Update opensuse 11 without any internet connection?

[iamsiva]

Please let me know if I can update the OS (new security updates,patches etc also) on a system that ain't having any internet connection. Simply i would like to know if there is any packs like rpm/ tar files available, so that we can install the updates easily..I am using opensuse..

[oz]

Hello and welcome to the forums!

The majority of security updates that come out are intended for machines that are connected to the internet, so if your machine isn't connected to the net the security updates might not be as important to implement.

Otherwise, you should be able to use a computer that has an internet connection to download any packages that you want to install from the repositories along with any dependencies that aren't already installed on the target machine, then use YAST to install them.

You can check the following webpages for information regarding security updates:

Linux Security Advisories

openSUSE Mailinglist Archive: opensuse-security-announce

For additional mailing lists, check here:

openSUSE Mailinglist Archives

[whych]

If you arerunning 11.0, you should consider upgrading to at least 11.2. Update support for 11.0 has just ended.
To update offline, you need the contents of the update repo for your versin which you can find at: Index of /update

[iamsiva]

Thanks for the prompt response to both of you

I got the idea to some extend. Sorry to say, still I am bit confused as I am new to OpenSUSE. The scenario here needs some explanations, I think.

I am working in a software company. For our clients, we have given some devices and opensuse 11.1 linux systems to control that. Say the device is a camera. Each camera is having one computer with Opensuse11.1 The system connected the camera has some softwares to get the pictures and send it to a central server via GPRS. We need to update the OS of these systems (update means any new security updates, patches, stable versions of existing software etc). Usually for updating anything on these systems, we create a Remote Update Pack (a tar.gz file), and install it via SSH. The problem here is Online update is not practical as GPRS is very slow. Due to this, I asked earlier, if there any rpm/tar.gz file is available for update on offline systems, so that we can copy to each systems and install locally.

I have read about Yast Online Update, YUP and Subscription Management Tool etc. I think you got my concern. Any help would be appreciated.

[iamsiva]

If you arerunning 11.0, you should consider upgrading to at least 11.2. Update support for 11.0 has just ended.
To update offline, you need the contents of the update repo for your versin which you can find at:

Thanks for the very useful info.

So if I have all the contents of the above repo in my local system I can update the system,right? But I have one doubt. First of all I have to find what all the softwares are currently there in my system, right?Then I can download the updates of needed software?In short I have to find out the dependencies manually to do such update.

[whych]

Since the pcs you want to update are on a slow connection, the chances are that they will never be attacked from the network so many of the updates are irrelevant.
I would say that in your case you should run your own update repo server and let the remote machines get their updates from there. (Of course, disable all the other repos on the machines.)
It may be a bit more work, but then you can control which updates you need.

Of course, you have to decide which of the updates are needed in your update repo - which shouldn´t be too difficult if you are running an identical test machine and you are only getting minimal updates.

[iamsiva]

Hi whych,

Thanks for all your help.

I am concluding that if I want to update offline, i should either have a local update server or have to download the necessary updates manually after comparing with the existing softwares in the system.

At least, for the time being my problem resolved. Will revert you in case of any concerns.

Suggestions welcome

[iamsiva]

Hi folks,

Again some doubts..

Just want to know whether I can setup a local update server using an OpenSUSE 11.2 machine (or an ordinary OpenSUSE os,not SUSE Linux Enterprise Server). I seacrched over the internet about for a full day, but all results are mentioning about setting up the server using SLES. Any idea?

[D-cat]

Yes, as long as you install some type of file server daemon on the host machine (e.g. vsftpd), and you have the update server tree mirrored on the host machine, you are able to use the LAN to update another computer. Updates work through the repository system, which accepts HTTP(S), FTP, SaMBa, and NFS protocols. Oh, and using rsync, you can quickly keep your local mirror updated.

The updating computer doesn't care if it's a certain location on the internet, on the LAN, or a local directory (incl. DVD-R or ISO image) as long as the index matches the files present as expected in the relative tree. I used to use update DVD's regularly for computers that only had a dial-up connection and didn't want to spend hours at a time doing updates. I have done full install and update mirrors on LANs. It works pretty well and keeps the bandwidth down if you have several computers to update.

[iamsiva]

Can you please provide some help to mirror the update server and configure rsync on Opensuse11.2?Or any good links that explain step by step procedure.