Linux Patch Management: Keeping Linux Systems Up To Date

Chapter 3. SUSE's Update Systems and rsync Mirrors

Just as Red Hat supports patch management systems suitable for one and many computers on a network, SUSE supports similar systems. We briefly explored how you can keep individual SUSE Linux Professional and Linux Enterprise Server systems up to date using YaST in Chapter 1, "Patch Management Systems." In this chapter, we'll explore the process in more detail.

Tip

If you want to know rsync, read this chapter, particularly section 3.2.2. The lessons there apply to copying a mirror from any rsync-capable update server.

As each version of SUSE Linux Professional becomes publicly available, you can update this distribution using public mirrors. While SUSE Linux Enterprise Server is not publicly available (except for limited evaluation copies), you can still download updates with an authorized subscription. After you've synchronized your updates, you can configure local updates from other SUSE systems on your LAN.

Novell has incorporated Linux update capabilities into its Zenworks Linux Management (ZLM) service. It's more flexible than one might think. You can install ZLM on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server or Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Unfortunately, a full description of how to use ZLM is well beyond the scope of this book.

Note

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server is Novell's subscription enterprise level distribution. SUSE Linux Professional Workstation is SUSE's workstation offering through version 9.3. Newer versions of SUSE for the workstation are known simply as SUSE Linux.

In this chapter, I'll examine the software update options associated with the SUSE Linux distributions. Next, you'll set up an update server for both the Professional and Server SUSE distributions. Finally, I'll examine how to get ZLM up and running on SUSE and Red Hat systems.