrc accordingly. For ex-
ample, if you do not want to use the system-wide en_US for program messages, include
LC_MESSAGES=es_ES so that messages are displayed in Spanish instead.

24.4.2 Locale Settings in ~/.i18n

If you are not satisfied with locale system defaults, change the settings in ~/.i18n according
to the Bash scripting syntax. Entries in ~/.i18n override system defaults from /etc/syscon-
fig/language . Use the same variable names but without the RC_ namespace prefixes. For ex-
ample, use LANG instead of RC_LANG :

LANG=cs_CZ.UTF-8
LC_COLLATE=C

24.4.3 Settings for Language Support

Files in the category Messages are, as a rule, only stored in the corresponding language direc-
tory (like en ) to have a fallback. If you set LANG to en_US and the message le in /usr/
share/locale/en_US/LC_MESSAGES does not exist, it falls back to /usr/share/locale/en/
LC_MESSAGES .

A fallback chain can also be defined, for example, for Breton to French or for Galician to Spanish
to Portuguese:
LANGUAGE="br_FR:fr_FR"

LANGUAGE="gl_ES:es_ES:pt_PT"

If desired, use the Norwegian variants Nynorsk and Bokmål instead (with additional fallback
to no ):
LANG="nn_NO"

LANGUAGE="nn_NO:nb_NO:no"

or
LANG="nb_NO"

LANGUAGE="nb_NO:nn_NO:no"

Note that in Norwegian, LC_TIME is also treated differently.

356 Locale Settings in ~/.i18n SLED 15

One problem that can arise is a separator used to delimit groups of digits not being recognized
properly. This occurs if LANG is set to only a two-letter language code like de , but the definition
le glibc uses is located in /usr/share/lib/de_DE/LC_NUMERIC . Thus LC_NUMERIC must be
set to de_DE to make the separator definition visible to the system.

24.4.4 For More Information

The GNU C Library Reference Manual, Chapter “Locales and Internationalization”. It is in-
cluded in glibc-info . The package is available from the SUSE Linux Enterprise SDK.
The SDK is a module for SUSE Linux Enterprise and is available via an online channel
from the SUSE Customer Center. Alternatively, go to http://download.suse.com/ , search
for SUSE Linux Enterprise Software Development Kit and download it from there.
Refer to Book “Deployment Guide”, Chapter 14 “Installing Modules, Extensions, and Third Party
Add-On Products” for details.

Markus Kuhn, UTF-8 and Unicode FAQ for Unix/Linux, currently at http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/
~mgk25/unicode.html .

Unicode-HOWTO by Bruno Haible, available at http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Unicode-HOW-

TO-1.html .

357 For More Information SLED 15

25 Using NetworkManager
NetworkManager is the ideal solution for laptops and other portable computers. It supports
state-of-the-art encryption types and standards for network connections, including connections
to 802.1X protected networks. 802.1X is the “IEEE Standard for Local and Metropolitan Area
Networks—Port-Based Network Access Control”. With NetworkManager, you need not worry
about configuring network interfaces and switching between wired or wireless networks when
you are on the move. NetworkManager can automatically connect to known wireless networks or
manage several network connections in parallel—the fastest connection is then used as default.
Furthermore, you can manually switch between available networks and manage your network
connection using an applet in the system tray.
Instead of only one connection being active, multiple connections may be active at once. This
enables you to unplug your laptop from an Ethernet and remain connected via a wireless con-
nection.

25.1 Use Cases for NetworkManager

NetworkManager provides a sophisticated and intuitive user interface, which enables users to
easily switch their network environment. However, NetworkManager is not a suitable solution
in the following cases:

Your computer provides network services for other computers in your network, for exam-
ple, it is a DHCP or DNS server.

Your computer is a Xen server or your system is a virtual system inside Xen.

25.2 Enabling or Disabling NetworkManager

On laptop computers, NetworkManager is enabled by default. However, it can be at any time
enabled or disabled in the YaST Network Settings module.

1. Run YaST and go to System Network Settings.

2. The Network Settings dialog opens. Go to the Global Options tab.

3. To configure and manage your network connections with NetworkManager:

a. In the Network Setup Method eld, select User Controlled with NetworkManager.

358 Use Cases for NetworkManager SLED 15

 b. Click OK and close YaST.

c. Configure your network connections with NetworkManager as described in Sec-

tion 25.3, “Configuring Network Connections”.

4. To deactivate NetworkManager and control the network with your own configuration:

a. In the Network Setup Method eld, choose Controlled by wicked.

b. Click OK.

c. Set up your network card with YaST using automatic configuration via DHCP or a
static IP address.
Find a detailed description of the network configuration with YaST in Section 17.4,
“Configuring a Network Connection with YaST”.

25.3 Configuring Network Connections

After having enabled NetworkManager in YaST, configure your network connections with the
NetworkManager front-end available in GNOME. It shows tabs for all types of network connec-
tions, such as wired, wireless, mobile broadband, DSL, and VPN connections.
To open the network configuration dialog in GNOME, open the settings menu via the status
menu and click the Network entry.

Note: Availability of Options

Depending on your system setup, you may not be allowed to configure connections. In a
secured environment, some options may be locked or require root permission. Ask your
system administrator for details.

359 Configuring Network Connections SLED 15

FIGURE 25.1: GNOME NETWORK CONNECTIONS DIALOG

PROCEDURE 25.1: ADDING AND EDITING CONNECTIONS

1. Open the NetworkManager configuration dialog.

2. To add a Connection:

a. Click the + icon in the lower left corner.

b. Select your preferred connection type and follow the instructions.

c. When you are finished click Add.

d. After having confirmed your changes, the newly configured network connection ap-
pears in the list of available networks you get by opening the Status Menu.

3. To edit a connection:

a. Select the entry to edit.

b. Click the gear icon to open the Connection Settings dialog.

c. Insert your changes and click Apply to save them.

d. To make your connection available as a system connection go to the Identity tab and
set the check box Make available to other users. For more information about user and
system connections, see Section 25.4.1, “User and System Connections”.

360 Configuring Network Connections SLED 15

25.3.1 Managing Wired Network Connections
If your computer is connected to a wired network, use the NetworkManager applet to manage
the connection.

1. Open the Status Menu and click Wired to change the connection details or to switch it o.

2. To change the settings click Wired Settings and then click the gear icon.

3. To switch o all network connections, activate the Airplane Mode setting.

25.3.2 Managing Wireless Network Connections

Visible wireless networks are listed in the GNOME NetworkManager applet menu under Wireless
Networks. The signal strength of each network is also shown in the menu. Encrypted wireless
networks are marked with a shield icon.

PROCEDURE 25.2: CONNECTING TO A VISIBLE WIRELESS NETWORK

1. To connect to a visible wireless network, open the Status Menu and click Wi-Fi.

2. Click Turn On to enable it.

3. Click Select Network, select your Wi-Fi Network and click Connect.

4. If the network is encrypted, a configuration dialog opens. It shows the type of encryption
the network uses and text boxes for entering the login credentials.

PROCEDURE 25.3: CONNECTING TO AN INVISIBLE WIRELESS NETWORK

1. To connect to a network that does not broadcast its service set identifier (SSID or ESSID)
and therefore cannot be detected automatically, open the Status Menu and click Wi-Fi.

2. Click Wi-Fi Settings to open the detailed settings menu.

3. Make sure your Wi-Fi is enabled and click Connect to Hidden Network.

4. In the dialog that opens, enter the SSID or ESSID in Network Name and set encryption
parameters if necessary.

A wireless network that has been chosen explicitly will remain connected as long as possible.
If a network cable is plugged in during that time, any connections that have been set to Stay
connected when possible will be connected, while the wireless connection remains up.

361 Managing Wired Network Connections SLED 15

25.3.3 Enabling Wireless Captive Portal Detection
On the initial connection, many public wireless hotspots force users to visit a landing page (the
captive portal). Before you have logged in or agreed to the terms and conditions, all your HTTP
requests are redirected to the provider's captive portal.
When connecting to a wireless network with a captive portal, NetworkManager and GNOME
will automatically show the login page as part of the connection process. This ensures that you
always know when you are connected, and helps you to get set up as quickly as possible without
using the browser to login.
To enable this feature, install the package NetworkManager-branding-SLE and restart Net-
workManager with:

tux > sudo systemctl restart network

Whenever you connect to a network with a captive portal, NetworkManager (or GNOME) will
open the captive portal login page for you. Login with your credentials to get access to the
Internet.

25.3.4 Configuring Your Wi-Fi/Bluetooth Card as an Access Point

If your Wi-Fi/Bluetooth card supports access point mode, you can use NetworkManager for the
configuration.

1. Open the Status Menu and click Wi-Fi.

2. Click Wi-Fi Settings to open the detailed settings menu.

3. Click Use as Hotspot and follow the instructions.

4. Use the credentials shown in the resulting dialog to connect to the hotspot from a remote
machine.

25.3.5 NetworkManager and VPN

NetworkManager supports several Virtual Private Network (VPN) technologies. For each tech-
nology, SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop comes with a base package providing the generic support
for NetworkManager. In addition to that, you also need to install the respective desktop-specific
package for your applet.

OpenVPN

362 Enabling Wireless Captive Portal Detection SLED 15

 To use this VPN technology, install:

NetworkManager-openvpn

NetworkManager-openvpn-gnome

OpenConnect
To use this VPN technology, install:

NetworkManager-openconnect

NetworkManager-openconnect-gnome

PPTP (Point-to-Point Tunneling Protocol)

To use this VPN technology, install:

NetworkManager-pptp

NetworkManager-pptp-gnome

The following procedure describes how to set up your computer as an OpenVPN client using
NetworkManager. Setting up other types of VPNs works analogously.
Before you begin, make sure that the package NetworkManager-openvpn-gnome is installed
and all dependencies have been resolved.

PROCEDURE 25.4: SETTING UP OPENVPN WITH NETWORKMANAGER

1. Open the application Settings by clicking the status icons at the right end of the panel and
clicking the wrench and screwdriver icon. In the window All Settings, choose Network.

2. Click the + icon.

3. Select VPN and then OpenVPN.

4. Choose the Authentication type. Depending on the setup of your OpenVPN server, choose
Certificates (TLS) or Password with Certificates (TLS).

5. Insert the necessary values into the respective text boxes. For our example configuration,
these are:

Gateway The remote endpoint of the VPN server

User name The user (only available when you have selected Password
with Certificates (TLS))

363 NetworkManager and VPN SLED 15

 Password The password for the user (only available when you have
selected Password with Certificates (TLS))

User Certificate /etc/openvpn/client1.crt

CA Certificate /etc/openvpn/ca.crt

Private Key /etc/openvpn/client1.key

6. Finish the configuration with Add.

7. To enable the connection, in the Network panel of the Settings application click the switch
button. Alternatively, click the status icons at the right end of the panel, click the name
of your VPN and then Connect.

25.4 NetworkManager and Security

NetworkManager distinguishes two types of wireless connections: trusted and untrusted. A trust-
ed connection is any network that you explicitly selected in the past. All others are untrusted.
Trusted connections are identified by the name and MAC address of the access point. Using
the MAC address ensures that you cannot use a different access point with the name of your
trusted connection.
NetworkManager periodically scans for available wireless networks. If multiple trusted networks
are found, the most recently used is automatically selected. NetworkManager waits for your
selection in case if all networks are untrusted.
If the encryption setting changes but the name and MAC address remain the same, Network-
Manager attempts to connect, but rst you are asked to confirm the new encryption settings
and provide any updates, such as a new key.
If you switch from using a wireless connection to offline mode, NetworkManager blanks the
SSID or ESSID. This ensures that the card is disconnected.

25.4.1 User and System Connections

NetworkManager knows two types of connections: user and system connections. User con-
nections are connections that become available to NetworkManager when the rst user logs in.
Any required credentials are asked from the user and when the user logs out, the connections

364 NetworkManager and Security SLED 15

are disconnected and removed from NetworkManager. Connections that are defined as system
connections can be shared by all users and are made available right after NetworkManager is
started—before any users log in. In case of system connections, all credentials must be provided
at the time the connection is created. Such system connections can be used to automatically
connect to networks that require authorization. For information on how to configure user or
system connections with NetworkManager, refer to Section 25.3, “Configuring Network Connections”.

25.4.2 Storing Passwords and Credentials

If you do not want to re-enter your credentials each time you want to connect to an encrypted
network, you can use the GNOME Keyring Manager to store your credentials encrypted on the
disk, secured by a master password.
NetworkManager can also retrieve its certificates for secure connections (for example, encrypted
wired, wireless or VPN connections) from the certificate store. For more information, refer to
Book “Security Guide”, Chapter 12 “Certificate Store”.

25.4.3 Firewall Zones

FIGURE 25.2: firewalld ZONES IN NETWORKMANAGER

365 Storing Passwords and Credentials SLED 15

The firewall zones set general rules about which network connections are allowed. To configure
the zone of firewalld for a wired connection, go to the Identity tab of the connection settings. To
configure the zone of firewalld for a WiFi connection, go to the Security tab of the connection
settings.
If you are in your home network, use the zone home . For public wireless networks, switch to
public . If you are in a secure environment and want to allow all connections, use the zone
trusted .

For details about firewalld, see Book “Security Guide”, Chapter  16 “Masquerading and Firewalls”,
Section 16.4 “firewalld”.

25.5 Frequently Asked Questions

In the following, nd some frequently asked questions about configuring special network options
with NetworkManager.

25.5.1. How to tie a connection to a specific device?

By default, connections in NetworkManager are device type-specific: they apply to all

physical devices with the same type. If more than one physical device per connection
type is available (for example, your machine is equipped with two Ethernet cards), you
can tie a connection to a certain device.
To do this in GNOME, rst look up the MAC address of your device (use the Connection
Information available from the applet, or use the output of command line tools like nm-
tool or wicked show all ). Then start the dialog for configuring network connections
and choose the connection you want to modify. On the Wired or Wireless tab, enter the
MAC Address of the device and confirm your changes.

25.5.2. How to specify a certain access point in case multiple access points with the same ESSID are de-
tected?

When multiple access points with different wireless bands (a/b/g/n) are available, the
access point with the strongest signal is automatically chosen by default. To override this,
use the BSSID eld when configuring wireless connections.
The Basic Service Set Identifier (BSSID) uniquely identifies each Basic Service Set. In an
infrastructure Basic Service Set, the BSSID is the MAC address of the wireless access point.
In an independent (ad-hoc) Basic Service Set, the BSSID is a locally administered MAC
address generated from a 46-bit random number.

366 Frequently Asked Questions SLED 15

 Start the dialog for configuring network connections as described in Section 25.3, “Config-
uring Network Connections”. Choose the wireless connection you want to modify and click
Edit. On the Wireless tab, enter the BSSID.

25.5.3. How to share network connections with other computers?

The primary device (the device which is connected to the Internet) does not need any
special configuration. However, you need to configure the device that is connected to the
local hub or machine as follows:

1. Start the dialog for configuring network connections as described in Section 25.3,

“Configuring Network Connections”. Choose the connection you want to modify and
click Edit. Switch to the IPv4 Settings tab and from the Method drop-down box, ac-
tivate Shared to other computers. That will enable IP traffic forwarding and run a
DHCP server on the device. Confirm your changes in NetworkManager.

2. As the DCHP server uses port 67 , make sure that it is not blocked by the firewall: On
the machine sharing the connections, start YaST and select Security and Users Fire-
wall. Switch to the Allowed Services category. If DCHP Server is not already shown
as Allowed Service, select DCHP Server from Services to Allow and click Add. Confirm
your changes in YaST.

25.5.4. How to provide static DNS information with automatic (DHCP, PPP, VPN) addresses?

In case a DHCP server provides invalid DNS information (and/or routes), you can over-
ride it. Start the dialog for configuring network connections as described in Section 25.3,
“Configuring Network Connections”. Choose the connection you want to modify and click
Edit. Switch to the IPv4 Settings tab, and from the Method drop-down box, activate Auto-
matic (DHCP) addresses only. Enter the DNS information in the DNS Servers and Search
Domains elds. To Ignore automatically obtained routes click Routes and activate the re-
spective check box. Confirm your changes.

25.5.5. How to make NetworkManager connect to password protected networks before a user logs in?

Define a system connection that can be used for such purposes. For more information,
refer to Section 25.4.1, “User and System Connections”.

367 Frequently Asked Questions SLED 15

25.6 Troubleshooting
Connection problems can occur. Some common problems related to NetworkManager include
the applet not starting or a missing VPN option. Methods for resolving and preventing these
problems depend on the tool used.

NetworkManager Desktop Applet Does Not Start

The applets starts automatically if the network is set up for NetworkManager control. If
the applet does not start, check if NetworkManager is enabled in YaST as described in
Section 25.2, “Enabling or Disabling NetworkManager”. Then make sure that the NetworkMan-
ager-gnome package is also installed.
If the desktop applet is installed but is not running for some reason, start it manually with
the command nm-applet .

NetworkManager Applet Does Not Include the VPN Option

Support for NetworkManager, applets, and VPN for NetworkManager is distributed in sep-
arate packages. If your NetworkManager applet does not include the VPN option, check
if the packages with NetworkManager support for your VPN technology are installed. For
more information, see Section 25.3.5, “NetworkManager and VPN”.

No Network Connection Available

If you have configured your network connection correctly and all other components for
the network connection (router, etc.) are also up and running, it sometimes helps to restart
the network interfaces on your computer. To do so, log in to a command line as root and
run systemctl restart wickeds .

25.7 For More Information

More information about NetworkManager can be found on the following Web sites and direc-
tories:

NetworkManager Project Page

http://projects.gnome.org/NetworkManager/

Package Documentation

368 Troubleshooting SLED 15

 Also check out the information in the following directories for the latest information about
NetworkManager and the GNOME applet:

/usr/share/doc/packages/NetworkManager/ ,

/usr/share/doc/packages/NetworkManager-gnome/ .

369 For More Information SLED 15

26 Power Management
Power management is especially important on laptop computers, but is also useful on other sys-
tems. ACPI (Advanced Configuration and Power Interface) is available on all modern computers
(laptops, desktops, and servers). Power management technologies require suitable hardware and
BIOS routines. Most laptops and many modern desktops and servers meet these requirements.
It is also possible to control CPU frequency scaling to save power or decrease noise.

26.1 Power Saving Functions

Power saving functions are not only significant for the mobile use of laptops, but also for desktop
systems. The main functions and their use in ACPI are:

Standby
Not supported.

Suspend (to memory)

This mode writes the entire system state to the RAM. Subsequently, the entire system
except the RAM is put to sleep. In this state, the computer consumes very little power.
The advantage of this state is the possibility of resuming work at the same point within
a few seconds without having to boot and restart applications. This function corresponds
to the ACPI state S3 .

Hibernation (suspend to disk)

In this operating mode, the entire system state is written to the hard disk and the system
is powered o. There must be a swap partition at least as big as the RAM to write all the
active data. Reactivation from this state takes about 30 to 90 seconds. The state prior to the
suspend is restored. Some manufacturers offer useful hybrid variants of this mode, such as
RediSafe in IBM Thinkpads. The corresponding ACPI state is S4 . In Linux, suspend to disk
is performed by kernel routines that are independent from ACPI.

Note: Changed UUID for Swap Partitions When

Formatting via mkswap
Do not reformat existing swap partitions with mkswap if possible. Reformatting with
mkswap will change the UUID value of the swap partition. Either reformat via YaST
(which will update /etc/fstab ) or adjust /etc/fstab manually.

370 Power Saving Functions SLED 15

Battery Monitor
ACPI checks the battery charge status and provides information about it. Additionally, it
coordinates actions to perform when a critical charge status is reached.

Automatic Power-Off
Following a shutdown, the computer is powered o. This is especially important when an
automatic shutdown is performed shortly before the battery is empty.

Processor Speed Control

In connection with the CPU, energy can be saved in three different ways: frequency and
voltage scaling (also known as PowerNow! or Speedstep), throttling and putting the proces-
sor to sleep (C-states). Depending on the operating mode of the computer, these methods
can also be combined.

26.2 Advanced Configuration and Power Interface

(ACPI)
ACPI was designed to enable the operating system to set up and control the individual hard-
ware components. ACPI supersedes both Power Management Plug and Play (PnP) and Advanced
Power Management (APM). It delivers information about the battery, AC adapter, temperature,
fan and system events, like “close lid” or “battery low.”
The BIOS provides tables containing information about the individual components and hardware
access methods. The operating system uses this information for tasks like assigning interrupts
or activating and deactivating components. Because the operating system executes commands
stored into the BIOS, the functionality depends on the BIOS implementation. The tables ACPI can
detect and load are reported in journald. See Chapter 15, journalctl: Query the systemd Journal
for more information on viewing the journal log messages. See Section 26.2.2, “Troubleshooting”
for more information about troubleshooting ACPI problems.

371 Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) SLED 15

26.2.1 Controlling the CPU Performance
The CPU can save energy in three ways:

Frequency and Voltage Scaling

Throttling the Clock Frequency (T-states)

Putting the Processor to Sleep (C-states)

Depending on the operating mode of the computer, these methods can be combined. Saving
energy also means that the system heats up less and the fans are activated less frequently.
Frequency scaling and throttling are only relevant if the processor is busy, because the most
economic C-state is applied anyway when the processor is idle. If the CPU is busy, frequency
scaling is the recommended power saving method. Often the processor only works with a partial
load. In this case, it can be run with a lower frequency. Usually, dynamic frequency scaling
controlled by the kernel on-demand governor is the best approach.
Throttling should be used as the last resort, for example, to extend the battery operation time
despite a high system load. However, some systems do not run smoothly when they are throttled
too much. Moreover, CPU throttling does not make sense if the CPU has little to do.
For in-depth information, refer to Book “System Analysis and Tuning Guide”, Chapter  11 “Power
Management”.

