Novell LINUX ENTERPRISE 11 - SUBSCRIPTION MANAGEMENT TOOL GUIDE... User manual

SUSE Linux Enterprise
Point of Service
www.novell.com11
October02,2009 SUSE Linux Enterprise Point of Service Guide

SUSE Linux Enterprise Point of Service Guide
All content is copyright © 2006- 2009 Novell, Inc.
Legal Notice
This manual is protected under Novell intellectual property rights. By reproducing, duplicating or
distributing this manual you explicitly agree to conform to the terms and conditions of this license
agreement.
This manual may be freely reproduced, duplicated and distributed either as such or as part of a bundled
package in electronic and/or printed format, provided however that the following conditions are ful-
lled:
That this copyright notice and the names of authors and contributors appear clearly and distinctively
on all reproduced, duplicated and distributed copies. That this manual, specically for the printed
format, is reproduced and/or distributed for noncommercial use only. The express authorization of
Novell, Inc must be obtained prior to any other use of any manual or part thereof.
For Novell trademarks, see the Novell Trademark and Service Mark list http://www.novell
.com/company/legal/trademarks/tmlist.html. * Linux is a registered trademark of
Linus Torvalds. All other third party trademarks are the property of their respective owners. A trademark
symbol (®, ™ etc.) denotes a Novell trademark; an asterisk (*) denotes a third party trademark.
All information found in this book has been compiled with utmost attention to detail. However, this
does not guarantee complete accuracy. Neither Novell, Inc., SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, the authors,
nor the translators shall be held liable for possible errors or the consequences thereof.

Contents
About This Guide vii
1Product Overview 1
1.1 Architecture............................ 1
1.2 System Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.3 ServerTypes ........................... 5
1.4 Images ............................. 13
1.5 SUSE Linux Enterprise Point of Service Deployment . . . . . . . . . . 16
2SUSE Linux Enterprise Point of Service Installation 21
2.1 Installation During the Initial Installation Process . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
2.2 Installation On Top of an Already Installed System . . . . . . . . . . . 22
3Basic Conguration 25
3.1 Setting Up the Administration Server . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
3.2 Setting Up the Branch Server . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
3.3 Adding a Point of Service Terminal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
4Setting Up the Administration Server 35
4.1 Administration Server Conguration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
4.2 Initializing the LDAP Directory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
4.3 Creating An Ofine Installation Package . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
4.4 Creating Point of Service Images . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
4.5 Copying the Boot Image Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
4.6 Copying the System Image Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
4.7 What'sNext........................... 45

5Setting Up a Dedicated Image Building Server 47
6Setting Up a Branch Server 49
6.1 Conditions to Congure a Branch Server . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
6.2 Online Branch Server Conguration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
6.3 Ofine Branch Server Conguration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
6.4 Creating Branch Server Objects in LDAP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
6.5 Downloading Images from the Administration Server . . . . . . . . . . 64
6.6 Starting the Core Script . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
7Deploying Point of Service Terminals 67
7.1 OperatingSystem......................... 67
7.2 Conditions to Add a Point of Service Terminal . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
7.3 Creating Point of Service Images . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
7.4 Creating the Required LDAP Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
7.5 Distributing Images to Point of Service Terminals . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
7.6 Hardware............................ 92
7.7 Point of Service Conguration Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
7.8 Booting the Point of Service Terminal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
8Securing Your Setup 111
8.1 Physical Server Security . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
8.2 NetworkSecurity........................ 112
8.3 DataSecurity.......................... 113
8.4 Application Security . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
9Testing Your SUSE Linux Enterprise Point of Service Environment 117
9.1 Monitoring the Terminal Bootup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
9.2 Troubleshooting Terminal Bootup Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
10 The SUSE Linux Enterprise Point of Service LDAP Directory 121
10.1 Logical Structure of the LDAP Directory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
10.2 Using posAdmin to Manage the LDAP Directory . . . . . . . . . . . 128
10.3 LDAP Objects Reference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
11 Managing Image Source Files 151
11.1 POSCDTool Command Line Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
11.2 POSCopyTool Command Line Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156
11.3 Managing the Image Source Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158

12 Building Images with the Image Creator Tool 163
12.1 Creating an Image Based on Template . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
12.2 Building Network Boot Images . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166
12.3 Building Bootable CD Images with a System Image . . . . . . . . . . 167
12.4 Building Bootable CD Images without a System Image . . . . . . . . . 168
12.5 Building USB Stick Images with a System Image . . . . . . . . . . . . 168
12.6 Adding Installable Documentation in RPM Format . . . . . . . . . . . 169
12.7 Image Conguration Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170
13 Building Images with KIWI 173
13.1 Understanding the KIWI Conguration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174
13.2 Preparing the Image Conguration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178
13.3 Creating the KIWI Image . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180
13.4 Building Customized SUSE Linux Enterprise Point of Service Images . . . 181
13.5 Deploying KIWI Images . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183
14 Remotely Managing Point of Service Terminals with admind and adminc
185
14.1 admind............................. 185
14.2 adminc............................. 187
14.3 posGetIP............................ 188
14.4 Installing admind on a Point of Service Terminal . . . . . . . . . . . 189
14.5 Installing the admind Client on Administration and Branch Servers . . . 191
15 Backup and Restore 193
15.1 Ofine Physical Backup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193
15.2 Ofine Logical Backup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194
15.3 OnlineBackup.......................... 194
15.4 RestoringData.......................... 195
16 Troubleshooting 197
16.1 Server Infrastructure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197
16.2 Operation ........................... 199
AChanging the Server Language 203
A.1 Changing the Language Selection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203
A.2 Installing a Language RPMs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203

