Taking the plunge into SuSe Linux Enterprise Server 10

[Brazen]

Is it possible in SuSe to use a 3rd party repository to get updates after my 30-day trial with Novell expires?

I'm testing to see if I want to use this as a file server. My Debian file server has been great, but after an update admsnap stopped working. Admsnap is a utility from EMC that isn't supposed to work with Debian, but it is supported on SLES.

 

[Nothinman]

Is your Debian server running sid because right after etch a bunch of libc updates got pushed into sid?

And for free SuSE updates you'll probably need to run OpenSuSE.

 

[Brazen]

No I specified Etch in the apt sources. I hadn't done an upgrade since I put in the file server around December. I wanted to wait until etch was finalized. So last week I updated and then admsnap stopped working. I may just need to remove and reinstall admsnap from the original rpm.

I thought I would at least give SuSe a check since SLES would be supported by EMC (for the Clariion it connects to and uses admsnap), VMWare (running ESX), and covered under our Dell Gold Support (for the blade servers ESX runs on).

 

[Nothinman]

That's odd, I vaguely remember you posting about getting that tool to work and wasn't it a static binary?

 

[Brazen]

Originally posted by: Nothinman
That's odd, I vaguely remember you posting about getting that tool to work and wasn't it a static binary?

Yeah, I remember having a problem with it before, but I can't remember how I fixed it and searching for admsnap doesn't bring up anything in the forums (stupid broken search). I think it was still in testing and I may have just wiped everything and started over.

It's an rpm that I installed with alien and I don't know if all it does is drop a binary or if there is more to it.

First run with SLES, I tried doing everything the Yast GUI way. It had options for attaching to a Windows domain and sharing folders with samba. Unfortunately, I can browse to \\server and see the share, but I can not open the share. I get a permission denied. Not a big deal yet though, I'm going to go back over my old Debian notes and set it up the command line way.

 

[Brazen]

Ok, back to the original issue, which I discovered an answer to indirectly:

After Yast failed to create a working file server with AD authentication, I decided to get back to the comfort of the command line. First things first, I needed to figure out how to install a cli package manager (Yast worked good for installing software, but I gotta get things cozy, ya know). I'm fine with either yum or apt, but ended up with apt because I couldn't find any good yum repos.

So anyway, I _think_ all it took was (not sure cause I went on some wild goose chases):

wget http://ftp4.gwdg.de/pub/linux/suse/apt/...6/RPMS.base/apt-0.5.15cnc7-24.i586.rpm
wget http://ftp4.gwdg.de/pub/linux/suse/apt/...S.base/apt-libs-0.5.15cnc7-24.i586.rpm
rpm -Uvh apt-libs-0.5.15cnc7-24.i586.rpm
rpm -Uvh apt-0.5.15cnc7-24.i586.rpm

It even set up a working sources.list, but it gave some errors trying to update (unable to find mirrors) but I can probably get a better sources.list using netselect.

 

[Brazen]

Unfortunately, apt doesn't find 'aptitude.' Also, as for the Debian issue, removing and reinstalling admsnap did not work. I have put in a support request to EMC to see if they will help me fix it, even though Debian is not officially supported by their software.

 

[Brazen]

I found out Webmin does not work to well on SuSe. It lets you make changes, but for some reason changes are not saved on a reboot. I've also found out I can use yast from cli and I actually like it a bit better than the gui. I've also discovered how to install software with yast from the cli, but I have not found any repo mirrors to use. I've re-installed SuSe, leaving off all the X Server and Gnome, and am getting ready to config the samba text files now. Hopefully yast won't mess up my samba configuration since it seems to take over all configuration on reboot.

UPDATE: I don't think anyone cares, so I don't want to bump the thread, but if anyone reads this, just FYI: I was able to set up samba by editing the config files by hand and yast did not mangle samba on reboots. However, there was just an overall clunkyness to yast and SLES and I could never really get apt to work without errors. In the end, I went back to Redhat. CentOS 5 is working great so far. I just switched our production server last night, and so far everything has worked without a hitch. Admsnap is working, shadow_vol is working, authentication is working. It all good.