26.2.2 Troubleshooting
There are two different types of problems. On one hand, the ACPI code of the kernel may contain
bugs that were not detected in time. In this case, a solution will be made available for download.
More often, the problems are caused by the BIOS. Sometimes, deviations from the ACPI speci-
fication are purposely integrated in the BIOS to circumvent errors in the ACPI implementation
of other widespread operating systems. Hardware components that have serious errors in the
ACPI implementation are recorded in a blacklist that prevents the Linux kernel from using ACPI
for these components.
The rst thing to do when problems are encountered is to update the BIOS. If the computer does
not boot, one of the following boot parameters may be helpful:

pci=noacpi
Do not use ACPI for configuring the PCI devices.

372 Controlling the CPU Performance SLED 15

acpi=ht
Only perform a simple resource configuration. Do not use ACPI for other purposes.

acpi=off
Disable ACPI.

Warning: Problems Booting without ACPI

Some newer machines (especially SMP systems and AMD64 systems) need ACPI for con-
figuring the hardware correctly. On these machines, disabling ACPI can cause problems.

Sometimes, the machine is confused by hardware that is attached over USB or FireWire. If a
machine refuses to boot, unplug all unneeded hardware and try again.
Monitor the boot messages of the system with the command dmesg -T | grep -2i acpi
(or all messages, because the problem may not be caused by ACPI) after booting. If an error
occurs while parsing an ACPI table, the most important table—the DSDT (Differentiated System
Description Table)—can be replaced with an improved version. In this case, the faulty DSDT of
the BIOS is ignored. The procedure is described in Section 26.4, “Troubleshooting”.
In the kernel configuration, there is a switch for activating ACPI debug messages. If a kernel
with ACPI debugging is compiled and installed, detailed information is issued.
If you experience BIOS or hardware problems, it is always advisable to contact the manufactur-
ers. Especially if they do not always provide assistance for Linux, they should be confronted with
the problems. Manufacturers will only take the issue seriously if they realize that an adequate
number of their customers use Linux.

26.2.2.1 For More Information

http://tldp.org/HOWTO/ACPI-HOWTO/ (detailed ACPI HOWTO, contains DSDT patches)

http://www.acpi.info (Advanced Configuration & Power Interface Specification)

http://acpi.sourceforge.net/dsdt/index.php (DSDT patches by Bruno Ducrot)

373 Troubleshooting SLED 15

26.3 Rest for the Hard Disk
In Linux, the hard disk can be put to sleep entirely if it is not needed or it can be run in a more
economic or quieter mode. On modern laptops, you do not need to switch o the hard disks
manually, because they automatically enter an economic operating mode whenever they are not
needed. However, if you want to maximize power savings, test some of the following methods,
using the hdparm command.
It can be used to modify various hard disk settings. The option -y instantly switches the hard
disk to the standby mode. -Y puts it to sleep. hdparm -S X causes the hard disk to be spun
down after a certain period of inactivity. Replace X as follows: 0 disables this mechanism,
causing the hard disk to run continuously. Values from 1 to 240 are multiplied by 5 seconds.
Values from 241 to 251 correspond to 1 to 11 times 30 minutes.
Internal power saving options of the hard disk can be controlled with the option -B . Select a
value from 0 to 255 for maximum saving to maximum throughput. The result depends on the
hard disk used and is difficult to assess. To make a hard disk quieter, use the option -M . Select
a value from 128 to 254 for quiet to fast.
Often, it is not so easy to put the hard disk to sleep. In Linux, numerous processes write to the
hard disk, waking it up repeatedly. Therefore, it is important to understand how Linux handles
data that needs to be written to the hard disk. First, all data is buered in the RAM. This buer
is monitored by the pdflush daemon. When the data reaches a certain age limit or when the
buer is lled to a certain degree, the buer content is ushed to the hard disk. The buer size
is dynamic and depends on the size of the memory and the system load. By default, pdush is
set to short intervals to achieve maximum data integrity. It checks the buer every 5 seconds
and writes the data to the hard disk. The following variables are interesting:

/proc/sys/vm/dirty_writeback_centisecs
Contains the delay until a pdush thread wakes up (in hundredths of a second).

/proc/sys/vm/dirty_expire_centisecs
Defines after which timeframe a dirty page should be written at latest. Default is 3000 ,
which means 30 seconds.

/proc/sys/vm/dirty_background_ratio
Maximum percentage of dirty pages until pdush begins to write them. Default is 5 %.

/proc/sys/vm/dirty_ratio
When the dirty pages exceed this percentage of the total memory, processes are forced to
write dirty buers during their time slice instead of continuing to write.

374 Rest for the Hard Disk SLED 15

 Warning: Impairment of the Data Integrity
Changes to the pdflush daemon settings endanger the data integrity.

Apart from these processes, journaling le systems, like Btrfs , Ext3 , Ext4 and others write
their metadata independently from pdflush , which also prevents the hard disk from spinning
down. To avoid this, a special kernel extension has been developed for mobile devices. To use
the extension, install the laptop-mode-tools package and see /usr/src/linux/Documenta-
tion/laptops/laptop-mode.txt for details.

Another important factor is the way active programs behave. For example, good editors regularly
write hidden backups of the currently modified le to the hard disk, causing the disk to wake
up. Features like this can be disabled at the expense of data integrity.
In this connection, the mail daemon postfix uses the variable POSTFIX_LAPTOP . If this variable
is set to yes , postfix accesses the hard disk far less frequently.
In SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop these technologies are controlled by laptop-mode-tools .

26.4 Troubleshooting
All error messages and alerts are logged in the system journal, which can be queried with the
command journalctl (see Chapter 15, journalctl: Query the systemd Journal for more infor-
mation). The following sections cover the most common problems.

26.4.1 CPU Frequency Does Not Work

Refer to the kernel sources to see if your processor is supported. You may need a special kernel
module or module option to activate CPU frequency control. If the kernel-source package is
installed, this information is available in /usr/src/linux/Documentation/cpu-freq/* .

26.5 For More Information

http://en.opensuse.org/SDB:Suspend_to_RAM —How to get Suspend to RAM working

http://old-en.opensuse.org/Pm-utils —How to modify the general suspend framework

375 Troubleshooting SLED 15

27 VM Guest

This chapter contains additional information when SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop
is used in a virtual machine.

27.1 Adding and Removing CPUs

Some virtualization environments allow adding or removing CPUs while the virtual machine
is running.
For safe removal of CPUs, rst deactivate them by executing

root # echo 0 > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpuX/online

Replace X with the CPU number. To bring a CPU back online, execute

root # echo 1 > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpuX/online

376 Adding and Removing CPUs SLED 15

28 Persistent Memory

This chapter contains additional information about using SUSE Linux Enterprise
Desktop with non-volatile main memory, also known as Persistent Memory, compris-
ing one or more NVDIMMs.

28.1 Introduction
Persistent memory is a new type of computer storage, combining speeds approaching those of
dynamic RAM (DRAM) along with RAM's byte-by-byte addressability, plus the permanence of
solid-state disks (SSDs).
Like conventional RAM, it is installed directly into motherboard memory slots. As such, it is
supplied in the same physical form factor as RAM—as DIMMs. These are known as NVDIMMs:
non-volatile dual inline memory modules.
Unlike RAM, though, persistent memory is also similar to ash-based SSDs in several ways. Both
are based on forms of solid-state memory circuitry, but despite this, both provide non-volatile
storage: their contents are retained when the system is powered o or restarted. For both forms
of medium, writing data is slower than reading it, and both support a limited number of rewrite
cycles. Finally, also like SSDs, sector-level access to persistent memory is possible if that is more
suitable for a particular application.
Different models use different forms of electronic storage medium, such as Intel 3D XPoint, or
a combination of NAND-ash and DRAM. New forms of non-volatile RAM are also in develop-
ment. This means that different vendors and models of NVDIMM offer different performance
and durability characteristics.
Because the storage technologies involved are in an early stage of development, different ven-
dors' hardware may impose different limitations. Thus, the following statements are generaliza-
tions.
Persistent memory is up to ten times slower than DRAM, but around a thousand times faster than
ash storage. It can be rewritten on a byte-by-byte basis rather than ash memory's whole-sector
erase-and-rewrite process. Finally, while rewrite cycles are limited, most forms of persistent
memory can handle millions of rewrites, compared to the thousands of cycles of ash storage.

377 Introduction SLED 15

This has two important consequences:

It is not possible with current technology to run a system with only persistent memory
and thus achieve completely non-volatile main memory. You must use a mixture of both
conventional RAM and NVDIMMs. The operating system and applications will execute in
conventional RAM, with the NVDIMMs providing very fast supplementary storage.

The performance characteristics of different vendors' persistent memory mean that it may
be necessary for programmers to be aware of the hardware specifications of the NVDIMMs
in a particular server, including how many NVDIMMs there are and in which memory slots
they are fitted. This will obviously impact hypervisor use, migration of software between
different host machines, and so on.

This new storage subsystem is defined in version 6 of the ACPI standard. However, libnvdimm
supports pre-standard NVDIMMs and they can be used in the same way.

28.2 Terms
Region
A region is a block of persistent memory that can be divided up into one or more name-
spaces. You cannot access the persistent memory of a region without rst allocating it to
a namespace.

Namespace
A single contiguously-addressed range of non-volatile storage, comparable to NVM Express
SSD namespaces, or to SCSI Logical Units (LUNs). Namespaces appear in the server's /
dev directory as separate block devices. Depending on the method of access required,
namespaces can either amalgamate storage from multiple NVDIMMs into larger volumes,
or allow it to be partitioned into smaller volumes.

Mode
Each namespace also has a mode that defines which NVDIMM features are enabled for that
namespace. Sibling namespaces of the same parent region will always have the same type,
but might be configured to have different modes. Namespace modes include:

devdax
Device-DAX mode. Creates a single-character device le ( /dev/daxX.Y ). Does not
require le system creation.

378 Terms SLED 15

 fsdax
File system-DAX mode. Default if no other mode is specified. Creates a block device
( /dev/pmemX [.Y] ) which supports DAX for ext4 or XFS .

sector
For legacy le systems which do not checksum metadata. Suitable for small boot
volumes. Compatible with other operating systems.

raw
A memory disk without a label or metadata. Does not support DAX. Compatible with
other operating systems.

Note
raw mode is not supported by SUSE. It is not possible to mount le systems
on raw namespaces.

Type
Each namespace and region has a type that defines the way in which the persistent memory
associated with that namespace or region can be accessed. A namespace always has the
same type as its parent region. There are two different types: Persistent Memory, which
can be configured in two different ways, and the deprecated Block Mode.

Persistent Memory (PMEM)

PMEM storage offers byte-level access, just like RAM. Using PMEM, a single name-
space can include multiple interleaved NVDIMMs, allowing them all to be used as
a single device.
There are two ways to configure a PMEM namespace.

PMEM with DAX

A PMEM namespace configured for Direct Access (DAX) means that accessing
the memory bypasses the kernel's page cache and goes direct to the medium.
Software can directly read or write every byte of the namespace separately.

PMEM with BTT

A PMEM namespace configured to operate in BTT mode is accessed on a sec-
tor-by-sector basis, like a conventional disk drive, rather than the more RAM-
like byte-addressible model. A translation table mechanism batches accesses
into sector-sized units.

379 Terms SLED 15

 The advantages of BTT are that the storage subsystem ensures that each sector
is completely written to the underlying medium, and if a write fails for some
reason, it will be unrolled. Thus a given sector cannot be partially written.
Additionally, access to BTT namespaces is cached by the kernel.
The drawback is that DAX is not possible to BTT namespaces.

Block Mode (BLK)

Block mode storage addresses each NVDIMM as a separate device. Its use is depre-
cated and no longer supported.
Apart from devdax namespaces, all other types must be formatted with a le system, just
as with a conventional drive. SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop supports the ext2 , ext4
and XFS le systems for this.

Direct Access (DAX)

DAX allows persistent memory to be directly mapped into a process's address space, for
example using the mmap system call.

DIMM Physical Address (DPA)

A memory address as an offset into a single DIMM's memory; that is, starting from zero as
the lowest addressable byte on that DIMM.

Label
Metadata stored on the NVDIMM, such as namespace definitions. This can be accessed
using DSMs.

Device-specific method (DSM)

ACPI method to access the rmware on an NVDIMM.

28.3 Use Cases

28.3.1 PMEM with DAX

It is important to note that this form of memory access is not transactional. In the event of a
power outage or other system failure, data may not be completely written into storage. PMEM
storage is only suitable if the application can handle the situation of partially-written data.

380 Use Cases SLED 15

28.3.1.1 Applications that benefit from large amounts of byte-addressable
storage.
If the server will host an application that can directly use large amounts of fast storage on a
byte-by-byte basis, the programmer can use the mmap system call to place blocks of persistent
memory directly into the application's address space, without using any additional system RAM.

28.3.1.2 Avoiding Use of the Kernel Page Cache

If you wish to conserve the use of RAM for the page cache, and instead give it to your applica-
tions. For instance, non-volatile memory could be dedicated to holding virtual machine (VM)
images. As these would not be cached, this would reduce the cache usage on the host, allowing
more VMs per host.

28.3.2 PMEM with BTT

This is useful when you want to use the persistent memory on a set of NVDIMMs as a disk-like
pool of very fast storage.
To applications, such devices just appear as very fast SSDs and can be used like any other storage
device. For example, LVM can be layered on top of the persistent memory and will work as
normal.
The advantage of BTT is that sector write atomicity is guaranteed, so even sophisticated appli-
cations that depend on data integrity will keep working. Media error reporting works through
standard error-reporting channels.

28.4 Tools for Managing Persistent Memory

To manage persistent memory, it is necessary to install the ndctl package. This also installs
the libndctl package, which provides a set of user-space libraries to configure NVDIMMs.
These tools work via the libnvdimm library, which supports three types of NVDIMMs:

PMEM

BLK

Simultaneous PMEM and BLK.

381 PMEM with BTT SLED 15

The ndctl utility has a helpful set of man pages, accessible with the command:

ndctl help subcommand

To see a list of available subcommands, use:

ndctl --list-cmds

The available subcommands include:

version
Displays the current version of the NVDIMM support tools.

enable-namespace
Makes the specified namespace available for use.

disable-namespace
Prevents the specified namespace from being used.

create-namespace
Creates a new namespace from the specified storage devices.

destroy-namespace
Removes the specified namespace.

enable-region
Makes the specified region available for use.

disable-region
Prevents the specified region from being used.

zero-labels
Erases the metadata from a device.

read-labels
Retrieves the metadata of the specified device.

list
Displays available devices.

help
Displays information about using the tool.

382 Tools for Managing Persistent Memory SLED 15

28.5 Setting Up Persistent Memory

28.5.1 Viewing Available NVDIMM Storage

The ndctl list command can be used to list all available NVDIMMs in a system.
In the following example, the system has three NVDIMMs which are in a single, triple-channel
interleaved set.

root # ndctl list --dimms

[
{
"dev":"nmem2",
"id":"8089-00-0000-12325476"
},
{
"dev":"nmem1",
"id":"8089-00-0000-11325476"
},
{
"dev":"nmem0",
"id":"8089-00-0000-10325476"
}
]

With a different parameter, ndctl list will also list the available regions.

Note
Regions may not appear in numerical order.

Note that although there are only three NVDIMMs, they appear as four regions.

root # ndctl list --regions

[
{
"dev":"region1",
"size":68182605824,
"available_size":68182605824,
"type":"blk"
},

383 Setting Up Persistent Memory SLED 15

 {
"dev":"region3",
"size":202937204736,
"available_size":202937204736,
"type":"pmem",
"iset_id":5903239628671731251
},
{
"dev":"region0",
"size":68182605824,
"available_size":68182605824,
"type":"blk"
},
{
"dev":"region2",
"size":68182605824,
"available_size":68182605824,
"type":"blk"
}
]

The space is available in two different forms: either as three separate 64 GB regions of type
BLK, or as one combined 189 GB region of type PMEM which presents all the space on the three
interleaved NVDIMMs as a single volume.
Note that the displayed value for available_size is the same as that for size . This means
that none of the space has been allocated yet.

28.5.2 Configuring the Storage as a Single PMEM Namespace with

DAX
For the rst example, we will configure our three NVDIMMs into a single PMEM namespace
with Direct Access (DAX).
The rst step is to create a new namespace.

root # ndctl create-namespace --type=pmem --mode=fsdax --map=memory

{
"dev":"namespace3.0",
"mode":"memory",
"size":199764213760,
"uuid":"dc8ebb84-c564-4248-9e8d-e18543c39b69",
"blockdev":"pmem3"
}

384 Configuring the Storage as a Single PMEM Namespace with DAX SLED 15
This creates a block device /dev/pmem3 , which supports DAX. The 3 in the device name is
inherited from the parent region number, in this case region3 .
The --map=memory option sets aside part of the PMEM storage space on the NVDIMMs so that
it can be used to allocate internal kernel data structures called struct pages . This allows the
new PMEM namespace to be used with features such as O_DIRECT I/O and RDMA .
The reservation of some persistent memory for kernel data structures is why the resulting PMEM
namespace has a smaller capacity than the parent PMEM region.
Next, we verify that the new block device is available to the operating system:

root # fdisk -l /dev/pmem3

Disk /dev/pmem3: 186 GiB, 199764213760 bytes, 390164480 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes

Before it can be used, like any other drive, it must be formatted. In this example, we format
it with XFS:

root # mkfs.xfs /dev/pmem3

meta-data=/dev/pmem3 isize=256 agcount=4, agsize=12192640 blks
= sectsz=4096 attr=2, projid32bit=1
= crc=0 finobt=0, sparse=0
data = bsize=4096 blocks=48770560, imaxpct=25
= sunit=0 swidth=0 blks
naming =version 2 bsize=4096 ascii-ci=0 ftype=1
log =internal log bsize=4096 blocks=23813, version=2
= sectsz=4096 sunit=1 blks, lazy-count=1
realtime =none extsz=4096 blocks=0, rtextents=0

Next, we can mount the new drive onto a directory:

root # mount -o dax /dev/pmem3 /mnt/pmem3

Then we can verify that we now have a DAX-capable device:

root # mount | grep dax

/dev/pmem3 on /mnt/pmem3 type xfs (rw,relatime,attr2,dax,inode64,noquota)

The result is that we now have a PMEM namespace formatted with the XFS le system and
mounted with DAX.
Any mmap() calls to les in that le system will return virtual addresses that directly map to
the persistent memory on our NVDIMMs, completely bypassing the page cache.

385 Configuring the Storage as a Single PMEM Namespace with DAX SLED 15
Any fsync or msync calls on les in that le system will still ensure that modified data has
been fully written to the NVDIMMs. These calls ush the processor cache lines associated with
any pages that have been modified in userspace via mmap mappings.

28.5.2.1 Removing a Namespace

Before creating any other type of volume that uses the same storage, we must unmount and
then remove this PMEM volume.
First, unmount it:

root # umount /mnt/pmem3

Then disable the namespace:

root # ndctl disable-namespace namespace3.0

disabled 1 namespace

Then delete it:

root # ndctl destroy-namespace namespace3.0

destroyed 1 namespace

28.5.3 Creating a PMEM Namespace with BTT

In the next example, we create a PMEM namespace that uses BTT.

root # ndctl create-namespace --type=pmem --mode=sector

{
"dev":"namespace3.0",
"mode":"sector",
"uuid":"51ab652d-7f20-44ea-b51d-5670454f8b9b",
"sector_size":4096,
"blockdev":"pmem3s"
}

Next, verify that the new device is present:

root # fdisk -l /dev/pmem3s

Disk /dev/pmem3s: 188.8 GiB, 202738135040 bytes, 49496615 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 4096 = 4096 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes

386 Creating a PMEM Namespace with BTT SLED 15

I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes

Like the DAX-capable PMEM namespace we previously configured, this BTT-capable PMEM
namespace consumes all the available storage on the NVDIMMs.

Note
The trailing s in the device name ( /dev/pmem3s ) stands for sector and can be used to
easily distinguish namespaces that are configured to use the BTT.

The volume can be formatted and mounted as in the previous example.

The PMEM namespace shown here cannot use DAX. Instead it uses the BTT to provide sector
write atomicity. On each sector write through the PMEM block driver, the BTT will allocate a new
sector to receive the new data. The BTT atomically updates its internal mapping structures after
the new data is fully written so the newly written data will be available to applications. If the
power fails at any point during this process, the write will be completely lost and the application
will have access to its old data, still intact. This prevents the condition known as "torn sectors".
This BTT-enabled PMEM namespace can be formatted and used with a le system just like any
other standard block device. It cannot be used with DAX. However, mmap mappings for les on
this block device will use the page cache.

28.6 For More Information

More about this topic can be found in the following list:

Persistent Memory Wiki (https://nvdimm.wiki.kernel.org/)

Contains instructions for configuring NVDIMM systems, information about testing, and
links to specifications related to NVDIMM enabling. This site is developing as NVDIMM
support in Linux is developing.

Persistent Memory Programming (http://pmem.io/)

Information about configuring, using and programming systems with non-volatile memory
under Linux and other operating systems. Covers the NVM Library (NVML), which aims
to provide useful APIs for programming with persistent memory in userspace.

LIBNVDIMM: Non-Volatile Devices (https://www.kernel.org/doc/Documentation/nvdimm/

nvdimm.txt)

387 For More Information SLED 15

 Aimed at kernel developers, this is part of the Documentation folder in the current Linux
kernel tree. It talks about the different kernel modules involved in NVDIMM enablement,
lays out some technical details of the kernel implementation, and talks about the sys-
fs interface to the kernel that is used by the ndctl tool.

