SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 Covers a Lot of Ground
by Jason Brooks
Host and Guest for Virtualization
SLES 11 offers install-time options for deploying virtualization guest or host systems, as well as for setting up regular bare-metal servers.
VM Manager
SLES 11 includes code from the Red Hat-driven virt-manager project for keeping tabs on virtual machines. The tool is appreciably more basic than the comparable virtualization tools from VMware or Citrix.
Installation Server
SLES 11 makes it fairly easy to configure an installation source that’s discoverable on one’s local network through SLP.
VM Install Tool
SLES 11’s VM creation tool, however, didn’t detect the service.
PolicyKit Configuration
I was able to delegate specific system rights, such as those for monitoring VMs on a SLES host, with PolicyKit.
PolicyKit on SLES
When running SLES 11 in graphical mode as a limited rights user, PolicyKit prompted me for an administrative password before carrying out certain operations.
VM Install Snag
I ran into a snag while installing an rPath Mediawiki appliance under SLES 11’s Xen hypervisor.
Supportability
Novell has integrated into the system’s software management toolset information about the support level that customers can expect for the various components that ship with SLES 11.
Unsupported Experimental Features
The packages for experimentally offered SELinux and KVM functionality are marked as “unsupported,” while a package I installed from SLES sister distribution OpenSUSE was marked with a support level of “unknown.”
Supported Kernel Modules
I had to modify a configuration file to allow my SLES 11 test machines to use unsupported kernel modules.
