13 SUSE Manager Command Line Tools

There is a manpage available, as for most command line tools. First, decide which scheduled actions should be enabled for use by system administrators. The following options enable the various scheduled action modes:

Once a mode is set, your system is ready for configuration management through SUSE Manager. A common option is mgr-actions-control --enable-all.

To list the configuration files for the machine and the labels of the config channels containing them, issue the command:

mgrcfg-client list

The output resembles the following list ("DoFoS" is a shortcut for "D or F or S", which means "Directory", "File", or "Something else"(?)):

DoFoS   Config Channel      File
F      config-channel-17   /etc/example-config.txt
F      config-channel-17   /var/spool/aalib.rpm
F      config-channel-14   /etc/rhn/rhn.conf

These configuration files apply to your system. However, there may be duplicate files present in other channels. For example, issue the following command:

mgrcfg-manager list config-channel-14

and observe the following output:

Files in config channel 'config-channel-14'
/etc/example-config.txt /etc/rhn/rhn.conf

You may wonder why the second version of /etc/example-config.txt in config-channel-14 does not apply to the client system. The rank of the /etc/example-config.txt file in config-channel-17 was higher than that of the same file in config-channel-14. As a result, the version of the configuration file in config-channel-14 is not deployed for this system, therefore mgrcfg-client command does not list the file.

To download the most relevant configuration file for the machine, issue the command:

mgrcfg-client get /etc/example-config.txt

You should see output resembling:

Deploying /etc/example-config.txt

View the contents of the file with less or another pager. Note that the file is selected as the most relevant based on the rank of the config channel containing it. This is accomplished within the Configuration tab of the System Details page.

Refer to Section "System Details" (Chapter 4, Systems, User Guide) for instructions.

To view the labels and names of the config channels that apply to the system, issue the command:

mgrcfg-client channels

You should see output resembling:

Config channels:
Label                   Name
-----                   ----
config-channel-17       config chan 2
config-channel-14       config chan 1

The list of options available for mgrcfg-client get:

To view the differences between the config files deployed on the system and those stored by SUSE Manager, issue the command:

mgrcfg-client diff

The output resembles the following:

rhncfg-client diff
--- /etc/test
+++ /etc/test 2013-08-28 00:14:49.405152824 +1000
@@ -1 +1,2 @@
This is the first line
+This is the second line added

In addition, you can include the --topdir option to compare config files with those located in an arbitrary (and unused) location on the client system, like this:

# mgrcfg-client diff --topdir /home/test/blah/
/usr/bin/diff: /home/test/blah/etc/example-config.txt: No such file or directory
/usr/bin/diff: /home/test/blah/var/spool/aalib.rpm: No such file or directory

To quickly determine if client configuration files are different from those associated with it via SUSE Manager, issue the command:

mgrcfg-client verify

The output resembles the following:

modified /etc/example-config.txt /var/spool/aalib.rpm

The file example-config.txt is locally modified, while aalib.rpm is not.

The list of the options available for mgrcfg-client verify:

To create a config channel for your organization, issue the command:

mgrcfg-manager create-channel channel-label

If prompted for your SUSE Manager username and password, provide them. Once you have created a config channel, use the remaining modes listed above to populate and maintain that channel.

To add a file to a config channel, specify the channel label and the local file to be uploaded:

mgrcfg-manager add --channel=channel-label /path/to/file

In addition to the required channel label and the path to the file, you can use the available options for modifying the file during its addition. For instance, you can alter the path and file name by including the --dest-file option in the command:

mgrcfg-manager add --channel=channel-label \
  --dest-file=/new/path/to/file.txt/path/to/file

The output resembles the following:

Pushing to channel example-channel
Local file >/path/to/file -> remote file /new/path/to/file.txt

The list of options available for mgrcfg-manager add:

Tip: Max File size

By default, the maximum file size for configuration files is 128KB. If you need to change that value, find or create the following line in the /etc/rhn/rhn.conf file:

web.maximum_config_file_size=128

Change the value from 128 to whatever limit you need in kilobytes.