GitHub: pmem/ndctl (https://github.com/pmem/ndctl)

Utility library for managing the libnvdimm subsystem in the Linux kernel. Also contains
userspace libraries, as well as unit tests and documentation.

388 For More Information SLED 15

IV Services

29 Time Synchronization with NTP 390

30 Sharing File Systems with NFS 397

31 Samba 403

32 On-Demand Mounting with Autofs 417

29 Time Synchronization with NTP

The NTP (network time protocol) mechanism is a protocol for synchronizing the
system time over the network. First, a machine can obtain the time from a server
that is a reliable time source. Second, a machine can itself act as a time source for
other computers in the network. The goal is twofold—maintaining the absolute time
and synchronizing the system time of all machines within a network.
Maintaining an exact system time is important in many situations. The built-in hardware clock
does often not meet the requirements of applications such as databases or clusters. Manual
correction of the system time would lead to severe problems because, for example, a backward
leap can cause malfunction of critical applications. Within a network, it is usually necessary to
synchronize the system time of all machines, but manual time adjustment is a bad approach.
NTP provides a mechanism to solve these problems. The NTP service continuously adjusts the
system time with reliable time servers in the network. It further enables the management of
local reference clocks, such as radio-controlled clocks.
Since SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 15, chrony is the default implementation of NTP. chrony
includes two parts; chronyd is a daemon that can be started at boot time and chronyc is a
command line interface program to monitor the performance of chronyd , and to change various
operating parameters at runtime.

Note
To enable time synchronization by means of active directory, follow the instructions
found at Book “Security Guide”, Chapter 7 “Active Directory Support”, Section 7.3.3 “ Joining Active
Directory Using Windows Domain Membership ”, Joining an Active Directory Domain Using Win-
dows Domain Membership .

29.1 Configuring an NTP Client with YaST

The NTP daemon ( chronyd ) coming with the chrony package is preset to use the local com-
puter hardware clock as a time reference. The precision of a hardware clock heavily depends
on its time source. For example, an atomic clock or GPS receiver is a very precise time source,
while a common RTC chip is not a reliable time source. YaST simplifies the configuration of
an NTP client.

390 Configuring an NTP Client with YaST SLED 15

In the YaST NTP client configuration (Network Services NTP Configuration) window, you can
specify when to start the NTP daemon, the type of the configuration source, and add custom
time servers.

FIGURE 29.1: NTP CONFIGURATION WINDOW

29.1.1 NTP Daemon Start

You can choose from three options for when to start the NTP daemon:

Only Manually
Select Only Manually, if you want to manually start the chrony daemon.

Synchronize without Daemon

Select Synchronize without Daemon to set the system time periodically without a perma-
nently running chrony . You can set the Interval of the Synchronization in Minutes.

Now and On Boot

Select Now and On Boot to start chronyd automatically when the system is booted. This
setting is recommended.

391 NTP Daemon Start SLED 15

29.1.2 Type of the Configuration Source
In the Configuration Source drop-down box, select either Dynamic or Static. Set Static if your
server uses only a xed set of (public) NTP servers, while Dynamic is better if your internal
network offers NTP servers via DHCP.

29.1.3 Configure Time Servers

Time servers for the client to query are listed in the lower part of the NTP Configuration window.
Modify this list as needed with Add, Edit, and Delete.
Click Add to add a new time server:

FIGURE 29.2: ADDING A TIME SERVER

1. In the Address eld, type the URL of the time server or pool of time servers with which
you want to synchronize the machine time. After the URL is complete, click Test to verify
that it points to a valid time source.

2. Activate Quick Initial Sync to speed up the time synchronization by sending more requests
at the chronyd daemon start.

3. Activate Start Offline to speed up the boot time on systems that start the chronyd daemon
automatically and may not have an Internet connection at boot time. This option is useful
for example for laptops whose network connection is managed by NetworkManager.

392 Type of the Configuration Source SLED 15

 4. Confirm with OK.

29.2 Manually Configuring NTP in the Network

chrony reads its configuration from the /etc/chrony.conf le. To keep the computer clock
synchronized, you need to tell chrony what time servers to use. You can use specific server
names or IP addresses, for example:

server 0.europe.pool.ntp.org
server 1.europe.pool.ntp.org
server 2.europe.pool.ntp.org

You can also specify a pool name. Pool name resolves to several IP addresses:

pool pool.ntp.org

Tip: Computers on the Same Network

To synchronize time on multiple computers on the same network, we do not recommend
to synchronize all of them with an external server. A good practice is to make one com-
puter the time server which is synchronized with an external time server, and the other
computers act as its clients. Add a local directive to the server's /etc/chrony.conf to
distinguish it from an authoritative time server:

local stratum 10

To start chrony , run:

systemctl start chronyd.service

After initializing chronyd , it takes some time before the time is stabilized and the drift le
for correcting the local computer clock is created. With the drift le, the systematic error of
the hardware clock can be computed when the computer is powered on. The correction is used
immediately, resulting in a higher stability of the system time.
To enable the service so that chrony starts automatically at boot time, run:

systemctl enable chronyd.service

393 Manually Configuring NTP in the Network SLED 15

29.3 Configure chronyd at Runtime Using chronyc
You can use chronyc to change the behavior of chronyd at runtime. It also generates status
reports about the operation of chronyd .
You can run chronyc either in interactive or non-interactive mode. To run chronyc interac-
tively, enter chronyc on the command line. It displays a prompt and waits for your command
input. For example, to check how many NTP sources are online or offline, run:

root # chronyc
chronyc> activity
200 OK
4 sources online
2 sources offline
1 sources doing burst (return to online)
1 sources doing burst (return to offline)
0 sources with unknown address

To exit chronyc 's prompt, enter quit or exit .

If you do not need to use the interactive prompt, enter the command directly:

root # chronyc activity

Note: Temporary Changes

Changes made using chronyc are not permanent. They will be lost after the next
chronyd restart. For permanent changes, modify /etc/chrony.conf .

For a complete list of chronyc commands, see its manual page ( man 1 chronyc ).

29.4 Dynamic Time Synchronization at Runtime

If the system boots without network connection, chronyd starts up, but it cannot resolve DNS
names of the time servers set in the configuration le. This can happen if you use NetworkMan-
ager with an encrypted Wi-Fi.
chronyd keeps trying to resolve the time server names specified by the server , pool , and
peer directives in an increasing time interval until it succeeds.

394 Configure chronyd at Runtime Using chronyc SLED 15

If the time server will not be reachable when chronyd is started, you can specify the offline
option:

server server_address offline

chronyd will then not try to poll the server until it is enabled using the following command:

root # chronyc online server_address

When the auto_offline option is set, chronyd assumes that the time server has gone offline
when two requests have been sent to it without receiving a response. This option avoids the
need to run the 'offline' command from chronyc when disconnecting the network link.

29.5 Setting Up a Local Reference Clock

The software package chrony relies on other programs (such as gpsd ) to access the timing
data via the SHM or SOCK driver. Use the refclock directive in /etc/chrony.conf to specify
a hardware reference clock to be used as a time source. It has two mandatory parameters: a
driver name and a driver-specific parameter. The two parameters are followed by zero or more
refclock options. chronyd includes the following drivers:

PPS - driver for the kernel 'pulse per second' API. For example:

refclock PPS /dev/pps0 lock NMEA refid GPS

SHM - NTP shared memory driver. For example:

refclock SHM 0 poll 3 refid GPS1

refclock SHM 1:perm=0644 refid GPS2

SOCK - Unix domain socket driver. For example:

refclock SOCK /var/run/chrony.ttyS0.sock

PHC - PTP hardware clock driver. For example:

refclock PHC /dev/ptp0 poll 0 dpoll -2 offset -37

refclock PHC /dev/ptp1:nocrossts poll 3 pps

For more information on individual drivers' options, see man 8 chrony.conf .

395 Setting Up a Local Reference Clock SLED 15

29.6 Clock Synchronization to an External Time
Reference (ETR)
Support for clock synchronization to an external time reference (ETR) is available. The external
time reference sends an oscillator signal and a synchronization signal every 2**20 (2 to the
power of 20) microseconds to keep TOD clocks of all connected servers synchronized.
For availability two ETR units can be connected to a machine. If the clock deviates for more
than the sync-check tolerance all CPUs get a machine check that indicates that the clock is not
synchronized. If this happens, all DASD I/O to XRC enabled devices is stopped until the clock
is synchronized again.
The ETR support is activated via two sysfs attributes; run the following commands as root :

echo 1 > /sys/devices/system/etr/etr0/online

echo 1 > /sys/devices/system/etr/etr1/online

396 Clock Synchronization to an External Time Reference (ETR) SLED 15

30 Sharing File Systems with NFS

The Network File System (NFS) is a protocol that allows access to les on a server
ima a manner very similar to accessing local les.

30.1 Overview
The Network File System (NFS) is a standardized, well-proven and widely supported network
protocol that allows les to be shared between separate hosts.
The Network Information Service (NIS) can be used to have a centralized user management in the
network. Combining NFS and NIS allows using le and directory permissions for access control
in the network. NFS with NIS makes a network transparent to the user.
In the default configuration, NFS completely trusts the network and thus any machine which is
connected to a trusted network. Any user with administrator privileges on any computer with
physical access to any network which the NFS server trusts, can access any les that the server
makes available.
Often, this level of security is perfectly satisfactory, such as when the network that is trusted is
truly private, often localized to a single cabinet or machine room, and no unauthorized access
is possible. In other cases the need to trust a whole subnet as a unit is restrictive and there is a
need for more ne-grained trust. To meet the need in these cases, NFS supports various security
levels using the Kerberos infrastructure. Kerberos requires NFSv4, which is used by default. For
details, see Book “Security Guide”, Chapter 6 “Network Authentication with Kerberos”.
The following are terms used in the YaST module.

Exports
A directory exported by an NFS server, which clients can integrate it into their system.

NFS Client
The NFS client is a system that uses NFS services from an NFS server over the Network File
System protocol. The TCP/IP protocol is already integrated into the Linux kernel; there is
no need to install any additional software.

NFS Server
The NFS server provides NFS services to clients. A running server depends on the following
daemons: nfsd (worker), idmapd (ID-to-name mapping for NFSv4, needed for certain
scenarios only), statd (le locking), and mountd (mount requests).

397 Overview SLED 15

NFSv3
NFSv3 is the version 3 implementation, the “old” stateless NFS that supports client au-
thentication.

NFSv4
NFSv4 is the new version 4 implementation that supports secure user authentication via
kerberos. NFSv4 requires one single port only and thus is better suited for environments
behind a firewall than NFSv3.
The protocol is specified as http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3530 .

pNFS
Parallel NFS, a protocol extension of NFSv4. Any pNFS clients can directly access the data
on an NFS server.

30.2 Installing NFS Server

For installing and configuring an NFS server, see the SUSE Linux Enterprise Server documen-
tation.

30.3 Configuring Clients

To configure your host as an NFS client, you do not need to install additional software. All
needed packages are installed by default.

30.3.1 Importing File Systems with YaST

Authorized users can mount NFS directories from an NFS server into the local le tree using the
YaST NFS client module. Proceed as follows:

PROCEDURE 30.1: IMPORTING NFS DIRECTORIES

1. Start the YaST NFS client module.

2. Click Add in the NFS Shares tab. Enter the host name of the NFS server, the directory to
import, and the mount point at which to mount this directory locally.

398 Installing NFS Server SLED 15

 3. When using NFSv4, select Enable NFSv4 in the NFS Settings tab. Additionally, the NFSv4
Domain Name must contain the same value as used by the NFSv4 server. The default do-
main is localdomain .

4. To use Kerberos authentication for NFS, GSS security must be enabled. Select Enable GSS
Security.

5. Enable Open Port in Firewall in the NFS Settings tab if you use a Firewall and want to allow
access to the service from remote computers. The firewall status is displayed next to the
check box.

6. Click OK to save your changes.

The configuration is written to /etc/fstab and the specified le systems are mounted. When
you start the YaST configuration client at a later time, it also reads the existing configuration
from this le.

Tip: NFS as a Root File System

On (diskless) systems, where the root partition is mounted via network as an NFS share,
you need to be careful when configuring the network device with which the NFS share
is accessible.
When shutting down or rebooting the system, the default processing order is to turn o
network connections, then unmount the root partition. With NFS root, this order causes
problems as the root partition cannot be cleanly unmounted as the network connection
to the NFS share is already not activated. To prevent the system from deactivating the
relevant network device, open the network device configuration tab as described in Sec-
tion 17.4.1.2.5, “Activating the Network Device” and choose On NFSroot in the Device Activation
pane.

30.3.2 Importing File Systems Manually

The prerequisite for importing le systems manually from an NFS server is a running RPC port
mapper. The nfs service takes care to start it properly; thus, start it by entering systemctl
start nfs as root . Then remote le systems can be mounted in the le system like local
partitions using mount :

tux > sudo mount HOST:REMOTE-PATHLOCAL-PATH

399 Importing File Systems Manually SLED 15

To import user directories from the nfs.example.com machine, for example, use:

tux > sudo mount nfs.example.com:/home /home

30.3.2.1 Using the Automount Service

The autofs daemon can be used to mount remote le systems automatically. Add the following
entry to the /etc/auto.master le:

/nfsmounts /etc/auto.nfs

Now the /nfsmounts directory acts as the root for all the NFS mounts on the client if the au-
to.nfs le is lled appropriately. The name auto.nfs is chosen for the sake of convenience—
you can choose any name. In auto.nfs add entries for all the NFS mounts as follows:

localdata -fstype=nfs server1:/data

nfs4mount -fstype=nfs4 server2:/

Activate the settings with systemctl start autofs as root . In this example, /nfs-
mounts/localdata , the /data directory of server1 , is mounted with NFS and /nfs-
mounts/nfs4mount from server2 is mounted with NFSv4.

If the /etc/auto.master le is edited while the service autofs is running, the automounter
must be restarted for the changes to take effect with systemctl restart autofs .

30.3.2.2 Manually Editing /etc/fstab

A typical NFSv3 mount entry in /etc/fstab looks like this:

nfs.example.com:/data /local/path nfs rw,noauto 0 0

For NFSv4 mounts, use nfs4 instead of nfs in the third column:

nfs.example.com:/data /local/pathv4 nfs4 rw,noauto 0 0

The noauto option prevents the le system from being mounted automatically at start-up. If you
want to mount the respective le system manually, it is possible to shorten the mount command
specifying the mount point only:

tux > sudo mount /local/path

400 Importing File Systems Manually SLED 15

 Note: Mounting at Start-Up
If you do not enter the noauto option, the init scripts of the system will handle the mount
of those le systems at start-up.

30.3.3 Parallel NFS (pNFS)

NFS is one of the oldest protocols, developed in the '80s. As such, NFS is usually sufficient if you
want to share small les. However, when you want to transfer big les or many clients want
to access data, an NFS server becomes a bottleneck and has a significant impact on the system
performance. This is because of les quickly getting bigger, whereas the relative speed of your
Ethernet has not fully kept up.
When you request a le from a regular NFS server, the server looks up the le metadata, collects
all the data and transfers it over the network to your client. However, the performance bottleneck
becomes apparent no matter how small or big the les are:

With small les most of the time is spent collecting the metadata.

With big les most of the time is spent on transferring the data from server to client.

pNFS, or parallel NFS, overcomes this limitation as it separates the le system metadata from
the location of the data. As such, pNFS requires two types of servers:

A metadata or control server that handles all the non-data traffic

One or more storage server(s) that hold(s) the data

The metadata and the storage servers form a single, logical NFS server. When a client wants to
read or write, the metadata server tells the NFSv4 client which storage server to use to access
the le chunks. The client can access the data directly on the server.
SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop supports pNFS on the client side only.

30.3.3.1 Configuring pNFS Client With YaST

Proceed as described in Procedure 30.1, “Importing NFS Directories”, but click the pNFS (v4.1) check
box and optionally NFSv4 share. YaST will do all the necessary steps and will write all the
required options in the le /etc/exports .

401 Parallel NFS (pNFS) SLED 15

30.3.3.2 Configuring pNFS Client Manually
Refer to Section 30.3.2, “Importing File Systems Manually” to start. Most of the configuration is done
by the NFSv4 server. For pNFS, the only difference is to add the minorversion option and the
metadata server MDS_SERVER to your mount command:

tux > sudo mount -t nfs4 -o minorversion=1 MDS_SERVER MOUNTPOINT

To help with debugging, change the value in the /proc le system:

tux > sudo echo 32767 > /proc/sys/sunrpc/nfsd_debug

tux > sudo echo 32767 > /proc/sys/sunrpc/nfs_debug

30.4 For More Information

In addition to the man pages of exports , nfs , and mount , information about configuring
an NFS server and client is available in /usr/share/doc/packages/nfsidmap/README . For
further documentation online refer to the following Web sites:

Find the detailed technical documentation online at SourceForge (http://nfs.source-

forge.net/) .

For instructions for setting up kerberized NFS, refer to NFS Version 4 Open Source Reference
Implementation (http://www.citi.umich.edu/projects/nfsv4/linux/krb5-setup.html) .

If you have questions on NFSv4, refer to the Linux NFSv4 FAQ (http://www.citi.umich.e-
du/projects/nfsv4/linux/faq/) .

402 For More Information SLED 15

31 Samba

Using Samba, a Unix machine can be configured as a le and print server for ma-
cOS, Windows, and OS/2 machines. Samba has developed into a fully-edged and
rather complex product. Configure Samba with YaST, or by editing the configura-
tion le manually.

31.1 Terminology
The following are some terms used in Samba documentation and in the YaST module.

SMB protocol
Samba uses the SMB (server message block) protocol that is based on the NetBIOS services.
Microsoft released the protocol so other software manufacturers could establish connec-
tions to a Microsoft domain network. With Samba, the SMB protocol works on top of the
TCP/IP protocol, so the TCP/IP protocol must be installed on all clients.

CIFS protocol
CIFS (common Internet le system) protocol is another protocol supported by Samba. CIFS
defines a standard remote le system access protocol for use over the network, enabling
groups of users to work together and share documents across the network.

NetBIOS
NetBIOS is a software interface (API) designed for communication between machines pro-
viding a name service. It enables machines connected to the network to reserve names for
themselves. After reservation, these machines can be addressed by name. There is no cen-
tral process that checks names. Any machine on the network can reserve as many names
as it wants as long as the names are not already in use. The NetBIOS interface can be
implemented for different network architectures. An implementation that works relatively
closely with network hardware is called NetBEUI, but this is often called NetBIOS. Net-
work protocols implemented with NetBIOS are IPX from Novell (NetBIOS via TCP/IP) and
TCP/IP.

403 Terminology SLED 15

 The NetBIOS names sent via TCP/IP have nothing in common with the names used in
/etc/hosts or those defined by DNS. NetBIOS uses its own, completely independent
naming convention. However, it is recommended to use names that correspond to DNS
host names to make administration easier or use DNS natively. This is the default used
by Samba.

Samba server
Samba server provides SMB/CIFS services and NetBIOS over IP naming services to clients.
For Linux, there are three daemons for Samba server: smbd for SMB/CIFS services, nmbd
for naming services, and winbind for authentication.

Samba client
The Samba client is a system that uses Samba services from a Samba server over the SMB
protocol. Common operating systems, such as Windows and macOS support the SMB pro-
tocol. The TCP/IP protocol must be installed on all computers. Samba provides a client
for the different Unix flavors. For Linux, there is a kernel module for SMB that allows
the integration of SMB resources on the Linux system level. You do not need to run any
daemon for the Samba client.

Shares
SMB servers provide resources to the clients by means of shares. Shares are printers and
directories with their subdirectories on the server. It is exported by means of a name and
can be accessed by its name. The share name can be set to any name—it does not need to
be the name of the export directory. A printer is also assigned a name. Clients can access
the printer by its name.

DC
A domain controller (DC) is a server that handles accounts in a domain. For data replica-
tion, additional domain controllers are available in one domain.

31.2 Installing a Samba Server

To install a Samba server, start YaST and select Software Software Management. Choose
View Patterns and select File Server. Confirm the installation of the required packages to finish
the installation process.

404 Installing a Samba Server SLED 15

31.3 Configuring a Samba Server
For configuring a Samba server, see the SUSE Linux Enterprise Server documentation.

31.4 Configuring Clients

Clients can only access the Samba server via TCP/IP. NetBEUI and NetBIOS via IPX cannot be
used with Samba.

31.4.1 Configuring a Samba Client with YaST

Configure a Samba client to access resources (les or printers) on the Samba or Windows server.
Enter the NT or Active Directory domain or workgroup in the dialog Network Services Windows
Domain Membership. If you activate Also Use SMB Information for Linux Authentication, the user
authentication runs over the Samba, NT or Kerberos server.
Click Expert Settings for advanced configuration options. For example, use the Mount Server Di-
rectories table to enable mounting server home directory automatically with authentication. This
way users can access their home directories when hosted on CIFS. For details, see the pam_mount
man page.
After completing all settings, confirm the dialog to finish the configuration.

31.5 Samba as Login Server

In networks where predominantly Windows clients are found, it is often preferable that users
may only register with a valid account and password. In a Windows-based network, this task is
handled by a primary domain controller (PDC). You can use a Windows NT server configured
as PDC, but this task can also be done with a Samba server. The entries that must be made in
the [global] section of smb.conf are shown in Example 31.1, “Global Section in smb.conf”.

