## Appendix D. About SUSE Manager and Spacewalk¶

SUSE® Manager' main purpose is to efficiently manage a set of Linux systems and keep them up-to-date. You can register both SUSE® Linux Enterprise and Red Hat Enterprise Linux client systems with the SUSE Manager server.

SUSE Manager is based on the Spacewalk project, http://spacewalk.redhat.com/. This allows for seamless migration when switching from Red Hat Network Satellite or a Spacewalk server to SUSE Manager. Both user experience and tools are mostly unchanged, which means that you can use the known commands and the scripts that may already exist on your side.

However, as SUSE Manager is deployed as an appliance based on SUSE Linux Enterprise, some differences exist with regards to environments and tools:

Reporting and Downloading Software Packages

  Instead of connecting to Red Hat Network, SUSE Manager connects to Novell Customer Center (NCC) (http://www.novell/center) to receive updates or patches. NCC also provides the entitlements for enabling specific SUSE Manager functionality.

Automatic Deployment

  Automated installation on Red Hat Enterprise Linux client systems is done with Kickstart. For SUSE Linux Enterprise client systems, SUSE Manager uses AutoYaST.

Software Management

  Is done with yum on Red Hat Enterprise Linux client systems. For SUSE Linux Enterprise client systems, SUSE Manager uses zypper.

Command Line Tools

  The Spacewalk command line tools also work for SUSE Manager. Additionally, symbolic links have been added for a number of commands. For example, rhn-profile-sync is also available as mgr-profile-sync.

Package Names

  Some SUSE Manager package names are different from the original Spacewalk ones.