SLES 10 update - GA update

Among basic administration tasks of Linux system administration belongs its regular update. Each distribution has its own way how to perform it. Update of SLES 10 is not as straightforward as many of us expect so I decided to make a summary of this procedure.

I'll be doing it with rug command, not via graphical YaST. From SLES 10 SP1 you can use zypper command which is much faster than rug and it is fully independent of Novell Zenworks Linux Management Agent. If you don't use Novell Zenworks for managing your Linux systems then you can afford to disable zmd service and to use zypper tool only. To make the update more faster I'll be using local update server at URL ftp://suse.mydom.com (you can deploy your own with YUP - Yum Update Proxy).

Let's begin with initial installation of SLES 10 GA (particularly i386 platform but it's the same for the others).

1. First, identify the current system

   SPident
   
   CONCLUSION: System is up-to-date!
   found    SLES-10-i386-current

2. Subscribe to SLES 10 GA installation source (it may be required for dependencies during update)

   rug sa ftp://suse.mydom.com/install/i386/sles10 --type zypp online

3. Subscribe to SLES 10 update source

   rug sa ftp://suse.mydom.com/update/SLES10-Updates/sles-10-i586 --type yum update

4. Check subscribtions

   rug sl
   
   # | Status | Type | Name   | URI
   --+--------+------+--------+----------------------------------------------------
   1 | Active | ZYPP | online | ftp://suse.mydom.com/install/i386/sles10
   2 | Active | YUM  | update | ftp://suse.mydom.com/update/SLES10-Updates...

5. Check available catalogs

   rug ca
   
   Sub'd? | Name   | Service
   -------+--------+--------
         | update | update
         | online | online

6. Subscribe to the catalogs and check them

   rug sub update
   rug sub online
   rug ca
   
   Sub'd? | Name       | Service
   -------+------------+-----------
   Yes    | update     | update
   Yes    | online     | online

7. Update SLES 10 GA system

   rug up -y
   
   Resolving Dependencies...
   
   The following packages will be installed:
   apache2 2.2.3-16.2 (ftp://suse.mydom.com/update/SLES10-Updates/sles-10-i586)
   ...
   ...
   Downloading Packages...
   ...
   Transaction...
   ...
   Finishing...
   Transaction Finished

8. Check the version after update finished successfully

   SPident
   
   CONCLUSION: System is up-to-date!
   found    SLES-10-i386-current + "online updates"

Now, our SLES 10 system is ready for transition to Service Pack 1. Reboot the system before we proceed.