EXAMPLE 31.1: GLOBAL SECTION IN SMB.CONF

[global]
workgroup = WORKGROUP
domain logons = Yes
domain master = Yes

405 Configuring a Samba Server SLED 15

It is necessary to prepare user accounts and passwords in an encryption format that conforms
with Windows. Do this with the command smbpasswd -a name . Create the domain account
for the computers, required by the Windows domain concept, with the following commands:

useradd hostname\$
smbpasswd -a -m hostname

With the useradd command, a dollar sign is added. The command smbpasswd inserts this
automatically when the parameter -m is used. The commented configuration example ( /usr/
share/doc/packages/samba/examples/smb.conf.SUSE ) contains settings that automate this
task.

add machine script = /usr/sbin/useradd -g nogroup -c "NT Machine Account" \

-s /bin/false %m\$

To make sure that Samba can execute this script correctly, choose a Samba user with the required
administrator permissions and add it to the ntadmin group. Then all users belonging to this
Linux group can be assigned Domain Admin status with the command:

net groupmap add ntgroup="Domain Admins" unixgroup=ntadmin

31.6 Advanced Topics

This section introduces more advanced techniques to manage both the client and server part
of the Samba suite.

406 Advanced Topics SLED 15

31.6.1 Transparent File Compression on Btrfs
Samba allows clients to remotely manipulate le and directory compression ags for shares
placed on the Btrfs le system. Windows Explorer provides the ability to ag les/directories
for transparent compression via the File Properties Advanced dialog:

FIGURE 31.1: WINDOWS EXPLORER ADVANCED ATTRIBUTES DIALOG

Files agged for compression are transparently compressed and decompressed by the underlying
le system when accessed or modified. This normally results in storage capacity savings at the
expense of extra CPU overhead when accessing the le. New les and directories inherit the
compression ag from the parent directory, unless created with the FILE_NO_COMPRESSION
option.
Windows Explorer presents compressed les and directories visually differently to those that
are not compressed:

FIGURE 31.2: WINDOWS EXPLORER DIRECTORY LISTING WITH COMPRESSED FILES

You can enable Samba share compression either manually by adding

vfs objects = btrfs

to the share configuration in /etc/samba/smb.conf , or using YaST: Network Services Samba

Server Add, and checking Utilize Btrfs Features.

407 Transparent File Compression on Btrfs SLED 15

31.6.2 Snapshots
Snapshots, also called Shadow Copies, are copies of the state of a le system subvolume at a
certain point of time. Snapper is the tool to manage these snapshots in Linux. Snapshots are
supported on the Btrfs le system or thin-provisioned LVM volumes. The Samba suite supports
managing of remote snapshots through the FSRVP protocol on both the server and client side.

31.6.2.1 Previous Versions

Snapshots on a Samba server can be exposed to remote Windows clients as le or directory
previous versions.
To enable snapshots on a Samba server, the following conditions must be fulfilled:

The SMB network share resides on a Btrfs subvolume.

The SMB network share path has a related snapper configuration le. You can create the
snapper le with

tux > sudo snapper -c <cfg_name> create-config /path/to/share

For more information on snapper, see Chapter 7, System Recovery and Snapshot Management
with Snapper.

The snapshot directory tree must allow access for relevant users. For more information,
see the PERMISSIONS section of the vfs_snapper manual page ( man 8 vfs_snapper ).

To support remote snapshots, you need to modify the /etc/samba/smb.conf le. You can do
it either with YaST Network Services Samba Server, or manually by enhancing the relevant
share section with

vfs objects = snapper

Note that you need to restart the Samba service for manual smb.conf changes to take effect:

tux > sudo systemctl restart nmb smb

408 Snapshots SLED 15

FIGURE 31.3: ADDING A NEW SAMBA SHARE WITH SNAPSHOTTING ENABLED

After being configured, snapshots created by snapper for the Samba share path can be accessed
from Windows Explorer from a le or directory's Previous Versions tab.

409 Snapshots SLED 15

FIGURE 31.4: THE PREVIOUS VERSIONS TAB IN WINDOWS EXPLORER

31.6.2.2 Remote Share Snapshots

By default, snapshots can only be created and deleted on the Samba server locally, via the
snapper command line utility, or using snapper's time line feature.
Samba can be configured to process share snapshot creation and deletion requests from remote
hosts using the File Server Remote VSS Protocol (FSRVP).

410 Snapshots SLED 15

In addition to the configuration and prerequisites documented in Section 31.6.2.1, “Previous Ver-
sions”, the following global configuration is required in /etc/samba/smb.conf :

[global]
rpc_daemon:fssd = fork
registry shares = yes
include = registry

FSRVP clients, including Samba's rpcclient and Windows Server 2012 DiskShadow.exe , can
then instruct Samba to create or delete a snapshot for a given share, and expose the snapshot
as a new share.

31.6.2.3 Managing Snapshots Remotely from Linux with rpcclient

The samba-client package contains an FSRVP client that can remotely request a Win-
dows/Samba server to create and expose a snapshot of a given share. You can then use exist-
ing tools in SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop to mount the exposed share and back up its les.
Requests to the server are sent using the rpcclient binary.

EXAMPLE 31.2: USING rpcclient TO REQUEST A WINDOWS SERVER 2012 SHARE SNAPSHOT

Connect to win-server.example.com server as an administrator in an EXAMPLE domain:

root # rpcclient -U 'EXAMPLE\Administrator' ncacn_np:win-

server.example.com[ndr64,sign]
Enter EXAMPLE/Administrator's password:

Check that the SMB share is visible for rpcclient :

root # rpcclient $> netshareenum

netname: windows_server_2012_share
remark:
path: C:\Shares\windows_server_2012_share
password: (null)

Check that the SMB share supports snapshot creation:

root # rpcclient $> fss_is_path_sup windows_server_2012_share \

UNC \\WIN-SERVER\windows_server_2012_share\ supports shadow copy requests

Request the creation of a share snapshot:

root # rpcclient $> fss_create_expose backup ro windows_server_2012_share

13fe880e-e232-493d-87e9-402f21019fb6: shadow-copy set created
13fe880e-e232-493d-87e9-402f21019fb6(1c26544e-8251-445f-be89-d1e0a3938777): \

411 Snapshots SLED 15

 \\WIN-SERVER\windows_server_2012_share\ shadow-copy added to set
13fe880e-e232-493d-87e9-402f21019fb6: prepare completed in 0 secs
13fe880e-e232-493d-87e9-402f21019fb6: commit completed in 1 secs
13fe880e-e232-493d-87e9-402f21019fb6(1c26544e-8251-445f-be89-d1e0a3938777): \
share windows_server_2012_share@{1C26544E-8251-445F-BE89-D1E0A3938777} \
exposed as a snapshot of \\WIN-SERVER\windows_server_2012_share\

Confirm that the snapshot share is exposed by the server:

root # rpcclient $> netshareenum

netname: windows_server_2012_share
remark:
path: C:\Shares\windows_server_2012_share
password: (null)

netname: windows_server_2012_share@{1C26544E-8251-445F-BE89-D1E0A3938777}
remark: (null)
path: \\?\GLOBALROOT\Device\HarddiskVolumeShadowCopy{F6E6507E-F537-11E3-9404-
B8AC6F927453}\Shares\windows_server_2012_share\
password: (null)

Attempt to delete the snapshot share:

root # rpcclient $> fss_delete windows_server_2012_share \

13fe880e-e232-493d-87e9-402f21019fb6 1c26544e-8251-445f-be89-d1e0a3938777
13fe880e-e232-493d-87e9-402f21019fb6(1c26544e-8251-445f-be89-d1e0a3938777): \
\\WIN-SERVER\windows_server_2012_share\ shadow-copy deleted

Confirm that the snapshot share has been removed by the server:

root # rpcclient $> netshareenum

netname: windows_server_2012_share
remark:
path: C:\Shares\windows_server_2012_share
password: (null)

31.6.2.4 Managing Snapshots Remotely from Windows with

DiskShadow.exe
You can manage snapshots of SMB shares on the Linux Samba server from the Windows envi-
ronment acting as a client as well. Windows Server 2012 includes the DiskShadow.exe utility
that can manage remote shares similar to the rpcclient described in Section 31.6.2.3, “Managing
Snapshots Remotely from Linux with rpcclient”. Note that you need to carefully set up the Samba
server rst.

412 Snapshots SLED 15

Following is an example procedure to set up the Samba server so that the Windows Server client
can manage its share's snapshots. Note that EXAMPLE is the Active Directory domain used in the
testing environment, fsrvp-server.example.com is the host name of the Samba server, and
/srv/smb is the path to the SMB share.

PROCEDURE 31.1: DETAILED SAMBA SERVER CONFIGURATION

1. Join Active Directory domain via YaST.

2. Ensure that the Active Domain DNS entry was correct:

fsrvp-server:~ # net -U 'Administrator' ads dns register \

fsrvp-server.example.com <IP address>
Successfully registered hostname with DNS

3. Create Btrfs subvolume at /srv/smb

fsrvp-server:~ # btrfs subvolume create /srv/smb

4. Create snapper configuration le for path /srv/smb

fsrvp-server:~ # snapper -c <snapper_config> create-config /srv/smb

5. Create new share with path /srv/smb , and YaST Expose Snapshots check box enabled.
Make sure to add the following snippets to the global section of /etc/samba/smb.conf
as mentioned in Section 31.6.2.2, “Remote Share Snapshots”:

[global]
rpc_daemon:fssd = fork
registry shares = yes
include = registry

6. Restart Samba with systemctl restart nmb smb

7. Configure snapper permissions:

fsrvp-server:~ # snapper -c <snapper_config> set-config \

ALLOW_USERS="EXAMPLE\\\\Administrator EXAMPLE\\\\win-client$"

Ensure that any ALLOW_USERS are also permitted traversal of the .snapshots subdirec-
tory.

fsrvp-server:~ # snapper -c <snapper_config> set-config SYNC_ACL=yes

413 Snapshots SLED 15

 Important: Path Escaping
Be careful about the '\' escapes! Escape twice to ensure that the value stored in /
etc/snapper/configs/<snapper_config> is escaped once.

"EXAMPLE\win-client$" corresponds to the Windows client computer account. Windows

issues initial FSRVP requests while authenticated with this account.

8. Grant Windows client account necessary privileges:

fsrvp-server:~ # net -U 'Administrator' rpc rights grant \

"EXAMPLE\\win-client$" SeBackupPrivilege
Successfully granted rights.

The previous command is not needed for the "EXAMPLE\Administrator" user, which has
privileges already granted.

PROCEDURE 31.2: WINDOWS CLIENT SETUP AND DiskShadow.exe IN ACTION

1. Boot Windows Server 2012 (example host name WIN-CLIENT).

2. Join the same Active Directory domain EXAMPLE as with the SUSE Linux Enterprise Desk-
top.

3. Reboot.

4. Open Powershell.

5. Start DiskShadow.exe and begin the backup procedure:

PS C:\Users\Administrator.EXAMPLE> diskshadow.exe
Microsoft DiskShadow version 1.0
Copyright (C) 2012 Microsoft Corporation
On computer: WIN-CLIENT, 6/17/2014 3:53:54 PM

DISKSHADOW> begin backup

6. Specify that shadow copy persists across program exit, reset or reboot:

DISKSHADOW> set context PERSISTENT

7. Check whether the specified share supports snapshots, and create one:

DISKSHADOW> add volume \\fsrvp-server\sles_snapper

414 Snapshots SLED 15

 DISKSHADOW> create
Alias VSS_SHADOW_1 for shadow ID {de4ddca4-4978-4805-8776-cdf82d190a4a} set as \
environment variable.
Alias VSS_SHADOW_SET for shadow set ID {c58e1452-c554-400e-a266-d11d5c837cb1} \
set as environment variable.

Querying all shadow copies with the shadow copy set ID \

{c58e1452-c554-400e-a266-d11d5c837cb1}

* Shadow copy ID = {de4ddca4-4978-4805-8776-cdf82d190a4a} %VSS_SHADOW_1%

- Shadow copy set: {c58e1452-c554-400e-a266-d11d5c837cb1} %VSS_SHADOW_SET%
- Original count of shadow copies = 1
- Original volume name: \\FSRVP-SERVER\SLES_SNAPPER\ \
[volume not on this machine]
- Creation time: 6/17/2014 3:54:43 PM
- Shadow copy device name:
\\FSRVP-SERVER\SLES_SNAPPER@{31afd84a-44a7-41be-b9b0-751898756faa}
- Originating machine: FSRVP-SERVER
- Service machine: win-client.example.com
- Not exposed
- Provider ID: {89300202-3cec-4981-9171-19f59559e0f2}
- Attributes: No_Auto_Release Persistent FileShare

Number of shadow copies listed: 1

8. Finish the backup procedure:

DISKSHADOW> end backup

9. After the snapshot was created, try to delete it and verify the deletion:

DISKSHADOW> delete shadows volume \\FSRVP-SERVER\SLES_SNAPPER\

Deleting shadow copy {de4ddca4-4978-4805-8776-cdf82d190a4a} on volume \
\\FSRVP-SERVER\SLES_SNAPPER\ from provider \
{89300202-3cec-4981-9171-19f59559e0f2} [Attributes: 0x04000009]...

Number of shadow copies deleted: 1

DISKSHADOW> list shadows all

Querying all shadow copies on the computer ...

No shadow copies found in system.

415 Snapshots SLED 15

31.7 For More Information
Documentation for Samba ships with the samba-doc package which is not installed by de-
fault. Install it with zypper install samba-doc . Enter apropos samba at the command
line to display some manual pages or browse the /usr/share/doc/packages/samba directory
for more online documentation and examples. Find a commented example configuration ( sm-
b.conf.SUSE ) in the examples subdirectory. Another le to look for Samba related informa-
tion is /usr/share/doc/packages/samba/README.SUSE .
The Samba HOWTO (see https://wiki.samba.org ) provided by the Samba team includes a sec-
tion about troubleshooting. In addition to that, Part V of the document provides a step-by-step
guide to checking your configuration.

416 For More Information SLED 15

32 On-Demand Mounting with Autofs

autofs is a program that automatically mounts specified directories on an on-de-

mand basis. It is based on a kernel module for high efficiency, and can manage both
local directories and network shares. These automatic mount points are mounted
only when they are accessed, and unmounted after a certain period of inactivity.
This on-demand behavior saves bandwidth and results in better performance than
static mounts managed by /etc/fstab . While autofs is a control script, auto-
mount is the command (daemon) that does the actual auto-mounting.

32.1 Installation
autofs is not installed on SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop by default. To use its auto-mounting
capabilities, rst install it with

tux > sudo sudo zypper install autofs

32.2 Configuration
You need to configure autofs manually by editing its configuration les with a text editor,
such as vim . There are two basic steps to configure autofs —the master map le, and specific
map les.

32.2.1 The Master Map File

The default master configuration le for autofs is /etc/auto.master . You can change its
location by changing the value of the DEFAULT_MASTER_MAP_NAME option in /etc/syscon-
fig/autofs . Here is the content of the default one for SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop:

#
# Sample auto.master file
# This is an automounter map and it has the following format
# key [ -mount-options-separated-by-comma ] location
# For details of the format look at autofs(5). 1

#
#/misc /etc/auto.misc 2

417 Installation SLED 15

#/net -hosts
#
# Include /etc/auto.master.d/*.autofs 3

#
#+dir:/etc/auto.master.d
#
# Include central master map if it can be found using
# nsswitch sources.
#
# Note that if there are entries for /net or /misc (as
# above) in the included master map any keys that are the
# same will not be seen as the first read key seen takes
# precedence.
#
+auto.master 4

1 The autofs manual page ( man 5 autofs ) offers a lot of valuable information on the
format of the automounter maps.
2 Although commented out (#) by default, this is an example of a simple automounter map-
ping syntax.
3 In case you need to split the master map into several les, uncomment the line, and put
the mappings (suffixed with .autofs ) in the /etc/auto.master.d/ directory.
4 +auto.master ensures that those using NIS will still nd their master map.

Entries in auto.master have three elds with the following syntax:

mount point map name options

mount point
The base location where to mount the autofs le system, such as /home .

map name
The name of a map source to use for mounting. For the syntax of the maps les, see
Section 32.2.2, “Map Files”.

options
These options (if specified) will apply as defaults to all entries in the given map.

Tip: For More Information

For more detailed information on the specific values of the optional map-type , format ,
and options , see the auto.master manual page ( man 5 auto.master ).

418 The Master Map File SLED 15

The following entry in auto.master tells autofs to look in /etc/auto.smb , and create mount
points in the /smb directory.

/smb /etc/auto.smb

32.2.1.1 Direct Mounts

Direct mounts create a mount point at the path specified inside the relevant map le. Instead of
specifying the mount point in auto.master , replace the mount point eld with /- . For exam-
ple, the following line tells autofs to create a mount point at the place specified in auto.smb :

/- /etc/auto.smb

Tip: Maps without Full Path

If the map le is not specified with its full local or network path, it is located using the
Name Service Switch (NSS) configuration:

/- auto.smb

32.2.2 Map Files

Important: Other Types of Maps

Although les are the most common types of maps for auto-mounting with autofs , there
are other types as well. A map specification can be the output of a command, or a result
of a query in LDAP or database. For more detailed information on map types, see the
manual page man 5 auto.master .

Map les specify the (local or network) source location, and the mount point where to mount the
source locally. The general format of maps is similar to the master map. The difference is that
the options appear between the mount point and the location instead of at the end of the entry:

mount point options location

419 Map Files SLED 15

Make sure that map les are not marked as executable. You can remove the executable bits by
executing chmod -x MAP_FILE .

mount point
Specifies where to mount the source location. This can be either a single directory name
(so-called indirect mount) to be added to the base mount point specified in auto.master ,
or the full path of the mount point (direct mount, see Section 32.2.1.1, “Direct Mounts”).

options
Specifies optional comma-separated list of mount options for the relevant entries. If au-
to.master contains options for this map le as well, theses are appended.

location
Specifies from where the le system is to be mounted. It is usually an NFS or SMB volume
in the usual notation host_name:path_name . If the le system to be mounted begins with
a '/' (such as local /dev entries or smbfs shares), a colon symbol ':' needs to be prefixed,
such as :/dev/sda1 .

32.3 Operation and Debugging

This section introduces information on how to control the autofs service operation, and how
to view more debugging information when tuning the automounter operation.

32.3.1 Controlling the autofs Service

The operation of the autofs service is controlled by systemd . The general syntax of the sys-
temctl command for autofs is

tux > sudo systemctl SUB_COMMAND autofs

where SUB_COMMAND is one of:

enable
Starts the automounter daemon at boot.

start
Starts the automounter daemon.

420 Operation and Debugging SLED 15

stop
Stops the automounter daemon. Automatic mount points are not accessible.

status
Prints the current status of the autofs service together with a part of a relevant log le.

restart
Stops and starts the automounter, terminating all running daemons and starting new ones.

reload
Checks the current auto.master map, restarts those daemons whose entries have
changed, and starts new ones for new entries.

32.3.2 Debugging the Automounter Problems

If you experience problems when mounting directories with autofs , it is useful to run the
automount daemon manually and watch its output messages:

1. Stop autofs .

tux > sudo systemctl stop autofs

2. From one terminal, run automount manually in the foreground, producing verbose out-
put.

tux > sudo automount -f -v

3. From another terminal, try to mount the auto-mounting le systems by accessing the
mount points (for example by cd or ls ).

4. Check the output of automount from the rst terminal for more information why the
mount failed, or why it was not even attempted.

32.4 Auto-Mounting an NFS Share

The following procedure illustrates how to configure autofs to auto-mount an NFS share avail-
able on your network. It uses the information mentioned above, and assumes you are familiar
with NFS exports. For more information on NFS, see Chapter 30, Sharing File Systems with NFS.

421 Debugging the Automounter Problems SLED 15

 1. Edit the master map le /etc/auto.master :

tux > sudo vim /etc/auto.master

Add a new entry for the new NFS mount at the end of /etc/auto.master :

/nfs /etc/auto.nfs --timeout=10

It tells autofs that the base mount point is /nfs , the NFS shares are specified in the
/etc/auto.nfs map, and that all shares in this map will be automatically unmounted
after 10 seconds of inactivity.

2. Create a new map le for NFS shares:

tux > sudo vim /etc/auto.nfs

/etc/auto.nfs normally contains a separate line for each NFS share. Its format is de-
scribed in Section 32.2.2, “Map Files”. Add the line describing the mount point and the NFS
share network address:

export jupiter.com:/home/geeko/doc/export

The above line means that the /home/geeko/doc/export directory on the jupiter.com
host will be auto-mounted to the /nfs/export directory on the local host ( /nfs is taken
from the auto.master map) when requested. The /nfs/export directory will be created
automatically by autofs .

3. Optionally comment out the related line in /etc/fstab if you previously mounted the
same NFS share statically. The line should look similar to this:

#jupiter.com:/home/geeko/doc/export /nfs/export nfs defaults 0 0

4. Reload autofs and check if it works:

tux > sudo systemctl restart autofs

# ls -l /nfs/export
total 20
drwxr-xr-x 5 1001 users 4096 Jan 14 2017 .images/
drwxr-xr-x 10 1001 users 4096 Aug 16 2017 .profiled/
drwxr-xr-x 3 1001 users 4096 Aug 30 2017 .tmp/
drwxr-xr-x 4 1001 users 4096 Apr 25 08:56 manual/

422 Auto-Mounting an NFS Share SLED 15

 If you can see the list of les on the remote share, then autofs is functioning.

32.5 Advanced Topics

This section describes topics that are beyond the basic introduction to autofs —auto-mounting
of NFS shares that are available on your network, using wild cards in map les, and information
specific to the CIFS le system.

