This group of modules is designed to help you manage your system. All modules in this group are system-related and serve as valuable tools for ensuring that your system runs properly and your data is managed efficiently.
![]() | IBM System z: Continuing |
---|---|
For IBM System z, continue with Section 7.5.4, “Boot Loader Configuration”. |
Create a backup of both your
system and data using /etc
or the directories
under /home
.
With
+ , restore your system from a backup archive created with . First, specify where the archives are located (removable media, local hard disks, or network file systems). Click to view the description and contents of the individual archives and select what to restore from the archives.You can also uninstall packages that were added since the last backup and reinstall packages that were deleted since the last backup. These two steps enable you to restore the exact system state at the time of the last backup.
![]() | System Restoration |
---|---|
Because this module normally installs, replaces, or uninstalls many packages and files, use it only if you have experience with backups. Otherwise you may lose data. |
![]() | IBM System z: System Repair |
---|---|
The procedure described in the following section does not apply to IBM System z platforms. |
Create boot and rescue disks with
+ . These floppy disks are helpful if the boot configuration of your system is damaged. The rescue disk is especially necessary if the file system of the root partition is damaged.The following options are available:
Use this option to create the standard boot floppies with which to boot an installed system. Depending on the architecture, the actual number of boot disks may vary, but you should create all the boot disks presented in the dialog because all these disks are necessary for booting. They are also needed for starting the rescue system.
This disk contains a special environment that allows you to perform maintenance tasks in your installed system, such as checking and repairing the file system and updating the boot loader. To start the rescue system, boot with the standard boot disks then select
+ + . Insert the rescue disk when prompted.Use this to write any existing floppy disk image from the hard disk to a floppy disk.
With this, enter a URL and authentication data to download a floppy disk image from the Internet.
To create one of these floppy disks, select the corresponding option and click
. Insert a floppy disk when prompted. Click again to create the floppy disk.To configure booting for systems installed on your computer, use the Section 21.3, “Configuring the Boot Loader with YaST”.
+ module. A detailed description of how to configure the boot loader with YaST is available inInformation about Heartbeat and high availability configuration with YaST are provided in Chapter 13, Installing a Heartbeat 2 Cluster Using YaST and Chapter 12, High Availability under Linux.
The logical volume manager (LVM) is a tool for custom partitioning of hard disks with logical drives. Find information about LVM in Section 6.1, “LVM Configuration”.
The enterprise volume management system (EVMS) is, like LVM, a tool for custom partitioning and grouping of hard disks into virtual volumes. It is flexible, extensible, and can be tailored using a plug-in model to individual needs of various volume management systems.
EVMS is compatible with existing memory and volume management systems, like DOS, Linux LVM, GPT (GUID partition table), IBM System z, Macintosh, and BSD partitions. More information is provided at http://evms.sourceforge.net/.
With the expert dialog, shown in Figure 7.4, “The YaST Partitioner”, manually modify the partitioning of one or several hard disks. Partitions can be added, deleted, resized, and edited. Also access the soft RAID, EVMS, and LVM configuration from this YaST module.
![]() | Warning |
---|---|
Although it is possible to modify the partitions in the installed system, this should be handled only by experts. Otherwise the risk of making a mistake that causes data loss is very high. If you repartition a hard disk in use, reboot the system right afterwards. It is safer to use the rescue system than repartition the system while running. |
![]() | IBM System z: Device Names |
---|---|
IBM System z recognize only DASD and SCSI hard disks. IDE hard disks
are not supported. This is why these devices appear in the partition table
as |
All existing or suggested partitions on all connected hard disks are
displayed in the list of the YaST /dev/hda
or
/dev/sda
(or
/dev/dasda
). Partitions are
listed as parts of these devices, such as /dev/hda1
or
/dev/sda1
(or
/dev/dasda1
, respectively). The size, type,
file system, and mount point of the hard disks and their partitions are also
displayed. The mount point describes where the partition appears in the
Linux file system tree.
If you run the expert dialog during installation, any free hard disk space is also listed and automatically selected. To provide more disk space to SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, free the needed space starting from the bottom toward the top of the list (starting from the last partition of a hard disk toward the first). For example, if you have three partitions, you cannot use the second exclusively for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server and retain the third and first for other operating systems.
Select Section 3.9.1.1, “Partition Types”).
. If several hard disks are connected, a selection dialog appears in which to select a hard disk for the new partition. Then specify the partition type (primary or extended). Create up to four primary partitions or up to three primary partitions and one extended partition. Within the extended partition, create several logical partitions (seeSelect the file system to use and a mount point, if necessary. YaST suggests a mount point for each partition created. Details of the parameters are provided in the next section. Select
to apply your changes. The new partition is then listed in the partition table. If you click , the current values are adopted. During installation you are then returned to the suggestion screen.When you create a new partition or modify an existing partition, set various parameters. For new partitions, suitable parameters are set by YaST and usually do not require any modification. To make manual settings, proceed as follows:
Select the partition.
Click
to edit the partition and set the parameters:Even if you do not want to format the partition at this stage, assign it a file system ID to ensure that the partition is registered correctly. Possible values include , , , , and . For LVM and RAID details, refer to Section 6.1, “LVM Configuration” and Section 6.2, “Soft RAID Configuration”.
To format the partition immediately within the scope of the installation, specify one of the following file systems for the partition: Chapter 26, File Systems in Linux for details on the various file systems.
, , , , or . Refer toSet various parameters for the selected file system here.
If you activate the encryption, all data is written to the hard disk in encrypted form. This increases the security of sensitive data, but slightly reduces the system speed, because the encryption takes some time. More information about the encryption of file systems is provided in Chapter 48, Encrypting Partitions and Files.
