## Chapter 1. Conceptual Overview¶

SUSE Manager provides a solution to organizations requiring absolute control over and privacy of the maintenance and package deployment of their servers. It allows customers the greatest flexibility and power in keeping servers secure and updated.

Two types of SUSE Manager are available: One with a stand-alone database on a separate machine and one with an embedded database installed on the same machine as SUSE Manager. This guide describes the installation of both types of SUSE Manager.

Although the two types of SUSE Manager are functionally similar, some differences do exist. These variations are primarily isolated to hardware requirements, installation steps, and maintenance activities. They may also appear during troubleshooting. This guide identifies distinctions between the SUSE Manager types by marking the differing instructions as either Stand-Alone Database or Embedded Database.

SUSE Manager consists of the following components:

- Database — for the stand-alone, remote database, this may be the organization's existing database or, preferably, a separate machine. For a list of supported database versions, refer to the system requirements section. For the embedded database, the database comes bundled with SUSE Manager server and is installed on the same machine as SUSE Manager during the installation process.

- SUSE Manager — core “business logic” and entry point for the update agent running on client systems (either Red Hat Update Agent on Red Hat Enterprise Linux clients or zypper on SUSE Linux Enterprise clients). The SUSE Manager server also includes an Apache HTTP Server (serving XML-RPC requests).

- SUSE Manager Web interface — advanced system, system group, user, and channel management interface.

- RPM Repository — repository for default packages (and custom RPM packages identified by the organization).

- Management Tools:

  - Database and file system synchronization tools

  - RPM importing tools

  - Channel maintenance tools (Web-based)

  - Patch management tools (Web-based)

  - User management tools (Web-based)

  - Client system and system grouping tools (Web-based)

  - An update agent on the client systems

The update agent on the client systems must be reconfigured to retrieve updates from the organization's internal SUSE Manager server. After this one-time reconfiguration, client systems may retrieve updates locally using the update agent, or system administrators may schedule actions through the SUSE Manager website.

| Latest Updates on Client Systems
It is strongly recommended to install the latest system updates on any client system connected to SUSE Manager to ensure proper connectivity.

When a client requests updates, the organization's internal SUSE Manager server queries its database, authenticates the client system, identifies the updated packages available for the client system, and sends the requested RPMs back to the client system. Depending upon the client's preferences, the package may also be installed. If the packages are installed, the client system sends an updated package profile to the SUSE Manager database; those packages are removed from the list of outdated packages for the client.

The organization can configure the website for the SUSE Manager server to be accessible from the local area network only or from both the local area network and the Internet. Both setups allows full control over client systems, system groups, and users.

The SUSE Manager management tools are used to synchronize the SUSE Manager database and package repository with Novell Customer Center. The SUSE Manager import tool allows the system administrator to include custom RPM packages in the package repository.

SUSE Manager can be used in conjunction with a SUSE Manager Proxy Server to deliver a distributed, self-contained deployment for the organization. For example, an organization can maintain one SUSE Manager in a secure location. Any client systems with local network access to the SUSE Manager can connect to it. Other remote offices can maintain SUSE Manager proxy server installations that connect to the SUSE Manager server. The different locations inside the organization must be networked, but this can be a private network; an Internet connection is not required for any of the systems.

Figure 1.1. Using SUSE Manager and SUSE Manager Proxy Server Together

For an explanation of key terms in the SUSE Manager context, refer to Glossary (↑Reference Guide).