32.5.1 /net Mount Point

This helper mount point is useful if you use a lot of NFS shares. /net auto-mounts all NFS
shares on your local network on demand. The entry is already present in the auto.master le,
so all you need to do is uncomment it and restart autofs :

/net -hosts

tux > sudo systemctl restart autofs

For example, if you have a server named jupiter with an NFS share called /export , you can
mount it by typing

tux > sudo cd /net/jupiter/export

on the command line.

32.5.2 Using Wild Cards to Auto-Mount Subdirectories

If you have a directory with subdirectories that you need to auto-mount individually—the typical
case is the /home directory with individual users' home directories inside— autofs offers a
clever solution for that.
In case of home directories, add the following line in auto.master :

/home /etc/auto.home

Now you need to add the correct mapping to the /etc/auto.home le, so that the users' home
directories are mounted automatically. One solution is to create separate entries for each direc-
tory:

wilber jupiter.com:/home/wilber

423 Advanced Topics SLED 15

penguin jupiter.com:/home/penguin
tux jupiter.com:/home/tux
[...]

This is very awkward as you need to manage the list of users inside auto.home . You can use
the asterisk '*' instead of the mount point, and the ampersand '&' instead of the directory to
be mounted:

* jupiter:/home/&

32.5.3 Auto-Mounting CIFS File System

If you want to auto-mount an SMB/CIFS share (see Chapter 31, Samba for more information on
the SMB/CIFS protocol), you need to modify the syntax of the map le. Add -fstype=cifs in
the option eld, and prefix the share location with a colon ':'.

mount point -fstype=cifs ://jupiter.com/export

424 Auto-Mounting CIFS File System SLED 15

V Troubleshooting

33 Help and Documentation 426

34 Gathering System Information for Support 432

35 Common Problems and Their Solutions 462

33 Help and Documentation

SUSE® Linux Enterprise Desktop comes with various sources of information and documentation,
many of which are already integrated into your installed system.

Documentation in /usr/share/doc
This traditional help directory holds various documentation les and release notes for your
system. It contains also information of installed packages in the subdirectory packages .
Find more detailed information in Section 33.1, “Documentation Directory”.

Man Pages and Info Pages for Shell Commands

When working with the shell, you do not need to know the options of the commands by
heart. Traditionally, the shell provides integrated help by means of man pages and info
pages. Read more in Section 33.2, “Man Pages” and Section 33.3, “Info Pages”.

Desktop Help Center

The help center of the GNOME desktop (Help) provides central access to the most impor-
tant documentation resources on your system in searchable form. These resources include
online help for installed applications, man pages, info pages, and the SUSE manuals deliv-
ered with your product.

Separate Help Packages for Some Applications

When installing new software with YaST, the software documentation is usually installed
automatically and appears in the help center of your desktop. However, some applications,
such as GIMP, may have different online help packages that can be installed separately
with YaST and do not integrate into the help centers.

33.1 Documentation Directory

The traditional directory to nd documentation on your installed Linux system is /usr/share/
doc . Usually, the directory contains information about the packages installed on your system,
plus release notes, manuals, and more.

426 Documentation Directory SLED 15

 Note: Contents Depends on Installed Packages
In the Linux world, many manuals and other kinds of documentation are available in the
form of packages, like software. How much and which information you nd in /usr/
share/docs also depends on the (documentation) packages installed. If you cannot nd
the subdirectories mentioned here, check if the respective packages are installed on your
system and add them with YaST, if needed.

33.1.1 SUSE Manuals

We provide HTML and PDF versions of our books in different languages. In the manual subdi-
rectory, nd HTML versions of most of the SUSE manuals available for your product. For an
overview of all documentation available for your product refer to the preface of the manuals.
If more than one language is installed, /usr/share/doc/manual may contain different lan-
guage versions of the manuals. The HTML versions of the SUSE manuals are also available in
the help center of both desktops. For information on where to nd the PDF and HTML versions
of the books on your installation media, refer to the SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop Release
Notes. They are available on your installed system under /usr/share/doc/release-notes/
or online at your product-specific Web page at https://www.suse.com/releasenotes// .

33.1.2 Package Documentation

Under packages , nd the documentation that is included in the software packages installed on
your system. For every package, a subdirectory /usr/share/doc/packages/PACKAGENAME is
created. It often contains README les for the package and sometimes examples, configuration
les, or additional scripts. The following list introduces typical les to be found under /usr/
share/doc/packages . None of these entries are mandatory and many packages might only
include a few of them.

AUTHORS
List of the main developers.

BUGS
Known bugs or malfunctions. Might also contain a link to a Bugzilla Web page where you
can search all bugs.

427 SUSE Manuals SLED 15

CHANGES ,
ChangeLog
Summary of changes from version to version. Usually interesting for developers, because
it is very detailed.

COPYING ,
LICENSE
Licensing information.

FAQ
Question and answers collected from mailing lists or newsgroups.

INSTALL
How to install this package on your system. As the package is already installed by the time
you get to read this le, you can safely ignore the contents of this le.

README , README.*
General information on the software. For example, for what purpose and how to use it.

TODO
Things that are not implemented yet, but probably will be in the future.

MANIFEST
List of les with a brief summary.

NEWS
Description of what is new in this version.

33.2 Man Pages

Man pages are an essential part of any Linux system. They explain the usage of a command
and all available options and parameters. Man pages can be accessed with man followed by the
name of the command, for example, man ls .
Man pages are displayed directly in the shell. To navigate them, move up and down with Page ↑

and Page ↓ . Move between the beginning and the end of a document with Home and End . End
this viewing mode by pressing Q . Learn more about the man command itself with man man .
Man pages are sorted in categories as shown in Table 33.1, “Man Pages—Categories and Descriptions”
(taken from the man page for man itself).

428 Man Pages SLED 15

TABLE 33.1: MAN PAGES—CATEGORIES AND DESCRIPTIONS

Number Description

1 Executable programs or shell commands

2 System calls (functions provided by the ker-

nel)

3 Library calls (functions within program li-

braries)

4 Special les (usually found in /dev )

5 File formats and conventions ( /etc/fstab )

6 Games

7 Miscellaneous (including macro packages

and conventions), for example, man(7),
gro(7)

8 System administration commands (usually

only for root )

9 Kernel routines (nonstandard)

Each man page consists of several parts labeled NAME , SYNOPSIS , DESCRIPTION , SEE ALSO ,
LICENSING , and AUTHOR . There may be additional sections available depending on the type
of command.

33.3 Info Pages

Info pages are another important source of information on your system. Usually, they are more
detailed than man pages. They consist of more than command line options and contain some-
times whole tutorials or reference documentation. To view the info page for a certain command,
enter info followed by the name of the command, for example, info ls . You can browse an
info page with a viewer directly in the shell and display the different sections, called “nodes”.
Use Space to move forward and <— to move backward. Within a node, you can also browse

429 Info Pages SLED 15

with Page ↑ and Page ↓ but only Space and <— will take you also to the previous or subse-
quent node. Press Q to end the viewing mode. Not every command comes with an info page
and vice versa.

33.4 Online Resources

In addition to the online versions of the SUSE manuals installed under /usr/share/doc , you
can also access the product-specific manuals and documentation on the Web. For an overview of
all documentation available for SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop check out your product-specific
documentation Web page at http://www.suse.com/doc/ .
If you are searching for additional product-related information, you can also refer to the follow-
ing Web sites:

SUSE Technical Support

The SUSE Technical Support can be found at http://www.suse.com/support/ if you have
questions or need solutions for technical problems.

SUSE Forums
There are several forums where you can dive in on discussions about SUSE products. See
http://forums.suse.com/ for a list.

SUSE Conversations
An online community, which offers articles, tips, Q and A, and free tools to download:
http://www.suse.com/communities/conversations/

GNOME Documentation
Documentation for GNOME users, administrators and developers is available at http://
library.gnome.org/ .

The Linux Documentation Project

The Linux Documentation Project (TLDP) is run by a team of volunteers who write Lin-
ux-related documentation (see http://www.tldp.org ). It is probably the most comprehen-
sive documentation resource for Linux. The set of documents contains tutorials for begin-
ners, but is mainly focused on experienced users and professional system administrators.
TLDP publishes HOWTOs, FAQs, and guides (handbooks) under a free license. Parts of the
documentation from TLDP are also available on SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop.

430 Online Resources SLED 15

You can also try general-purpose search engines. For example, use the search terms Linux CD-
RW help or OpenOffice file conversion problem if you have trouble with burning CDs
or LibreOffice le conversion.

431 Online Resources SLED 15

34 Gathering System Information for Support

For a quick overview of all relevant system information of a machine, SUSE Linux
Enterprise Desktop offers the hostinfo package. It also helps system administra-
tors to check for tainted kernels (that are not supported) or any third-party pack-
ages installed on a machine.
In case of problems, a detailed system report may be created with either the sup-
portconfig command line tool or the YaST Support module. Both will collect infor-
mation about the system such as: current kernel version, hardware, installed pack-
ages, partition setup, and much more. The result is a TAR archive of les. After
opening a Service Request (SR), you can upload the TAR archive to Global Techni-
cal Support. It will help to locate the issue you reported and to assist you in solving
the problem.
Additionally, you can analyze the supportconfig output for known issues to help
resolve problems faster. For this purpose, SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop provides
both an appliance and a command line tool for Supportconfig Analysis (SCA).

34.1 Displaying Current System Information

For a quick and easy overview of all relevant system information when logging in to a server,
use the package hostinfo . After it has been installed on a machine, the console displays the
following information to any root user that logs in to this machine:

EXAMPLE 34.1: OUTPUT OF hostinfo WHEN LOGGING IN AS root

Hostname: earth
Current As Of: Wed 12 Mar 2014 03:57:05 PM CET
Distribution: SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12
-Service Pack: 0
Architecture: x86_64
Kernel Version: 3.12.12-3-default
-Installed: Mon 10 Mar 2014 03:15:05 PM CET
-Status: Not Tainted
Last Updated Package: Wed 12 Mar 2014 03:56:43 PM CET
-Patches Needed: 0
-Security: 0
-3rd Party Packages: 0

432 Displaying Current System Information SLED 15

IPv4 Address: ens3 192.168.1.1
Total/Free/+Cache Memory: 983/95/383 MB (38% Free)
Hard Disk: /dev/sda 10 GB

In case the output shows a tainted kernel status, see Section 34.6, “Support of Kernel Modules”
for more details.

34.2 Collecting System Information with

Supportconfig
To create a TAR archive with detailed system information that you can hand over to Global
Technical Support, use either:

the command supportconfig or,

the YaST Support module.

The command line tool is provided by the package supportutils which is installed by default.
The YaST Support module is also based on the command line tool.
Depending on which packages are installed on your system, some of these packages integrate
Supportconfig plug-ins. When Supportconfig is executed, all plug-ins are executed as well and
create one or more result les for the archive. That has the benefit that the only topics checked
are those that contain a specific plug-in for them. Supportconfig plug-ins are stored in the di-
rectory /usr/lib/supportconfig/plugins/ .

34.2.1 Creating a Service Request Number

Supportconfig archives can be generated at any time. However, for handing over the Support-
config data to Global Technical Support, you need to generate a service request number rst.
You will need it to upload the archive to support.
To create a service request, go to https://scc.suse.com/support/requests and follow the instruc-
tions on the screen. Write down your 12-digit service request number.

Note: Privacy Statement

SUSE and Micro Focus treat system reports as confidential data. For details about our
privacy commitment, see https://www.suse.com/company/policies/privacy/ .

433 Collecting System Information with Supportconfig SLED 15

34.2.2 Upload Targets
After having created a service request number, you can upload your Supportconfig archives to
Global Technical Support as described in Procedure 34.1, “Submitting Information to Support with
YaST” or Procedure  34.2, “Submitting Information to Support from Command Line”. Use one of the
following upload targets:

US customers: ftp://ftp.novell.com/incoming

EMEA, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa: ftp://support-ftp.suse.com/in

Alternatively, you can manually attach the TAR archive to your service request using the service
request URL: https://scc.suse.com/support/requests .

34.2.3 Creating a Supportconfig Archive with YaST

To use YaST to gather your system information, proceed as follows:

1. Start YaST and open the Support module.

2. Click Create report tarball.

434 Upload Targets SLED 15

 3. In the next window, select one of the Supportconfig options from the radio button list. Use
Custom (Expert) Settings is preselected by default. If you want to test the report function
rst, use Only gather a minimum amount of info. For some background information on the
other options, refer to the supportconfig man page.
Proceed with Next.

4. Enter your contact information. It will be written to a le called basic-environment.txt

and included in the archive to be created.

5. If you want to submit the archive to Global Technical Support at the end of the information
collection process, Upload Information is required. YaST automatically proposes an upload
server. If you want to modify it, refer to Section 34.2.2, “Upload Targets” for details of which
upload servers are available.
If you want to submit the archive later on, you can leave the Upload Information empty
for now.

6. Proceed with Next.

7. The information gathering begins.

After the process is finished, continue with Next.

435 Creating a Supportconfig Archive with YaST SLED 15

 8. Review the data collection: Select the File Name of a log le to view its contents in YaST. To
remove any les you want excluded from the TAR archive before submitting it to support,
use Remove from Data. Continue with Next.

9. Save the TAR archive. If you started the YaST module as root user, by default YaST
proposes to save the archive to /var/log (otherwise, to your home directory). The le
name format is nts_HOST_DATE_TIME.tbz .

10. If you want to upload the archive to support directly, make sure Upload log les tarball to
URL is activated. The Upload Target shown here is the one that YaST proposes in Step 5. If
you want to modify the upload target, nd detailed information of which upload servers
are available in Section 34.2.2, “Upload Targets”.

11. If you want to skip the upload, deactivate Upload log les tarball to URL.

12. Confirm your changes to close the YaST module.

34.2.4 Creating a Supportconfig Archive from Command Line

The following procedure shows how to create a Supportconfig archive, but without submitting
it to support directly. For uploading it, you need to run the command with certain options as
described in Procedure 34.2, “Submitting Information to Support from Command Line”.

1. Open a shell and become root .

2. Run supportconfig . Usually, it is enough to run this tool without any options. Some
options are very common and are displayed in the following list:

-E MAIL ,
-N NAME ,
-O COMPANY ,
-P PHONE
Sets your contact data: e-mail address ( -E ), company name ( -O ), your name ( -N ),
and your phone number ( -P ).

-i KEYWORDS ,
-F
Limits the features to check. The placeholder KEYWORDS is a comma separated list
of case-sensitive keywords. Get a list of all keywords with supportconfig -F .

436 Creating a Supportconfig Archive from Command Line SLED 15

 -r SRNUMBER
Defines your service request number when uploading the generated TAR archive.

3. Wait for the tool to complete the operation.

4. The default archive location is /var/log , with the le name format being
nts_HOST_DATE_TIME.tbz

34.2.5 Understanding the Output of supportconfig

Whether you run supportconfig through YaST or directly, the script gives you a summary
of what it did.

Support Utilities - Supportconfig

Script Version: 3.0-98
Script Date: 2017 06 01
[...]
Gathering system information
Data Directory: /var/log/nts_d251_180201_1525 1

Basic Server Health Check... Done 2

RPM Database... Done 2

Basic Environment... Done 2

System Modules... Done 2

[...]
File System List... Skipped 3

[...]
Command History... Excluded 4

[...]
Supportconfig Plugins: 1 5

Plugin: pstree... Done

[...]
Creating Tar Ball

==[ DONE ]===================================================================

Log file tar ball: /var/log/nts_d251_180201_1525.tbz 6

Log file size: 732K

Log file md5sum: bf23e0e15e9382c49f92cbce46000d8b
=============================================================================

1 The temporary data directory to store the results. This directory is archived as tar le, see
6 .

437 Understanding the Output of supportconfig SLED 15

 2 The feature was enabled (either by default or selected manually) and executed successfully.
The result is stored in a le (see Table 34.1, “Comparison of Features and File Names in the TAR
Archive”).

3 The feature was skipped because some les of one or more RPM packages were changed.
4 The feature was excluded because it was deselected via the -x option.
5 The script found one plug-in and executes the plug-in pstree . The plug-in was found in
the directory /usr/lib/supportconfig/plugins/ . See the man page for details.
6 The tar le name of the archive, by default compressed with bzip2 .

34.2.6 Common Supportconfig Options

The supportconfig utility is usually called without any options. Display a list of all options
with supportconfig -h or refer to the man page. The following list gives a brief overview
of some common use cases:

Reducing the Size of the Information Being Gathered

Use the minimal option ( -m ):

tux > sudo supportconfig -m

Limiting the Information to a Specific Topic

If you have already localized a problem that relates to a specific area or feature set only,
you should limit the collected information to the specific area for the next supportconfig
run. For example, if you detected problems with LVM and want to test a recent change
that you did to the LVM configuration. In that case it makes sense to gather the minimum
Supportconfig information around LVM only:

tux > sudo supportconfig -i LVM

Additional keywords can be separated through commas. For example, an additional disk
test:

tux > sudo supportconfig -i LVM,DISK

For a complete list of feature keywords that you can use for limiting the collected infor-
mation to a specific area, run:

tux > sudo supportconfig -F

Including Additional Contact Information in the Output:

438 Common Supportconfig Options SLED 15

 tux > sudo supportconfig -E tux@example.org -N "Tux Penguin" -O "Penguin Inc." ...

(all in one line)

Collecting Already Rotated Log Files

tux > sudo supportconfig -l

This is especially useful in high logging environments or after a kernel crash when syslog
rotates the log les after a reboot.

34.2.7 Overview of the Archive Content

The TAR archive contains all the results from the features. Depending on what you have selected
(all or only a small set), the archive can contain more or less les. The set of features can be
limited through the -i option (see Section 34.2.6, “Common Supportconfig Options”).
To list the content of the archive, use the following tar command:

root # tar xf /var/log/nts_earth_180131_1545.tbz

The following le names are always available inside the TAR archive:
MINIMUM FILES IN ARCHIVE

basic-environment.txt
Contains the date when this script was executed and system information like version of
the distribution, hypervisor information, and more.

basic-health-check.txt
Contains some basic health checks like uptime, virtual memory statistics, free memory and
hard disk, checks for zombie processes, and more.

hardware.txt
Contains basic hardware checks like information about the CPU architecture, list of all
connected hardware, interrupts, I/O ports, kernel boot messages, and more.

messages.txt
Contains log messages from the system journal.

rpm.txt
Contains a list of all installed RPM packages, the name, where they are coming from, and
their versions.

summary.xml

439 Overview of the Archive Content SLED 15

 Contains some information in XML format like distribution, the version, and product spe-
cific fragments.

supportconfig.txt
Contains information about the supportconfig script itself.

y2log.txt
Contains YaST specific information like specific packages, configuration les, and log les.

Table 34.1, “Comparison of Features and File Names in the TAR Archive” lists all available features and
their le names. Further service packs can extend the list, as can plug-ins.

TABLE 34.1: COMPARISON OF FEATURES AND FILE NAMES IN THE TAR ARCHIVE

Feature File name

AFP novell-afp.txt

APPARMOR security-apparmor.txt

AUDIT security-audit.txt

AUTOFS fs-autofs.txt

BOOT boot.txt

BTRFS fs-btrfs.txt

DAEMONS chkconfig.txt

CIFS novell-cifs.txt

CIMOM cimom.txt

CRASH crash.txt

CRON cron.txt

DFS novell-dfs.txt

DHCP dhcp.txt

DISK fs-diskio.txt

DNS dns.txt

DOCKER cocker.txt

440 Overview of the Archive Content SLED 15

Feature File name

DRBD drbd.txt

DSFW novell-dsfw.txt

EDIR novell-edir.txt

ENV env.txt

ETC etc.txt

EVMS evms.txt

HA ha.txt

HAPROXY haproxy.txt

HISTORY shell_history.txt

IB ib.txt

IMAN novell-iman.txt

ISCSI fs-iscsi.txt

KVM kvm.txt

LDAP ldap.txt

LUM novell-lum.txt

LVM lvm.txt

LXC lxc.txt

MEM memory.txt

MOD modules.txt

MPIO mpio.txt

NCP novell-ncp.txt

NCS novell-ncs.txt

NET network-*.txt

441 Overview of the Archive Content SLED 15

Feature File name

NFS nfs.txt

NIT novell-nit.txt

NSS novell-nss.txt

NTP ntp.txt

OCFS2 ocfs2.txt

OES n/a

OFILES open-files.txt

PAM pam.txt

PRINT print.txt

PROC proc.txt

PROXY novell-proxymgmt.txt

SAM sam.txt

SAR sar.txt

SLERT slert.txt

SLP slp.txt

SMT smt.txt

SMART fs-smartmon.txt

SMB samba.txt

SMS novell-sms.txt

SRAID fs-softraid.txt

SSH ssh.txt

SSSD sssd.txt

SYSCONFIG sysconfig.txt

442 Overview of the Archive Content SLED 15

Feature File name

SYSFS sysfs.txt

UDEV udev.txt

UFILES fs-files-additional.txt

UP updates.txt

UPD updates-daemon.txt

WEB web.txt

X x.txt

XEN xen.txt

34.3 Submitting Information to Global Technical

Support
Use the YaST Support module or the supportconfig command line utility to submit system
information to the Global Technical Support. When you experience a server issue and want the
support's assistance, you will need to open a service request rst. For details, see Section 34.2.1,
“Creating a Service Request Number”.

The following examples use 12345678901 as a placeholder for your service request number.
Replace 12345678901 with the service request number you created in Section 34.2.1, “Creating
a Service Request Number”.