Here, specify various parameters for the administration file of the
file systems (/etc/fstab
). For example,
change the file system identification from the device name, which is
default, to a volume label. In the volume label, you can use all
characters except / and space.
Specify the directory at which the partition should be mounted in the file system tree. Select from various YaST proposals or enter any other name.
Select
to activate the partition.If you partition manually, create a swap partition of at least 256 MB. The swap partition is used to free the main memory of data that is not used at the present moment. This keeps the main memory free for the most frequently-used data.
opens a menu containing the following commands:
Rereads the partitioning from disk. For example, you need this after manual partitioning in the text console.
This completely overwrites the old partition table. For example, this can be helpful if you have problems with unconventional disk labels. Using this method, all data on the hard disk is lost.
If the partitioning is performed by YaST and other partitions are detected
in the system, these partitions are also entered in the file
/etc/fstab
to enable easy access to this data. This file contains all
partitions in the system with their properties, such as the file system,
mount point, and user permissions.
Example 7.1. /etc/fstab: Partition Data
/dev/sda1 /data1 auto noauto,user 0 0 /dev/sda5 /data2 auto noauto,user 0 0 /dev/sda6 /data3 auto noauto,user 0 0
The partitions, regardless of whether they are Linux or FAT partitions, are
specified with the options noauto
and
user
. This allows any user to mount or unmount these
partitions as needed. For security reasons, YaST does not automatically
enter the exec
option here, which is needed for executing
programs from the location. However, to run programs from there, you can
enter this option manually.
This measure is necessary if you encounter system messages
such as bad interpreter or Permission denied.
From the expert partitioner, access the LVM configuration with Section 6.1, “LVM Configuration”). However, if a working LVM configuration already exists on your system, it is automatically activated as soon as you enter the LVM configuration for the first time in a session. In this case, any disks containing a partition belonging to an activated volume group cannot be repartitioned because the Linux kernel cannot reread the modified partition table of a hard disk when any partition on this disk is in use. However, if you already have a functioning LVM configuration on your system, physical repartitioning should not be necessary. Instead, change the configuration of the logical volumes.
(see
At the beginning of the physical volumes (PVs), information about the volume
is written to the partition. To reuse such a partition for other non-LVM
purposes, it is advisable to delete the beginning of this volume. For
example, in the VG system
and PV
/dev/sda2
, do this with the command
dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda2 bs=512
count=1
.
![]() | File System for Booting |
---|---|
The file system used for booting (the root file system or
|
![]() | IBM System z: Continuing |
---|---|
For IBM System z, continue with Section 7.5.13, “System Services (Runlevel)”. |
Each kernel driver contains a list of device IDs of all devices it supports. If a new device is not in any driver's database, the device is treated as unsupported, even if it can be used with an existing driver. With this YaST module from
section, you can add PCI IDs. Only advanced users should attempt to use this YaST module.To add an ID, click
and select how to assign it: by selecting a PCI device from a list or by manually entering PCI values. In the first option, select the PCI device from the provided list then enter the driver or directory name. If the directory is left empty, the driver name is used as the directory name. When assigning PCI ID values manually, enter the appropriate data to set up a PCI ID. Click to save your changes.To edit a PCI ID, select the device driver from the list and click
. Edit the information and click to save your changes. To delete an ID, select the driver and click . The ID immediately disappears from the list. When finished, click .Powertweak is a SUSE Linux utility for tweaking your system to peak performance by tuning some kernel and hardware configurations. It should be used only by advanced users. After starting it with
+ , it detects your system settings and lists them in tree form in the left frame of the module. You can also use to find a configuration variable. Select the option to tweak to display it on the screen along with its directory and settings. To save the settings, click then confirm it by clicking .Create, manage, and switch among system configurations with
+ , the YaST system configuration profile management (SCPM) module. This is especially useful for mobile computers that are used in different locations (in different networks) and by different users. Nevertheless, this feature is useful even for stationary machines, because it enables the use of various hardware components or test configurations.Configure runlevels and the services that start in them with Section 20.2.3, “Configuring System Services (Runlevel) with YaST”.
+ . For more information about the runlevels in SUSE Linux Enterprise and a description of the YaST runlevel editor, refer to
The directory /etc/sysconfig
contains the files
with the most important settings for SUSE Linux Enterprise. Use
+
to modify the values and save them
to the individual configuration files. Generally,
manual editing is not necessary, because the files are automatically
adapted when a package is installed or a service is configured. More
information about /etc/sysconfig
and the YaST sysconfig editor is available in
Section 20.3.1, “Changing the System Configuration Using the YaST sysconfig
Editor”.
The time zone is initially set during installation, but you can change it with
+ . Also use this to change the current system date and time.To change the time zone, select the region in the left column and the location or time zone in the right column. With
, set whether the system clock should use or (Coordinated Universal Time). is often used in Linux systems. Machines with additional operating systems, such as Microsoft Windows, mostly use local time.Set the current system time and date with
. In the dialog that opens, modify the time and date by entering new values or adjusting them with the arrow buttons. Press to save the changes.The primary and secondary languages for your system are set during installation. However, they can be changed at any time using
+ . The primary language set in YaST applies to the entire system, including YaST and the desktop environment. This is the language you expect to use most of the time. Secondary languages are languages that are sometimes needed by users for a variety of purposes, such as desktop language or word processing.Select the main language to use for your system in
. To adjust the keyboard or time zone to this setting, enable or .
Set how locale variables are set for the root
user with
. Also use to set the
primary language to a
dialect not available in the main list.
These settings are written into the file
/etc/sysconfig/language
.