To view the differences between the config files on disk and the latest revisions in a channel, issue the command:

mgrcfg-manager diff --channel=channel-label --dest-file=/path/to/file.txt \
/local/path/to/file

You should see output resembling:

--- /tmp/dest_path/example-config.txt config_channel: example-channel revision: 1
+++ /home/test/blah/hello_world.txt 2003-12-14 19:08:59.000000000 -0500
@@ -1 +1 @@
-foo
+hello, world

The list of options available for mgrcfg-manager diff:

To compare different versions of a file across channels and revisions, use the -r flag to indicate which revision of the file should be compared and the -n flag to identify the two channels to be checked. Specify only one file name here since you are comparing the file against another version of itself. For example:

mgrcfg-manager diff-revisions -n=channel-label1 -r=1 \
  -n=channel-label2 -r=1 \
  /path/to/file.txt

The output resembles the following:

--- /tmp/dest_path/example-config.txt 2004-01-13 14:36:41 \
config channel: example-channel2 revision: 1
--- /tmp/dest_path/example-config.txt 2004-01-13 14:42:42 \
config channel: example-channel3 revision: 1
@@ -1 +1,20 @@
-foo
+blah
+-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
+Version: GnuPG v1.0.6 (GNU/Linux)
+Comment: For info see http://www.gnupg.org
+
+iD8DBQA9ZY6vse4XmfJPGwgRAsHcAJ9ud9dabUcdscdcqB8AZP7e0Fua0NmKsdhQCeOWHX
+VsDTfen2NWdwwPaTM+S+Cow=
+=Ltp2
+-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

The list of options available for mgrcfg-manager diff-revisions:

To download all the files in a channel to disk, create a directory and issue the following command:

mgrcfg-manager download-channel channel-label --topdir .

The output resembles the following:

Copying /tmp/dest_path/example-config.txt -> \
blah2/tmp/dest_path/example-config.txt

The list of options available for mgrcfg-manager download-channel:

To direct the contents of a particular file to stdout, issue the command:

mgrcfg-manager get --channel=channel-label \
/tmp/dest_path/example-config.txt

You should see the contents of the file as the output.

To list all the files in a channel, issue the command:

mgrcfg-manager list channel-label

You should see output resembling:

Files in config channel `example-channel3':
/tmp/dest_path/example-config.txt

The list of the options available for mgrcfg-manager get:

To list all of your organization’s configuration channels, issue the command:

mgrcfg-manager list-channels

The output resembles the following:

Available config channels:
example-channel example-channel2 example-channel3 config-channel-14 config-channel-17

Note

This does not list local_override or server_import channels.

To remove a file from a channel, issue the command:

mgrcfg-manager remove --channel=channel-label /tmp/dest_path/example-config.txt

If prompted for your SUSE Manager username and password, provide them.

The list of the options available for mgrcfg-manager remove:

To remove a config channel in your organization, issue the command:

mgrcfg-manager remove-channel channel-label

The output resembles the following:

Removing config channel example-channel
Config channel example-channel removed

To find out how many revisions (from 1 to N where N is an integer greater than 0) of a file/path are in a channel, issue the following command:

mgrcfg-manager revisions channel-label /tmp/dest_path/example-config.txt

The output resembles the following:

Analyzing files in config channel example-channel \
/tmp/dest_path/example-config.txt: 1

To create a new revision of a file in a channel (or to add the first revision to that channel if none existed before for the given path), issue the following command:

mgrcfg-manager update --channel=channel-label \
--dest-file=/path/to/file.txt /local/path/to/file

The output resembles the following:

Pushing to channel example-channel:
Local file example-channel /tmp/local/example-config.txt -> \
remote file /tmp/dest_path/example-config.txt

The list of the options available for mgrcfg-manager update:

To upload multiple files to a config channel from a local disk at once, issue the command:

mgrcfg-manager upload-channel --topdir=topdir channel-label

The output resembles the following:

Using config channel example-channel4
Uploading /tmp/ola_world.txt from blah4/tmp/ola_world.txt

The list of the options available for mgrcfg-manager upload-channel:

Depending on the database installed, smdba provides several subcommands:

backup-hot      Enable continuous archiving backup
backup-restore  Restore the SUSE Manager Database from backup.
backup-status   Show backup status.
db-start        Start the SUSE Manager Database.
db-status       Show database status.
db-stop         Stop the SUSE Manager Database.
space-overview  Show database space report.
space-reclaim   Free disk space from unused object in tables and indexes.
space-tables    Show space report for each table.
system-check    Common backend healthcheck.

For a list of available commands on your particular appliance, call smdba help. To display the help message for a specific subcommand, call smdba COMMAND help.

There are three commands to start, stop, or get the status of the database. Use the following commands:

# smdba db-status
Checking database core...       online
# smdba db-stop
Stopping the SUSE Manager database...
Stopping listener:     done
Stopping core:         done
# smdba db-status
Checking database core...       offline
# smdba db-start
Starting listener:     done
Starting core...       done