PROCEDURE 34.1: SUBMITTING INFORMATION TO SUPPORT WITH YAST

The following procedure assumes that you have already created a Supportconfig archive,
but have not uploaded it yet. Make sure to have included your contact information in
the archive as described in Section 34.2.3, “Creating a Supportconfig Archive with YaST”, Step 4.
For instructions on how to generate and submit a Supportconfig archive in one go, see
Section 34.2.3, “Creating a Supportconfig Archive with YaST”.

1. Start YaST and open the Support module.

2. Click Upload.

443 Submitting Information to Global Technical Support SLED 15

 3. In Package with log les specify the path to the existing Supportconfig archive or Browse
for it.

4. YaST automatically proposes an upload server. If you want to modify it, refer to Sec-
tion 34.2.2, “Upload Targets” for details of which upload servers are available.

Proceed with Next.

5. Click Finish.

PROCEDURE 34.2: SUBMITTING INFORMATION TO SUPPORT FROM COMMAND LINE

The following procedure assumes that you have already created a Supportconfig archive,
but have not uploaded it yet. For instructions on how to generate and submit a Support-
config archive in one go, see Section 34.2.3, “Creating a Supportconfig Archive with YaST”.

1. Servers with Internet connectivity:

a. To use the default upload target, run:

tux > sudo supportconfig -ur 12345678901

b. For the secure upload target, use the following:

tux > sudo supportconfig -ar 12345678901

2. Servers without Internet connectivity

444 Submitting Information to Global Technical Support SLED 15

 a. Run the following:

tux > sudo supportconfig -r 12345678901

b. Manually upload the /var/log/nts_SR12345678901*tbz archive to one of our FTP

servers. Which one to use depends on your location in the world. For an overview,
see Section 34.2.2, “Upload Targets”.

3. After the TAR archive arrives in the incoming directory of our FTP server, it becomes
automatically attached to your service request.

34.4 Analyzing System Information

System reports created with supportconfig can be analyzed for known issues to help resolve
problems faster. For this purpose, SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop provides both an appliance
and a command line tool for Supportconfig Analysis (SCA). The SCA appliance is a serv-
er-side tool which is non-interactive. The SCA tool ( scatool provided by the package sca-
server-report ) runs on the client-side and is executed from command line. Both tools analyze
Supportconfig archives from affected servers. The initial server analysis takes place on the SCA
appliance or the workstation on which scatool is running. No analysis cycles happen on the
production server.
Both the appliance and the command line tool additionally need product-specific patterns that
enable them to analyze the Supportconfig output for the associated products. Each pattern is a
script that parses and evaluates a Supportconfig archive for one known issue. The patterns are
available as RPM packages.
You can also develop your own patterns as briey described in Section 34.4.3, “Developing Custom
Analysis Patterns”.

34.4.1 SCA Command Line Tool

The SCA command line tool lets you analyze a local machine using both supportconfig and
the analysis patterns for the specific product that is installed on the local machine. The tool
creates an HTML report showing its analysis results. For an example, see Figure 34.1, “HTML Report
Generated by SCA Tool”.

445 Analyzing System Information SLED 15

FIGURE 34.1: HTML REPORT GENERATED BY SCA TOOL

The scatool command is provided by the sca-server-report package. It is not installed by

default. Additionally, you need the sca-patterns-base package and any of the product-spe-
cific sca-patterns-* packages that matches the product installed on the machine where you
want to run the scatool command.
Execute the scatool command either as root user or with sudo . When calling the SCA tool,
either analyze an existing supportconfig TAR archive or let it generate and analyze a new
archive in one go. The tool also provides an interactive console with tab completion. It is possible
to run supportconfig on an external machine and to execute the subsequent analysis on the
local machine.
Find some example commands below:

sudo scatool -s

446 SCA Command Line Tool SLED 15

 Calls supportconfig and generates a new Supportconfig archive on the local machine.
Analyzes the archive for known issues by applying the SCA analysis patterns that match
the installed product. Displays the path to the HTML report that is generated from the
results of the analysis. It is usually written to the same directory where the Supportconfig
archive can be found.

sudo scatool  -s   -o   /opt/sca/reports/

Same as sudo scatool -s , only that the HTML report is written to the path specified
with -o .

sudo scatool  -a   PATH_TO_TARBALL_OR_DIR

Analyzes the specified Supportconfig archive le (or the specified directory to where the
Supportconfig archive has been extracted). The generated HTML report is saved in the
same location as the Supportconfig archive or directory.

sudo scatool  -a   SLES_SERVER.COMPANY.COM

Establishes an SSH connection to an external server SLES_SERVER.COMPANY.COM and runs
supportconfig on the server. The Supportconfig archive is then copied back to the lo-
cal machine and is analyzed there. The generated HTML report is saved to the default /
var/log directory. (Only the Supportconfig archive is created on SLES_SERVER.COMPA-
NY.COM ).

sudo scatool -c
Starts the interactive console for scatool . Press →| twice to see the available commands.

For further options and information, run sudo scatool -h or see the scatool man page.

34.4.2 SCA Appliance

If you decide to use the SCA appliance for analyzing the Supportconfig archives, configure a
dedicated server (or virtual machine) as the SCA appliance server. The SCA appliance server can
then be used to analyze Supportconfig archives from all machines in your enterprise running
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server or SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop. You can simply upload Sup-
portconfig archives to the appliance server for analysis. Interaction is not required. In a MariaDB
database, the SCA appliance keeps track of all Supportconfig archives that have been analyzed .
You can read the SCA reports directly from the appliance Web interface. Alternatively, you can
have the appliance send the HTML report to any administrative user via e-mail. For details, see
Section 34.4.2.5.4, “Sending SCA Reports via E-Mail”.

447 SCA Appliance SLED 15

34.4.2.1 Installation Quick Start
To install and set up the SCA appliance in a very fast way from the command line, follow the
instructions here. The procedure is intended for experts and focuses on the bare installation and
setup commands. For more information, refer to the more detailed description in Section 34.4.2.2,
“Prerequisites” to Section 34.4.2.3, “Installation and Basic Setup”.

PREREQUISITES

Web and LAMP Pattern

Web and Scripting Module (you must register the machine to be able to select this module).

Note: root Privileges Required

All commands in the following procedure must be run as root .

PROCEDURE 34.3: INSTALLATION USING ANONYMOUS FTP FOR UPLOAD

After the appliance is set up and running, no more manual interaction is required. This
way of setting up the appliance is therefore ideal for using cron jobs to create and upload
Supportconfig archives.

1. On the machine on which to install the appliance, log in to a console and execute the
following commands:

tux > sudo zypper install sca-appliance-* sca-patterns-* vsftpd

systemctl enable apache2
systemctl start apache2
systemctl enable vsftpd
systemctl start vsftpd
yast ftp-server

2. In YaST FTP Server, select Authentication Enable Upload Anonymous Can Upload Fin-
ish Yes to Create /srv/ftp/upload.

3. Execute the following commands:

tux > sudo systemctl enable mysql

systemctl start mysql
mysql_secure_installation
setup-sca -f

The mysql_secure_installation will create a MariaDB root password.

448 SCA Appliance SLED 15

PROCEDURE 34.4: INSTALLATION USING SCP/TMP FOR UPLOAD

This way of setting up the appliance requires manual interaction when typing the SSH
password.

1. On the machine on which to install the appliance, log in to a console.

2. Execute the following commands:

tux > sudo zypper install sca-appliance-* sca-patterns-*

systemctl enable apache2
systemctl start apache2
sudo systemctl enable mysql
systemctl start mysql
mysql_secure_installation
setup-sca

34.4.2.2 Prerequisites
To run an SCA appliance server, you need the following prerequisites:

All sca-appliance-* packages.

The sca-patterns-base package. Additionally, any of the product-specific sca-pat-

terns-* for the type of Supportconfig archives that you want to analyze with the appli-
ance.

Apache

PHP

MariaDB

anonymous FTP server (optional)

34.4.2.3 Installation and Basic Setup

As listed in Section 34.4.2.2, “Prerequisites”, the SCA appliance has several dependencies on other
packages. Therefore you need do so some preparations before installing and setting up the SCA
appliance server:

1. For Apache and MariaDB, install the Web and LAMP installation patterns.

2. Set up Apache, MariaDB, and optionally an anonymous FTP server.

449 SCA Appliance SLED 15

 3. Configure Apache and MariaDB to start at boot time:

tux > sudo systemctl enable apache2 mysql

4. Start both services:

tux > sudo systemctl start apache2 mysql

Now you can install the SCA appliance and set it up as described in Procedure 34.5, “Installing
and Configuring the SCA Appliance”.

PROCEDURE 34.5: INSTALLING AND CONFIGURING THE SCA APPLIANCE

After installing the packages, use the setup-sca script for the basic configuration of the
MariaDB administration and report database that is used by the SCA appliance.
It can be used to configure the following options you have for uploading the Supportconfig
archives from your machines to the SCA appliance:

scp

anonymous FTP server

1. Install the appliance and the SCA base-pattern library:

tux > sudo zypper install sca-appliance-* sca-patterns-base

2. Additionally, install the pattern packages for the types of Supportconfig archives you want
to analyze. For example, if you have SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 and SUSE Linux
Enterprise Server 15 servers in your environment, install both the sca-patterns-sle12
and sca-patterns-sle15 packages.
To install all available patterns:

tux > sudo zypper install sca-patterns-*

3. For basic setup of the SCA appliance, use the setup-sca script. How to call it depends
on how you want to upload the Supportconfig archives to the SCA appliance server:

If you have configured an anonymous FTP server that uses the /srv/ftp/upload
directory, execute the setup script with the -f option. Follow the instructions on
the screen:

tux > sudo setup-sca -f

450 SCA Appliance SLED 15

 Note: FTP Server Using Another Directory
If your FTP server uses another directory than /srv/ftp/upload , adjust the
following configuration les rst to make them point to the correct directory:
/etc/sca/sdagent.conf and /etc/sca/sdbroker.conf .

If you want to upload Supportconfig les to the /tmp directory of the SCA appliance
server via scp , call the setup script without any parameters. Follow the instructions
on the screen:

tux > sudo setup-sca

The setup script runs a few checks regarding its requirements and configures the needed
components. It will prompt you for two passwords: the MySQL root password of the
MariaDB that you have set up, and a Web user password with which to log in to the Web
interface of the SCA appliance.

4. Enter the existing MariaDB root password. It will allow the SCA appliance to connect
to the MariaDB.

5. Define a password for the Web user. It will be written to /srv/www/htdocs/sca/web-

config.php and will be set as the password for the user scdiag . Both user name and
password can be changed at any time later, see Section  34.4.2.5.1, “Password for the Web
Interface”.

After successful installation and setup, the SCA appliance is ready for use, see Section 34.4.2.4,
“Using the SCA Appliance”. However, you should modify some options such as changing the pass-
word for the Web interface, changing the source for the SCA pattern updates, enabling archiving
mode or configuring e-mail notifications. For details on that, see Section 34.4.2.5, “Customizing
the SCA Appliance”.

Warning: Data Protection

As the reports on the SCA appliance server contain security-relevant information, make
sure to protect the data on the SCA appliance server against unauthorized access.

451 SCA Appliance SLED 15

34.4.2.4 Using the SCA Appliance

You can upload existing Supportconfig archives to the SCA appliance manually or create new
Supportconfig archives and upload them to the SCA appliance in one step. Uploading can be
done via FTP or SCP. For both, you need to know the URL where the SCA appliance can be
reached. For upload via FTP, an FTP server needs to be configured for the SCA appliance, see
Procedure 34.5, “Installing and Configuring the SCA Appliance”.

34.4.2.4.1 Uploading Supportconfig Archives to the SCA Appliance

For creating a Supportconfig archive and uploading it via (anonymous) FTP:

tux > sudo supportconfig -U “ftp://SCA-APPLIANCE.COMPANY.COM/upload”

For creating a Supportconfig archive and uploading it via SCP:

tux > sudo supportconfig -U “scp://SCA-APPLIANCE.COMPANY.COM/tmp”

You will be prompted for the root user password of the server running the SCA appliance.

If you want to manually upload one or multiple archives, copy the existing archive les
(usually located at /var/log/nts_*.tbz ) to the SCA appliance. As target, use either the
appliance server's /tmp directory or the /srv/ftp/upload directory (if FTP is configured
for the SCA appliance server).

34.4.2.4.2 Viewing SCA Reports

SCA reports can be viewed from any machine that has a browser installed and can access the
report index page of the SCA appliance.

1. Start a Web browser and make sure that JavaScript and cookies are enabled.

2. As a URL, enter the report index page of the SCA appliance.

https://sca-appliance.company.com/sca

If in doubt, ask your system administrator.

3. You will be prompted for a user name and a password to log in.

452 SCA Appliance SLED 15

 FIGURE 34.2: HTML REPORT GENERATED BY SCA APPLIANCE

4. After logging in, click the date of the report you want to read.

5. Click the Basic Health category rst to expand it.

6. In the Message column, click an individual entry. This opens the corresponding article in
the SUSE Knowledge base. Read the proposed solution and follow the instructions.

7. If the Solutions column of the Supportconfig Analysis Report shows any additional entries,
click them. Read the proposed solution and follow the instructions.

8. Check the SUSE Knowledge base (http://www.suse.com/support/kb/ ) for results that di-
rectly relate to the problem identified by SCA. Work at resolving them.

9. Check for results that can be addressed proactively to avoid future problems.

34.4.2.5 Customizing the SCA Appliance

The following sections show how to change the password for the Web interface, how to change
the source for the SCA pattern updates, how to enable archiving mode, and how to configure
e-mail notifications.

453 SCA Appliance SLED 15

34.4.2.5.1 Password for the Web Interface

The SCA Appliance Web interface requires a user name and password for logging in. The default
user name is scdiag and the default password is linux (if not specified otherwise, see Proce-
dure 34.5, “Installing and Configuring the SCA Appliance”). Change the default password to a secure
password at the earliest possibility. You can also modify the user name.

PROCEDURE 34.6: CHANGING USER NAME OR PASSWORD FOR THE WEB INTERFACE

1. Log in as root user at the system console of the SCA appliance server.

2. Open /srv/www/htdocs/sca/web-config.php in an editor.

3. Change the values of $username and $password as desired.

4. Save the le and exit.

34.4.2.5.2 Updates of SCA Patterns

By default, all sca-patterns-* packages are updated regularly by a root cron job that ex-
ecutes the sdagent-patterns script nightly, which in turn runs zypper update sca-pat-
terns-* . A regular system update will update all SCA appliance and pattern packages. To up-
date the SCA appliance and patterns manually, run:

tux > sudo zypper update sca-*

The updates are installed from the SUSE Linux Enterprise 15 update repository by default. You
can change the source for the updates to an RMT server, if desired. When sdagent-patterns
runs zypper update sca-patterns-* , it gets the updates from the currently configured update
channel. If that channel is located on an RMT server, the packages will be pulled from there.

PROCEDURE 34.7: DISABLING AUTOMATIC UPDATES OF SCA PATTERNS

1. Log in as root user at the system console of the SCA appliance server.

2. Open /etc/sca/sdagent-patterns.conf in an editor.

3. Change the entry

UPDATE_FROM_PATTERN_REPO=1

to

454 SCA Appliance SLED 15

 UPDATE_FROM_PATTERN_REPO=0

4. Save the le and exit. The machine does not require any restart to apply the change.

34.4.2.5.3 Archiving Mode

All Supportconfig archives are deleted from the SCA appliance after they have been analyzed and
their results have been stored in the MariaDB database. However, for troubleshooting purposes
it can be useful to keep copies of Supportconfig archives from a machine. By default, archiving
mode is disabled.

PROCEDURE 34.8: ENABLING ARCHIVING MODE IN THE SCA APPLIANCE

1. Log in as root user at the system console of the SCA appliance server.

2. Open /etc/sca/sdagent.conf in an editor.

3. Change the entry

ARCHIVE_MODE=0

to

ARCHIVE_MODE=1

4. Save the le and exit. The machine does not require any restart to apply the change.

After having enabled archive mode, the SCA appliance will save the Supportconfig les to the
/var/log/archives/saved directory, instead of deleting them.

34.4.2.5.4 Sending SCA Reports via E-Mail

The SCA appliance can e-mail a report HTML le for each Supportconfig analyzed. This feature
is disabled by default. When enabling it, you can define a list of e-mail addresses to which
the reports should be sent. Define a level of status messages that trigger the sending of reports
( STATUS_NOTIFY_LEVEL ).

POSSIBLE VALUES FOR STATUS_NOTIFY_LEVEL

$STATUS_OFF
Deactivate sending of HTML reports.

455 SCA Appliance SLED 15

$STATUS_CRITICAL
Send only SCA reports that include a CRITICAL.

$STATUS_WARNING
Send only SCA reports that include a WARNING or CRITICAL.

$STATUS_RECOMMEND
Send only SCA reports that include a RECOMMEND, WARNING or CRITICAL.

$STATUS_SUCCESS
Send SCA reports that include a SUCCESS, RECOMMEND, WARNING or CRITICAL.

PROCEDURE 34.9: CONFIGURING E-MAIL NOTIFICATIONS FOR SCA REPORTS

1. Log in as root user at the system console of the SCA appliance server.

2. Open /etc/sca/sdagent.conf in an editor.

3. Search for the entry STATUS_NOTIFY_LEVEL . By default, it is set to $STATUS_OFF (e-mail

notifications are disabled).

4. To enable e-mail notifications, change $STATUS_OFF to the level of status messages that
you want to have e-mail reports for, for example:

STATUS_NOTIFY_LEVEL=$STATUS_SUCCESS

For details, see Possible Values for STATUS_NOTIFY_LEVEL.

5. To define the list of recipients to which the reports should be sent:

a. Search for the entry EMAIL_REPORT='root' .

b. Replace root with a list of e-mail addresses to which SCA reports should be sent.
The e-mail addresses must be separated by spaces. For example:

EMAIL_REPORT='tux@my.company.com wilber@your.company.com'

6. Save the le and exit. The machine does not require any restart to apply the changes. All
future SCA reports will be e-mailed to the specified addresses.

34.4.2.6 Backing Up and Restoring the Database

To back up and restore the MariaDB database that stores the SCA reports, use the scadb com-
mand as described below. scadb is provided by the package sca-appliance-broker .

456 SCA Appliance SLED 15

PROCEDURE 34.10: BACKING UP THE DATABASE

1. Log in as root user at the system console of the server running the SCA appliance.

2. Put the appliance into maintenance mode by executing:

root # scadb maint

3. Start the backup with:

root # scadb backup

The data is saved to a TAR archive: sca-backup-*sql.gz .

4. If you are using the pattern creation database to develop your own patterns (see Sec-
tion 34.4.3, “Developing Custom Analysis Patterns”), back up this data, too:

root # sdpdb backup

The data is saved to a TAR archive: sdp-backup-*sql.gz .

5. Copy the following data to another machine or an external storage medium:

sca-backup-*sql.gz

sdp-backup-*sql.gz

/usr/lib/sca/patterns/local (only needed if you have created custom patterns)

6. Reactivate the SCA appliance with:

root # scadb reset agents

PROCEDURE 34.11: RESTORING THE DATABASE

To restore the database from your backup, proceed as follows:

1. Log in as root user at the system console of the server running the SCA appliance.

2. Copy the newest sca-backup-*sql.gz and sdp-backup-*sql.gz TAR archives to the

SCA appliance server.

3. To decompress the les, run:

root # gzip -d *-backup-*sql.gz

457 SCA Appliance SLED 15

 4. To import the data into the database, execute:

root # scadb import sca-backup-*sql

5. If you are using the pattern creation database to create your own patterns, also import
the following data with:

root # sdpdb import sdp-backup-*sql

6. If you are using custom patterns, also restore /usr/lib/sca/patterns/local from your
backup data.

7. Reactivate the SCA appliance with:

root # scadb reset agents

8. Update the pattern modules in the database with:

root # sdagent-patterns -u

34.4.3 Developing Custom Analysis Patterns

The SCA appliance comes with a complete pattern development environment (the SCA Pattern
Database) that enables you to develop your own, custom patterns. Patterns can be written in
any programming language. To make them available for the Supportconfig analysis process,
they need to be saved to /usr/lib/sca/patterns/local and to be made executable. Both the
SCA appliance and the SCA tool will then run the custom patterns against new Supportconfig
archives as part of the analysis report. For detailed instructions on how to create (and test) your
own patterns, see http://www.suse.com/communities/conversations/sca-pattern-development/ .

34.5 Gathering Information during the Installation

During the installation, supportconfig is not available. However, you can collect log les from
YaST by using save_y2logs . This command will create a .tar.xz archive in the directory
/tmp .

If issues appear very early during installation, you may be able to gather information from the
log le created by linuxrc . linuxrc is a small command that runs before YaST starts. This
log le is available at /var/log/linuxrc.log .

458 Developing Custom Analysis Patterns SLED 15

 Important: Installation Log Files Not Available in
the Installed System
The log les available during the installation are not available in the installed system
anymore. Properly save the installation log les while the installer is still running.

34.6 Support of Kernel Modules

An important requirement for every enterprise operating system is the level of support you re-
ceive for your environment. Kernel modules are the most relevant connector between hardware
(“controllers”) and the operating system. Every kernel module in SUSE Linux Enterprise has a
supported ag that can take three possible values:

“yes”, thus supported

“external”, thus supported

“” (empty, not set), thus unsupported

The following rules apply:

All modules of a self-recompiled kernel are by default marked as unsupported.

Kernel modules supported by SUSE partners and delivered using SUSE SolidDriver Pro-
gram are marked “external”.