BPoint of Service Scripts 205
B.1 Overview............................ 205
B.2 Core Script Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206
B.3 Script Quick Reference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208
CSUSE Linux Enterprise Point of Service Files and Directory Structure
219
C.1 Administration Server Directory Structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219
C.2 Branch Server Directory Structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223
C.3 KIWI Files and Directory Structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 226

About This Guide
This guide contains instructions on how to install, manage and deploy SUSE® Linux
Enterprise Point of Service. Learn which components constitute a SUSE Linux Enterprise
Point of Service environment and how to congure the individual servers and terminals.
The guide is intended mainly for system administrators.
Many chapters in this manual contain links to additional documentation resources.
These include additional documentation that is available on the system, as well as
documentation available on the Internet.
For an overview of the documentation available for your product (and the latest docu-
mentation updates), refer to http://www.novell.com/documentation or to
the following section.
1 Available Documentation
We provide HTML and PDF versions of our books in different languages.
Find HTML versions of most product manuals in your installed system under /usr/
share/doc/manual or in the help centers of your desktop. Find the latest documen-
tation updates at http://www.novell.com/documentation where you can
download PDF or HTML versions of the manuals for your product.
For more information on the underlying operating system, refer to the SUSE Linux
Enterprise Server documentation, available from http://www.novell.com/
documentation/sles11/.
For information on securing your applications using AppArmor, refer to the Security
Guide, available from http://www.novell.com/documentation/sles11/.
For an introduction to setting up High Availability environments with SUSE Linux
Enterprise, refer to the High Availability Guide, available from http://www.novell
.com/documentation/sles11/.

2 Feedback
Several feedback channels are available:
• To report bugs for a product component or to submit enhancement requests, please
use https://bugzilla.novell.com/. If you are new to Bugzilla, you
might nd the Bug Writing FAQs helpful, available from the Novell Bugzilla home
page.
• We want to hear your comments and suggestions about this manual and the other
documentation included with this product. Please use the User Comments feature
at the bottom of each page of the online documentation and enter your comments
there.
3 Documentation Conventions
The following typographical conventions are used in this manual:
•/etc/passwd: directory names and lenames
•placeholder: replace placeholder with the actual value
•PATH: the environment variable PATH
•ls,--help: commands, options, and parameters
•user: users or groups
•Alt,Alt +F1: a key to press or a key combination; keys are shown in uppercase as
on a keyboard
•File,File >Save As: menu items, buttons
•Dancing Penguins (Chapter Penguins, ↑Another Manual): This is a reference to a
chapter in another manual.
viii SUSE Linux Enterprise Point of Service Guide

1
Product Overview
SUSE® Linux Enterprise Point of Service is a secure and reliable Linux platform opti-
mized for enterprise retail organizations. Built on the solid foundation of SUSE® Linux
Enterprise, it is the only enterprise-class Linux operating system tailored specically
for retail Point of Service terminals, kiosks, self-service systems, and reverse-vending
systems.
This section provides an architectural overview of the SUSE Linux Enterprise Point of
Service product, along with an overview of server types, images, and the deployment
process.
1.1 Architecture
The SUSE Linux Enterprise Point of Service architecture consists of one centralized
Administration Server, one or more Branch Servers, and Point of Service terminals.
These can be standard PCs running retail check-out applications or specialized point-
of-sale machines such as cash registers and customer kiosks (see Figure 1.1, “SUSE
Linux Enterprise Point of Service System Architecture” (page 2)). Find a list of system
requirements for the individual components in Section 1.2, “System Requirements”
(page 3) and an overview of the different server types and their functions in Section 1.3,
“Server Types” (page 5).
Product Overview 1

Figure 1.1 SUSE Linux Enterprise Point of Service System Architecture
All system information (system structure, image information, the conguration and
deployment method for each Branch Server and Point of Service terminal, etc.) is stored
in an LDAP database on the Administration Server (which may be replicated on Branch
Servers). The Administration Server usually also holds the master repository for the
images required to boot and congure Point of Service terminals and provides the
utilities required to build those images.
NOTE: Creating a Dedicated Image Building Server
However, if you have a large system and want to ofoad the image building
function from the Administration Server, you can also set up a dedicated Image
Building Server. For more information, see Chapter 4, Setting Up the Adminis-
tration Server (page 35) or Chapter 5, Setting Up a Dedicated Image Building
Server (page 47).
Triggered by the possyncimages.pl script (see Section B.3.9, “possyncimages.pl”
(page 217), each Branch Server downloads the system information and images required
for its local Point of Service terminals from the Administration Server. The Point of
Service terminals, in turn, download their respective images from the Branch Server
when they boot.
2SUSE Linux Enterprise Point of Service Guide