If the supported ag is not set, loading this module will taint the kernel. Tainted kernels
are not supported. Unsupported Kernel modules are included in an extra RPM package
( kernel-FLAVOR-extra ). That package is only available for SUSE Linux Enterprise Desk-
top and the SUSE Linux Enterprise Workstation Extension. Those kernels will not be loaded
by default ( FLAVOR = default | xen |...). In addition, these unsupported modules are not
available in the installer, and the kernel-FLAVOR-extra package is not part of the SUSE
Linux Enterprise media.

Kernel modules not provided under a license compatible to the license of the Linux ker-
nel will also taint the kernel. For details, see /usr/src/linux/Documentation/sysctl/
kernel.txt and the state of /proc/sys/kernel/tainted .

459 Support of Kernel Modules SLED 15

34.6.1 Technical Background

Linux kernel: The value of /proc/sys/kernel/unsupported defaults to 2 on SUSE Linux

Enterprise 15 ( do not warn in syslog when loading unsupported modules ). This
default is used in the installer and in the installed system. See /usr/src/linux/Docu-
mentation/sysctl/kernel.txt for more information.

modprobe : The modprobe utility for checking module dependencies and loading modules
appropriately checks for the value of the supported ag. If the value is “yes” or “external”
the module will be loaded, otherwise it will not. For information on how to override this
behavior, see Section 34.6.2, “Working with Unsupported Modules”.

Note: Support
SUSE does not generally support the removal of storage modules via modprobe -r .

34.6.2 Working with Unsupported Modules

While general supportability is important, situations can occur where loading an unsupported
module is required. For example, for testing or debugging purposes, or if your hardware vendor
provides a hotfix.

To override the default, edit /etc/modprobe.d/10-unsupported-modules.conf and

change the value of the variable allow_unsupported_modules to 1 . If an unsupported
module is needed in the initrd, do not forget to run dracut -f to update the initrd.
If you only want to try loading a module once, you can use the --allow-unsupport-
ed-modules option with modprobe . For more information, see the modprobe man page.

During installation, unsupported modules may be added through driver update disks, and
they will be loaded. To enforce loading of unsupported modules during boot and after-
ward, use the kernel command line option oem-modules . While installing and initializ-
ing the suse-module-tools package, the kernel ag TAINT_NO_SUPPORT ( /proc/sys/
kernel/tainted ) will be evaluated. If the kernel is already tainted, allow_unsupport-
ed_modules will be enabled. This will prevent unsupported modules from failing in the
system being installed. If no unsupported modules are present during installation and the
other special kernel command line option ( oem-modules=1 ) is not used, the default still
is to disallow unsupported modules.

460 Technical Background SLED 15

Remember that loading and running unsupported modules will make the kernel and the whole
system unsupported by SUSE.

34.7 For More Information

man supportconfig —The supportconfig man page.

man supportconfig.conf —The man page of the Supportconfig configuration le.

man scatool —The scatool man page.

man scadb —The scadb man page.

man setup-sca —The setup-sca man page.

https://mariadb.com/kb/en/ —The MariaDB documentation.

http://www.suse.com/communities/conversations/sca-pattern-development/ —
Instructions on how to create (and test) your own SCA patterns.

http://www.suse.com/communities/conversations/basic-server-health-check-
supportconfig/ —A Basic Server Health Check with Supportconfig.

https://www.novell.com/communities/coolsolutions/cool_tools/create-your-own-
supportconfig-plugin/ —Create Your Own Supportconfig Plugin.

http://www.suse.com/communities/conversations/creating-a-
central-supportconfig-repository/ —Creating a Central Supportconfig Repository.

461 For More Information SLED 15

35 Common Problems and Their Solutions
This chapter describes a range of potential problems and their solutions. Even if your situation
is not precisely listed here, there may be one similar enough to offer hints to the solution of
your problem.

35.1 Finding and Gathering Information

Linux reports things in a very detailed way. There are several places to look when you encounter
problems with your system, most of which are standard to Linux systems in general, and some
are relevant to SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop systems. Most log les can be viewed with YaST
(Miscellaneous Start-Up Log).
YaST offers the possibility to collect all system information needed by the support team. Use
Other Support and select the problem category. When all information is gathered, attach it to
your support request.
A list of the most frequently checked log les follows with the description of their typical pur-
pose. Paths containing ~ refer to the current user's home directory.

TABLE 35.1: LOG FILES

Log File Description

~/.xsession-errors Messages from the desktop applications cur-

rently running.

/var/log/apparmor/ Log les from AppArmor, see Book “Security

Guide” for detailed information.

/var/log/audit/audit.log Log le from Audit to track any access to

les, directories, or resources of your sys-
tem, and trace system calls. See Book “Securi-
ty Guide” for detailed information.

/var/log/mail.* Messages from the mail system.

/var/log/NetworkManager Log le from NetworkManager to collect

problems with network connectivity

462 Finding and Gathering Information SLED 15

Log File Description

/var/log/samba/ Directory containing Samba server and client

log messages.

/var/log/warn All messages from the kernel and system log

daemon with the “warning” level or higher.

/var/log/wtmp Binary le containing user login records for

the current machine session. View it with
last .

/var/log/Xorg.*.log Various start-up and runtime log les from

the X Window System. It is useful for debug-
ging failed X start-ups.

/var/log/YaST2/ Directory containing YaST's actions and their

results.

/var/log/zypper.log Log le of Zypper.

Apart from log les, your machine also supplies you with information about the running system.
See Table 35.2: System Information With the /proc File System

TABLE 35.2: SYSTEM INFORMATION WITH THE /proc FILE SYSTEM

File Description

/proc/cpuinfo Contains processor information, including its

type, make, model, and performance.

/proc/dma Shows which DMA channels are currently

being used.

/proc/interrupts Shows which interrupts are in use, and how

many of each have been in use.

/proc/iomem Displays the status of I/O (input/output)

memory.

463 Finding and Gathering Information SLED 15

File Description

/proc/ioports Shows which I/O ports are in use at the mo-

ment.

/proc/meminfo Displays memory status.

/proc/modules Displays the individual modules.

/proc/mounts Displays devices currently mounted.

/proc/partitions Shows the partitioning of all hard disks.

/proc/version Displays the current version of Linux.

Apart from the /proc le system, the Linux kernel exports information with the sysfs module,
an in-memory le system. This module represents kernel objects, their attributes and relation-
ships. For more information about sysfs , see the context of udev in Chapter 22, Dynamic Kernel
Device Management with udev. Table 35.3 contains an overview of the most common directories
under /sys .

TABLE 35.3: SYSTEM INFORMATION WITH THE /sys FILE SYSTEM

File Description

/sys/block Contains subdirectories for each block device

discovered in the system. Generally, these
are mostly disk type devices.

/sys/bus Contains subdirectories for each physical bus

type.

/sys/class Contains subdirectories grouped together as

a functional types of devices (like graphics,
net, printer, etc.)

/sys/device Contains the global device hierarchy.

Linux comes with several tools for system analysis and monitoring. See Book “System Analysis
and Tuning Guide”, Chapter 2 “System Monitoring Utilities” for a selection of the most important ones
used in system diagnostics.

464 Finding and Gathering Information SLED 15

Each of the following scenarios begins with a header describing the problem followed by a
paragraph or two offering suggested solutions, available references for more detailed solutions,
and cross-references to other scenarios that are related.

35.2 Boot Problems

Boot problems are situations when your system does not boot properly (does not boot to the
expected target and login screen).

35.2.1 The GRUB 2 Boot Loader Fails to Load

If the hardware is functioning properly, it is possible that the boot loader is corrupted and Linux
cannot start on the machine. In this case, it is necessary to repair the boot loader. To do so, you
need to start the Rescue System as described in Section 35.5.2, “Using the Rescue System” and follow
the instructions in Section 35.5.2.4, “Modifying and Re-installing the Boot Loader”.
Alternatively, you can use the Rescue System to x the boot loader as follows. Boot your machine
from the installation media. In the boot screen, choose More Boot Linux System. Select the disk
containing the installed system and kernel with the default kernel options.
When the system is booted, start YaST and switch to System Boot Loader. Make sure that the
Write generic Boot Code to MRB option is enabled, and click OK. This fixes the corrupted boot
loader by overwriting it, or installs the boot loader if it is missing.
Other reasons for the machine not booting may be BIOS-related:

BIOS Settings
Check your BIOS for references to your hard disk. GRUB 2 may simply not be started if
the hard disk itself cannot be found with the current BIOS settings.

BIOS Boot Order

Check whether your system's boot order includes the hard disk. If the hard disk option
was not enabled, your system may install properly, but fails to boot when access to the
hard disk is required.

465 Boot Problems SLED 15

35.2.2 No Login or Prompt Appears
This behavior typically occurs after a failed kernel upgrade and it is known as a kernel panic
because of the type of error on the system console that sometimes can be seen at the final stage
of the process. If, in fact, the machine has just been rebooted following a software update, the
immediate goal is to reboot it using the old, proven version of the Linux kernel and associated
les. This can be done in the GRUB 2 boot loader screen during the boot process as follows:

1. Reboot the computer using the reset button, or switch it o and on again.

2. When the GRUB  2 boot screen becomes visible, select the Advanced Options entry and
choose the previous kernel from the menu. The machine will boot using the prior version
of the kernel and its associated les.

3. After the boot process has completed, remove the newly installed kernel and, if necessary,
set the default boot entry to the old kernel using the YaST Boot Loader module. For more
information refer to Section  12.3, “Configuring the Boot Loader with YaST”. However, doing
this is probably not necessary because automated update tools normally modify it for you
during the rollback process.

4. Reboot.

If this does not x the problem, boot the computer using the installation media. After the ma-
chine has booted, continue with Step 3.

35.2.3 No Graphical Login

If the machine starts, but does not boot into the graphical login manager, anticipate problems
either with the choice of the default systemd target or the configuration of the X Window System.
To check the current systemd default target run the command sudo systemctl get-default .
If the value returned is not graphical.target , run the command sudo systemctl isolate
graphical.target . If the graphical login screen starts, log in and start YaST System Services
Manager and set the Default System Target to Graphical Interface. From now on the system should
boot into the graphical login screen.
If the graphical login screen does not start even if having booted or switched to the graphical
target, your desktop or X Window software is probably misconfigured or corrupted. Examine
the log les at /var/log/Xorg.*.log for detailed messages from the X server as it attempted
to start. If the desktop fails during start, it may log error messages to the system journal that

466 No Login or Prompt Appears SLED 15

can be queried with the command journalctl (see Chapter 15, journalctl: Query the systemd
Journal for more information). If these error messages hint at a configuration problem in the X
server, try to x these issues. If the graphical system still does not come up, consider reinstalling
the graphical desktop.

35.2.4 Root Btrfs Partition Cannot Be Mounted

If a btrfs root partition becomes corrupted, try the following options:

Mount the partition with the -o recovery option.

If that fails, run btrfs-zero-log on your root partition.

35.2.5 Force Checking Root Partitions

If the root partition becomes corrupted, use the parameter forcefsck on the boot prompt. This
passes the option -f (force) to the fsck command.

35.3 Login Problems

Login problems occur when your machine does boot to the expected welcome screen or login
prompt, but refuses to accept the user name and password, or accepts them but then does not
behave properly (fails to start the graphic desktop, produces errors, drops to a command line,
etc.).

467 Root Btrfs Partition Cannot Be Mounted SLED 15

35.3.1 Valid User Name and Password Combinations Fail
This usually occurs when the system is configured to use network authentication or directory
services and, for some reason, cannot retrieve results from its configured servers. The root
user, as the only local user, is the only user that can still log in to these machines. The following
are some common reasons a machine appears functional but cannot process logins correctly:

The network is not working. For further directions on this, turn to Section 35.4, “Network
Problems”.

DNS is not working at the moment (which prevents GNOME from working and the system
from making validated requests to secure servers). One indication that this is the case
is that the machine takes an extremely long time to respond to any action. Find more
information about this topic in Section 35.4, “Network Problems”.

If the system is configured to use Kerberos, the system's local time may have drifted past
the accepted variance with the Kerberos server time (this is typically 300 seconds). If NTP
(network time protocol) is not working properly or local NTP servers are not working,
Kerberos authentication ceases to function because it depends on common clock synchro-
nization across the network.

The system's authentication configuration is misconfigured. Check the PAM configuration

les involved for any typographical errors or misordering of directives. For additional
background information about PAM and the syntax of the configuration les involved,
refer to Book “Security Guide”, Chapter 2 “Authentication with PAM”.

The home partition is encrypted. Find more information about this topic in Section 35.3.3,
“Login to Encrypted Home Partition Fails”.

In all cases that do not involve external network problems, the solution is to reboot the system
into single-user mode and repair the configuration before booting again into operating mode
and attempting to log in again. To boot into single-user mode:

1. Reboot the system. The boot screen appears, offering a prompt.

2. Press Esc to exit the splash screen and get to the GRUB 2 text-based menu.

3. Press B to enter the GRUB 2 editor.

4. Add the following parameter to the line containing the kernel parameters:

systemd.unit=rescue.target

468 Valid User Name and Password Combinations Fail SLED 15

 5. Press F10 .

6. Enter the user name and password for root .

7. Make all the necessary changes.

8. Boot into the full multiuser and network mode by entering systemctl isolate graph-
ical.target at the command line.

35.3.2 Valid User Name and Password Not Accepted

This is by far the most common problem users encounter, because there are many reasons this
can occur. Depending on whether you use local user management and authentication or network
authentication, login failures occur for different reasons.
Local user management can fail for the following reasons:

The user may have entered the wrong password.

The user's home directory containing the desktop configuration les is corrupted or write
protected.

There may be problems with the X Window System authenticating this particular user,
especially if the user's home directory has been used with another Linux distribution prior
to installing the current one.

To locate the reason for a local login failure, proceed as follows:

1. Check whether the user remembered their password correctly before you start debugging
the whole authentication mechanism. If the user may have not remember their password
correctly, use the YaST User Management module to change the user's password. Pay
attention to the Caps Lock key and unlock it, if necessary.

2. Log in as root and check the system journal with journalctl -e for error messages
of the login process and of PAM.

3. Try to log in from a console (using Ctrl – Alt – F1 ). If this is successful, the blame cannot
be put on PAM, because it is possible to authenticate this user on this machine. Try to locate
any problems with the X Window System or the GNOME desktop. For more information,
refer to Section 35.3.4, “Login Successful but GNOME Desktop Fails”.

469 Valid User Name and Password Not Accepted SLED 15

 4. If the user's home directory has been used with another Linux distribution, remove the
Xauthority le in the user's home. Use a console login via Ctrl – Alt – F1 and run
rm .Xauthority as this user. This should eliminate X authentication problems for this
user. Try graphical login again.

5. If the desktop could not start because of corrupt configuration les, proceed with Sec-
tion 35.3.4, “Login Successful but GNOME Desktop Fails”.

In the following, common reasons a network authentication for a particular user may fail on a
specific machine are listed:

The user may have entered the wrong password.

The user name exists in the machine's local authentication les and is also provided by a
network authentication system, causing conflicts.

The home directory exists but is corrupt or unavailable. Perhaps it is write protected or is
on a server that is inaccessible at the moment.

The user does not have permission to log in to that particular host in the authentication
system.

The machine has changed host names, for whatever reason, and the user does not have
permission to log in to that host.

The machine cannot reach the authentication server or directory server that contains that
user's information.

There may be problems with the X Window System authenticating this particular user, es-
pecially if the user's home has been used with another Linux distribution prior to installing
the current one.

To locate the cause of the login failures with network authentication, proceed as follows:

1. Check whether the user remembered their password correctly before you start debugging
the whole authentication mechanism.

2. Determine the directory server which the machine relies on for authentication and make
sure that it is up and running and properly communicating with the other machines.

3. Determine that the user's user name and password work on other machines to make sure
that their authentication data exists and is properly distributed.

470 Valid User Name and Password Not Accepted SLED 15

 4. See if another user can log in to the misbehaving machine. If another user can log in with-
out difficulty or if root can log in, log in and examine the system journal with jour-
nalctl -e > le. Locate the time stamps that correspond to the login attempts and de-
termine if PAM has produced any error messages.

5. Try to log in from a console (using Ctrl – Alt – F1 ). If this is successful, the problem is
not with PAM or the directory server on which the user's home is hosted, because it is
possible to authenticate this user on this machine. Try to locate any problems with the
X Window System or the GNOME desktop. For more information, refer to Section 35.3.4,
“Login Successful but GNOME Desktop Fails”.

6. If the user's home directory has been used with another Linux distribution, remove the
Xauthority le in the user's home. Use a console login via Ctrl – Alt – F1 and run
rm .Xauthority as this user. This should eliminate X authentication problems for this
user. Try graphical login again.

7. If the desktop could not start because of corrupt configuration les, proceed with Sec-
tion 35.3.4, “Login Successful but GNOME Desktop Fails”.

35.3.3 Login to Encrypted Home Partition Fails

It is recommended to use an encrypted home partition for laptops. If you cannot log in to your
laptop, the reason is usually simple: your partition could not be unlocked.
During the boot time, you need to enter the passphrase to unlock your encrypted partition. If
you do not enter it, the boot process continues, leaving the partition locked.
To unlock your encrypted partition, proceed as follows:

1. Switch to the text console with Ctrl – Alt – F1 .

2. Become root .

3. Restart the unlocking process again with:

root # systemctl restart home.mount

4. Enter your passphrase to unlock your encrypted partition.

5. Exit the text console and switch back to the login screen with Alt – F7 .

6. Log in as usual.

471 Login to Encrypted Home Partition Fails SLED 15

35.3.4 Login Successful but GNOME Desktop Fails
If this is the case, it is likely that your GNOME configuration les have become corrupted. Some
symptoms may include the keyboard failing to work, the screen geometry becoming distorted, or
even the screen coming up as a bare gray eld. The important distinction is that if another user
logs in, the machine works normally. It is then likely that the problem can be xed relatively
quickly by simply moving the user's GNOME configuration directory to a new location, which
causes GNOME to initialize a new one. Although the user is forced to reconfigure GNOME, no
data is lost.

1. Switch to a text console by pressing Ctrl – Alt – F1 .

2. Log in with your user name.

3. Move the user's GNOME configuration directories to a temporary location:

tux > mv .gconf .gconf-ORIG-RECOVER

tux > mv .gnome2 .gnome2-ORIG-RECOVER

4. Log out.

5. Log in again, but do not run any applications.

6. Recover your individual application configuration data (including the Evolution e-mail
client data) by copying the ~/.gconf-ORIG-RECOVER/apps/ directory back into the new
~/.gconf directory as follows:

tux > cp -a .gconf-ORIG-RECOVER/apps .gconf/

If this causes the login problems, attempt to recover only the critical application data and
reconfigure the remainder of the applications.

35.4 Network Problems

Many problems of your system may be network-related, even though they do not seem to be
at rst. For example, the reason for a system not allowing users to log in may be a network
problem of some kind. This section introduces a simple checklist you can apply to identify the
cause of any network problem encountered.

472 Login Successful but GNOME Desktop Fails SLED 15

PROCEDURE 35.1: HOW TO IDENTIFY NETWORK PROBLEMS

When checking the network connection of your machine, proceed as follows:

1. If you use an Ethernet connection, check the hardware rst. Make sure that your network
cable is properly plugged into your computer and router (or hub, etc.). The control lights
next to your Ethernet connector are normally both be active.
If the connection fails, check whether your network cable works with another machine.
If it does, your network card causes the failure. If hubs or switches are included in your
network setup, they may be faulty, as well.

2. If using a wireless connection, check whether the wireless link can be established by other
machines. If not, contact the wireless network's administrator.

3. When you have checked your basic network connectivity, try to nd out which service
is not responding. Gather the address information of all network servers needed in your
setup. Either look them up in the appropriate YaST module or ask your system adminis-
trator. The following list gives some typical network servers involved in a setup together
with the symptoms of an outage.

DNS (Name Service)

A broken or malfunctioning name service affects the network's functionality in many
ways. If the local machine relies on any network servers for authentication and these
servers cannot be found because of name resolution issues, users would not even be
able to log in. Machines in the network managed by a broken name server would
not be able to “see” each other and communicate.

NTP (Time Service)

A malfunctioning or completely broken NTP service could affect Kerberos authenti-
cation and X server functionality.

NFS (File Service)

If any application needs data stored in an NFS mounted directory, it cannot start
or function properly if this service was down or misconfigured. In the worst case
scenario, a user's personal desktop configuration would not come up if their home
directory containing the .gconf subdirectory could not be found because of a faulty
NFS server.

Samba (File Service)

If any application needs data stored in a directory on a faulty Samba server, it cannot
start or function properly.

473 Network Problems SLED 15

 NIS (User Management)
If your SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop system relies on a faulty NIS server to provide
the user data, users cannot log in to this machine.

LDAP (User Management)

If your SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop system relies on a faulty LDAP server to pro-
vide the user data, users cannot log in to this machine.

Kerberos (Authentication)
Authentication will not work and login to any machine fails.

CUPS (Network Printing)

Users cannot print.

4. Check whether the network servers are running and whether your network setup allows
you to establish a connection:

Important: Limitations
The debugging procedure described below only applies to a simple network serv-
er/client setup that does not involve any internal routing. It assumes both server
and client are members of the same subnet without the need for additional routing.

a. Use ping IP_ADDRESS/HOSTNAME (replace with the host name or IP address of the
server) to check whether each one of them is up and responding to the network. If
this command is successful, it tells you that the host you were looking for is up and
running and that the name service for your network is configured correctly.
If ping fails with destination host unreachable , either your system or the desired
server is not properly configured or down. Check whether your system is reachable
by running ping IP address or YOUR_HOSTNAME from another machine. If you
can reach your machine from another machine, it is the server that is not running
or not configured correctly.
If ping fails with unknown host , the name service is not configured correctly or
the host name used was incorrect. For further checks on this matter, refer to Step
4.b. If ping still fails, either your network card is not configured correctly or your
network hardware is faulty.

474 Network Problems SLED 15

 b. Use host HOSTNAME to check whether the host name of the server you are trying to
connect to is properly translated into an IP address and vice versa. If this command
returns the IP address of this host, the name service is up and running. If the host
command fails, check all network configuration les relating to name and address
resolution on your host:

/etc/resolv.conf
This le is used to keep track of the name server and domain you are currently
using. It can be modified manually or automatically adjusted by YaST or DHCP.
Automatic adjustment is preferable. However, make sure that this le has the
following structure and all network addresses and domain names are correct:

search FULLY_QUALIFIED_DOMAIN_NAME
nameserver IPADDRESS_OF_NAMESERVER

This le can contain more than one name server address, but at least one of
them must be correct to provide name resolution to your host. If needed, adjust
this le using the YaST Network Settings module (Hostname/DNS tab).
If your network connection is handled via DHCP, enable DHCP to change host
name and name service information by selecting Set Hostname via DHCP (can
be set globally for any interface or per interface) and Update Name Servers and
Search List via DHCP in the YaST Network Settings module (Hostname/DNS
tab).

/etc/nsswitch.conf
This le tells Linux where to look for name service information. It should look
like this:

...
hosts: files dns
networks: files dns
...

The dns entry is vital. It tells Linux to use an external name server. Normally,
these entries are automatically managed by YaST, but it would be prudent to
check.

475 Network Problems SLED 15

 If all the relevant entries on the host are correct, let your system administrator
check the DNS server configuration for the correct zone information. If you
have made sure that the DNS configuration of your host and the DNS server are
correct, proceed with checking the configuration of your network and network
device.

c. If your system cannot establish a connection to a network server and you have ex-
cluded name service problems from the list of possible culprits, check the configu-
ration of your network card.
Use the command ip addr show NETWORK_DEVICE to check whether this device was
properly configured. Make sure that the inet address with the netmask ( /MASK )
is configured correctly. An error in the IP address or a missing bit in your network
mask would render your network configuration unusable. If necessary, perform this
check on the server as well.

d. If the name service and network hardware are properly configured and running,
but some external network connections still get long time-outs or fail entirely, use
traceroute FULLY_QUALIFIED_DOMAIN_NAME (executed as root ) to track the net-
work route these requests are taking. This command lists any gateway (hop) that a
request from your machine passes on its way to its destination. It lists the response
time of each hop and whether this hop is reachable. Use a combination of traceroute
and ping to track down the culprit and let the administrators know.

When you have identified the cause of your network trouble, you can resolve it yourself (if the
problem is located on your machine) or let the system administrators of your network know
about your findings so they can reconfigure the services or repair the necessary systems.

35.4.1 NetworkManager Problems

If you have a problem with network connectivity, narrow it down as described in Procedure 35.1,
“How to Identify Network Problems”. If NetworkManager seems to be the culprit, proceed as follows
to get logs providing hints on why NetworkManager fails:

1. Open a shell and log in as root .

2. Restart the NetworkManager:

tux > sudo systemctl restart NetworkManager

476 NetworkManager Problems SLED 15

 3. Open a Web page, for example, http://www.opensuse.org as normal user to see, if you
can connect.

4. Collect any information about the state of NetworkManager in /var/log/NetworkMan-

ager .

For more information about NetworkManager, refer to Chapter 25, Using NetworkManager.

35.5 Data Problems

Data problems are when the machine may or may not boot properly but, in either case, it is
clear that there is data corruption on the system and that the system needs to be recovered.
These situations call for a backup of your critical data, enabling you to recover the system state
from before your system failed.

35.5.1 Managing Partition Images

Sometimes you need to perform a backup from an entire partition or even hard disk. Linux
comes with the dd tool which can create an exact copy of your disk. Combined with gzip you
save some space.

PROCEDURE 35.2: BACKING UP AND RESTORING HARD DISKS

1. Start a Shell as user root .

2. Select your source device. Typically this is something like /dev/sda (labeled as SOURCE ).

3. Decide where you want to store your image (labeled as BACKUP_PATH ). It must be different
from your source device. In other words: if you make a backup from /dev/sda , your
image le must not to be stored under /dev/sda .

4. Run the commands to create a compressed image le:

root # dd if=/dev/SOURCE | gzip > /BACKUP_PATH/image.gz

5. Restore the hard disk with the following commands:

root # gzip -dc /BACKUP_PATH/image.gz | dd of=/dev/SOURCE

If you only need to back up a partition, replace the SOURCE placeholder with your respective
partition. In this case, your image le can lie on the same hard disk, but on a different partition.

477 Data Problems SLED 15

35.5.2 Using the Rescue System
There are several reasons a system could fail to come up and run properly. A corrupted le
system following a system crash, corrupted configuration les, or a corrupted boot loader con-
figuration are the most common ones.
To help you to resolve these situations, SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop contains a rescue system
that you can boot. The rescue system is a small Linux system that can be loaded into a RAM disk
and mounted as root le system, allowing you to access your Linux partitions from the outside.
Using the rescue system, you can recover or modify any important aspect of your system.

Manipulate any type of configuration le.

Check the le system for defects and start automatic repair processes.

Access the installed system in a “change root” environment.

Check, modify, and re-install the boot loader configuration.

Recover from a badly installed device driver or unusable kernel.

Resize partitions using the parted command. Find more information about this tool at the
GNU Parted Web site http://www.gnu.org/software/parted/parted.html .

The rescue system can be loaded from various sources and locations. The simplest option is to
boot the rescue system from the original installation medium.

1. Insert the installation medium into your DVD drive.

2. Reboot the system.

3. At the boot screen, press F4 and choose DVD-ROM. Then choose Rescue System from the
main menu.

4. Enter root at the Rescue: prompt. A password is not required.

If your hardware setup does not include a DVD drive, you can boot the rescue system
from a network source. The following example applies to a remote boot scenario—if using
another boot medium, such as a DVD, modify the info le accordingly and boot as you
would for a normal installation.

478 Using the Rescue System SLED 15

 1. Enter the configuration of your PXE boot setup and add the lines install=PROTO-
COL://INSTSOURCE and rescue=1 . If you need to start the repair system, use repair=1
instead. As with a normal installation, PROTOCOL stands for any of the supported network
protocols (NFS, HTTP, FTP, etc.) and INSTSOURCE for the path to your network installa-
tion source.

2. Boot the system using “Wake on LAN”, as described in Book “Deployment Guide”, Chapter 11
“Preparing Network Boot Environment”, Section 11.6 “Wake on LAN”.

3. Enter root at the Rescue: prompt. A password is not required.

When you have entered the rescue system, you can use the virtual consoles that can be reached
with Alt – F1 to Alt – F6 .
A shell and other useful utilities, such as the mount program, are available in the /bin directo-
ry. The /sbin directory contains important le and network utilities for reviewing and repair-
ing the le system. This directory also contains the most important binaries for system mainte-
nance, such as fdisk , mkfs , mkswap , mount , and shutdown , ip and ss for maintaining the
network. The directory /usr/bin contains the vi editor, nd, less, and SSH.
To see the system messages, either use the command dmesg or view the system log with jour-
nalctl .

35.5.2.1 Checking and Manipulating Configuration Files

As an example for a configuration that might be xed using the rescue system, imagine you
have a broken configuration le that prevents the system from booting properly. You can x
this using the rescue system.

To manipulate a configuration le, proceed as follows:

1. Start the rescue system using one of the methods described above.

2. To mount a root le system located under /dev/sda6 to the rescue system, use the fol-
lowing command:

tux > sudo mount /dev/sda6 /mnt

All directories of the system are now located under /mnt

479 Using the Rescue System SLED 15

 3. Change the directory to the mounted root le system:

tux > sudo cd /mnt

4. Open the problematic configuration le in the vi editor. Adjust and save the configuration.

5. Unmount the root le system from the rescue system:

tux > sudo umount /mnt

6. Reboot the machine.

35.5.2.2 Repairing and Checking File Systems

Generally, le systems cannot be repaired on a running system. If you encounter serious prob-
lems, you may not even be able to mount your root le system and the system boot may end
with a “kernel panic”. In this case, the only way is to repair the system from the outside. The
system contains the utilities to check and repair the btrfs , ext2 , ext3 , ext4 , xfs , dosfs ,
and vfat le systems. Look for the command fsck.FILESYSTEM . For example, if you need a
le system check for btrfs , use fsck.btrfs .

35.5.2.3 Accessing the Installed System

If you need to access the installed system from the rescue system, you need to do this in a
change root environment. For example, to modify the boot loader configuration, or to execute
a hardware configuration utility.
To set up a change root environment based on the installed system, proceed as follows:

1.
Tip: Import LVM Volume Groups
If you are using an LVM setup (refer to Book “Deployment Guide”, Chapter 6 “Expert
Partitioner”, Section 6.2 “LVM Configuration” for more general details), import all exist-
ing volume groups to be able to nd and mount the device(s):

rootvgimport -a

480 Using the Rescue System SLED 15

 Run lsblk to check which node corresponds to the root partition. It is /dev/sda2 in
our example:

tux > lsblk

NAME MAJ:MIN RM SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
sda 8:0 0 149,1G 0 disk
├─sda1 8:1 0 2G 0 part [SWAP]
├─sda2 8:2 0 20G 0 part /
└─sda3 8:3 0 127G 0 part
└─cr_home 254:0 0 127G 0 crypt /home

2. Mount the root partition from the installed system:

tux > sudo mount /dev/sda2 /mnt

3. Mount /proc , /dev , and /sys partitions:

tux > sudo mount -t proc none /mnt/proc

tux > sudo mount --rbind /dev /mnt/dev
tux > sudo mount --rbind /sys /mnt/sys

4. Now you can “change root” into the new environment, keeping the bash shell:

tux > chroot /mnt /bin/bash

5. Finally, mount the remaining partitions from the installed system:

tux > mount -a

6. Now you have access to the installed system. Before rebooting the system, unmount the
partitions with umount -a and leave the “change root” environment with exit .

Warning: Limitations
Although you have full access to the les and applications of the installed system, there
are some limitations. The kernel that is running is the one that was booted with the res-
cue system, not with the change root environment. It only supports essential hardware
and it is not possible to add kernel modules from the installed system unless the kernel
versions are identical. Always check the version of the currently running (rescue) kernel
with uname -r and then nd out if a matching subdirectory exists in the /lib/modules
directory in the change root environment. If yes, you can use the installed modules, oth-

481 Using the Rescue System SLED 15

 erwise you need to supply their correct versions on other media, such as a ash disk. Most
often the rescue kernel version differs from the installed one — then you cannot simply
access a sound card, for example. It is also not possible to start a graphical user interface.
Also note that you leave the “change root” environment when you switch the console
with Alt – F1 to Alt – F6 .

35.5.2.4 Modifying and Re-installing the Boot Loader

Sometimes a system cannot boot because the boot loader configuration is corrupted. The start-
up routines cannot, for example, translate physical drives to the actual locations in the Linux
le system without a working boot loader.
To check the boot loader configuration and re-install the boot loader, proceed as follows:

1. Perform the necessary steps to access the installed system as described in Section 35.5.2.3,
“Accessing the Installed System”.

2. Check that the GRUB 2 boot loader is installed on the system. If not, install the package
grub2 and run

tux > sudo grub2-install /dev/sda

3. Check whether the following les are correctly configured according to the GRUB 2 con-
figuration principles outlined in Chapter 12, The Boot Loader GRUB 2 and apply fixes if nec-
essary.

/etc/default/grub

/boot/grub2/device.map (optional le, only present if created manually)

/boot/grub2/grub.cfg (this le is generated, do not edit)

/etc/sysconfig/bootloader

4. Re-install the boot loader using the following command sequence:

tux > sudo grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/grub2/grub.cfg

5. Unmount the partitions, log out from the “change root” environment, and reboot the sys-
tem:

tux > umount -a

482 Using the Rescue System SLED 15

 exit
reboot

35.5.2.5 Fixing Kernel Installation

A kernel update may introduce a new bug which can impact the operation of your system. For
example a driver for a piece of hardware in your system may be faulty, which prevents you from
accessing and using it. In this case, revert to the last working kernel (if available on the system)
or install the original kernel from the installation media.

Tip: How to Keep Last Kernels after Update

To prevent failures to boot after a faulty kernel update, use the kernel multiversion feature
and tell libzypp which kernels you want to keep after the update.
For example to always keep the last two kernels and the currently running one, add

multiversion.kernels = latest,latest-1,running

to the /etc/zypp/zypp.conf le. See Book “Deployment Guide”, Chapter 15 “Installing Mul-
tiple Kernel Versions” for more information.

A similar case is when you need to re-install or update a broken driver for a device not sup-
ported by SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop. For example when a hardware vendor uses a specific
device, such as a hardware RAID controller, which needs a binary driver to be recognized by
the operating system. The vendor typically releases a Driver Update Disk (DUD) with the xed
or updated version of the required driver.
In both cases you need to access the installed system in the rescue mode and x the kernel
related problem, otherwise the system may fail to boot correctly:

1. Boot from the SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop installation media.

2. If you are recovering after a faulty kernel update, skip this step. If you need to use a driver
update disk (DUD), press F6 to load the driver update after the boot menu appears, and
choose the path or URL to the driver update and confirm with Yes.

3. Choose Rescue System from the boot menu and press Enter . If you chose to use DUD, you
will be asked to specify where the driver update is stored.

4. Enter root at the Rescue: prompt. A password is not required.

483 Using the Rescue System SLED 15

 5. Manually mount the target system and “change root” into the new environment. For more
information, see Section 35.5.2.3, “Accessing the Installed System”.

6. If using DUD, install/re-install/update the faulty device driver package. Always make sure
the installed kernel version exactly matches the version of the driver you are installing.
If fixing faulty kernel update installation, you can install the original kernel from the
installation media with the following procedure.

a. Identify your DVD device with hwinfo --cdrom and mount it with mount /dev/
sr0 /mnt .

b. Navigate to the directory where your kernel les are stored on the DVD, for example
cd /mnt/suse/x86_64/ .

c. Install required kernel-* , kernel-*-base , and kernel-*-extra packages of

your flavor with the rpm -i command.

7. Update configuration les and reinitialize the boot loader if needed. For more information,
see Section 35.5.2.4, “Modifying and Re-installing the Boot Loader”.

8. Remove any bootable media from the system drive and reboot.

484 Using the Rescue System SLED 15

A Documentation Updates

This chapter lists content changes for this document.

A.1 SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 15 SP0

A.1.1 November 2018

Chapter 28, Persistent Memory

New chapter introducing and describing set up of Persistent Memory (Fate #326330).

Bugfixes

Adding drivers to /etc/dracut.conf.d/01-dist.conf overrides dracut default

settings (https://bugzilla.suse.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1112786 ).

A.1.2 September 2018

Bugfixes

Explained different locations for udev rule les and updated name of the default
rule le in Chapter  22, Dynamic Kernel Device Management with udev (https://bugzil-
la.suse.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1103082 ).

A.1.3 August 2018

Bugfixes

Fixed service name error in Section  13.5.2, “Creating “Drop-in” Files” (https://bugzil-
la.suse.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1102869 ).

Removed references to pure-ftpd . (https://bugzilla.suse.com/show_bug.c-

gi?id=1101631 )

485 SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 15 SP0 SLED 15

 Update zypper lifecycle example in Section 6.1.7, “Showing Life Cycle Information”
and refer to it in Section 23.4, “Patch Lifecycle” (https://bugzilla.suse.com/show_bug.c-
gi?id=1103089 ).

Corrected command and its man page reference in Section 13.6.2, “System Log” (https://
bugzilla.suse.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1104266 ).

486 August 2018 SLED 15

B An Example Network
This example network is used across all network-related chapters of the SUSE® Linux Enterprise
Desktop documentation.

487 SLED 15
C GNU Licenses
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mentation License version 1.2. The "Title Page" means, for a printed book, the title page itself, plus such following pages as
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488 SLED 15
 The author(s) and publisher(s) of the Document do not by this License give permission to use
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I. Preserve the section Entitled "History", Preserve its Title, and add to it an item
stating at least the title, year, new authors, and publisher of the Modified Version
as given on the Title Page. If there is no section Entitled "History" in the Document, 7. AGGREGATION WITH INDEPENDENT WORKS
create one stating the title, year, authors, and publisher of the Document as given
on its Title Page, then add an item describing the Modified Version as stated in A compilation of the Document or its derivatives with other separate and independent docu-
the previous sentence. ments or works, in or on a volume of a storage or distribution medium, is called an "aggregate"
if the copyright resulting from the compilation is not used to limit the legal rights of the com-
J. Preserve the network location, if any, given in the Document for public access to
pilation's users beyond what the individual works permit. When the Document is included in
a Transparent copy of the Document, and likewise the network locations given in
an aggregate, this License does not apply to the other works in the aggregate which are not
the Document for previous versions it was based on. These may be placed in the
themselves derivative works of the Document.
"History" section. You may omit a network location for a work that was published
at least four years before the Document itself, or if the original publisher of the If the Cover Text requirement of section 3 is applicable to these copies of the Document, then

version it refers to gives permission. if the Document is less than one half of the entire aggregate, the Document's Cover Texts
may be placed on covers that bracket the Document within the aggregate, or the electronic
K. For any section Entitled "Acknowledgements" or "Dedications", Preserve the Title equivalent of covers if the Document is in electronic form. Otherwise they must appear on
of the section, and preserve in the section all the substance and tone of each of the printed covers that bracket the whole aggregate.
contributor acknowledgements and/or dedications given therein.

L. Preserve all the Invariant Sections of the Document, unaltered in their text and 8. TRANSLATION
in their titles. Section numbers or the equivalent are not considered part of the
section titles. Translation is considered a kind of modification, so you may distribute translations of the

M. Delete any section Entitled "Endorsements". Such a section may not be included Document under the terms of section 4. Replacing Invariant Sections with translations requires

in the Modified Version. special permission from their copyright holders, but you may include translations of some
or all Invariant Sections in addition to the original versions of these Invariant Sections. You
N. Do not retitle any existing section to be Entitled "Endorsements" or to conflict in may include a translation of this License, and all the license notices in the Document, and
title with any Invariant Section. any Warranty Disclaimers, provided that you also include the original English version of this
O. Preserve any Warranty Disclaimers. License and the original versions of those notices and disclaimers. In case of a disagreement
between the translation and the original version of this License or a notice or disclaimer, the
If the Modified Version includes new front-matter sections or appendices that qualify as Se- original version will prevail.
condary Sections and contain no material copied from the Document, you may at your option
If a section in the Document is Entitled "Acknowledgements", "Dedications", or "History", the
designate some or all of these sections as invariant. To do this, add their titles to the list of
requirement (section 4) to Preserve its Title (section 1) will typically require changing the
Invariant Sections in the Modified Version's license notice. These titles must be distinct from
actual title.
any other section titles.
You may add a section Entitled "Endorsements", provided it contains nothing but endorse-
ments of your Modified Version by various parties--for example, statements of peer review
9. TERMINATION
or that the text has been approved by an organization as the authoritative definition of a
You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Document except as expressly pro-
standard.
vided for under this License. Any other attempt to copy, modify, sublicense or distribute the
You may add a passage of up to ve words as a Front-Cover Text, and a passage of up to 25
Document is void, and will automatically terminate your rights under this License. However,
words as a Back-Cover Text, to the end of the list of Cover Texts in the Modified Version. Only
parties who have received copies, or rights, from you under this License will not have their
one passage of Front-Cover Text and one of Back-Cover Text may be added by (or through
licenses terminated so long as such parties remain in full compliance.
arrangements made by) any one entity. If the Document already includes a cover text for the
same cover, previously added by you or by arrangement made by the same entity you are
acting on behalf of, you may not add another; but you may replace the old one, on explicit
permission from the previous publisher that added the old one.

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10. FUTURE REVISIONS OF THIS LICENSE

The Free Software Foundation may publish new, revised versions of the GNU Free Documen-
tation License from time to time. Such new versions will be similar in spirit to the present
version, but may differ in detail to address new problems or concerns. See http://www.gnu.org/
copyleft/ .
Each version of the License is given a distinguishing version number. If the Document specifies
that a particular numbered version of this License "or any later version" applies to it, you have
the option of following the terms and conditions either of that specified version or of any
later version that has been published (not as a draft) by the Free Software Foundation. If the
Document does not specify a version number of this License, you may choose any version ever
published (not as a draft) by the Free Software Foundation.

ADDENDUM: How to use this License for your documents

Copyright (c) YEAR YOUR NAME.

Permission is granted to copy, distribute
and/or modify this document
under the terms of the GNU Free
Documentation License, Version 1.2
or any later version published by the Free
Software Foundation;
with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover
Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts.
A copy of the license is included in the
section entitled “GNU
Free Documentation License”.

If you have Invariant Sections, Front-Cover Texts and Back-Cover Texts, replace the
“with...Texts.” line with this:

with the Invariant Sections being LIST

THEIR TITLES, with the
Front-Cover Texts being LIST, and with the
Back-Cover Texts being LIST.

If you have Invariant Sections without Cover Texts, or some other combination of the three,
merge those two alternatives to suit the situation.
If your document contains nontrivial examples of program code, we recommend releasing
these examples in parallel under your choice of free software license, such as the GNU General
Public License, to permit their use in free software.

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