SUSe 9.3 behind corporate firewall - how do I manually update
 

I am a newbie to Linux.

I have installed Suse 9.3 from 5 CDs onto a DELL GX270 as a dual boot with Windows XPpro; XP was installed first and I let Suse install itself with the defaults; I have no printed/written manuals, just the five Suse CDs.

I would like to keep the installation up-to-date but I am behind a corproate firewall and proxy that doesn't allow ftp traffic.

I have tried setting the software source under Yast for YOU to a local mirror (both ftp and http and with the SUSE proxy on and off; I have turned off the SUSE firewall) but this has failed with "Unable to create installation source".

I have found various web sites that have a directory structure for Suse 9.3 that may contain the required update files for 9.3 but I do not know:
a) what files to look for and
b) what to do with them after I download them to install them

Any help and/or direction will be appreciated.

Stephen Hicks

Stephen,

Have you tried running the online update from behind your firewall and choosing one of the http mirror sites? Only the main suse site uses FTP, the others are http (the downloaded files get "wrapped" in http headers so as far as your corporate firewall sees, they are web pages). For example, I use the site http://ftp.uni-bremen.de/pub/mirrors...suse.com/suse/ as my update source, although I'm not behind a corporate firewall so I can't say for sure it will work for you!

When you are "changing the source of update", I think all you are doing are changing the location to look for additional packages to install or reinstall, (i.e. the place that is looked at when you click on "Install and remove software"). This is not the same as the location for updates.

Hope this is useful,

Karl

Freelance Lecturer in Computer Science
Linconlshire England

Hi Karl,

Thanks for your help. This is what I did.

I opened YAST and selected Online Update and got a message saying "Getting a list of mirror servers...". This failed saying "Cannot fetch remote server list. Only user-defined patch sources will be available". I "ingore" this warning and proceed to enter the User-defined Installation source as you suggested using HTTP as the protocol. After a while of waiting I get "Couldn't connect to host".

BUT, if I enter the URL "http://ftp.uni-bremen.de/pub/mirrors/suse/ftp.suse.com/suse/" in the browser I go straight to it; no problem.

Am I missing something else in the configuration somewhere?

Hello Stephen Hicks

Have you clicked New Server on the YaST Online Update page, to create the source of installation ?
Don't type in directly the address, rather do :
New Server
select http protocol
enter the name of the server : ftp.uni-bremen.de (without slashes)
enter the directory : pub/mirrors/suse/ftp.suse.com/suse/ (without a slash at the beginning)
Confirm this by clicking the appropriate button

Check Manual Selection of packages (to have control over what will be upgraded)
and continue the procedure.
It should work.
Or so I hope for you
Bye.

Hi Karl,

I did exactly as you said and I still get "Couldn't connect to host".

I think that I have a network issue but I can still browse straight to the site with no problems ! If I try to use the proxy it bombs out instantly.

Do you know of a site the doesn't have "ftp" in the URL? Maybe the firewall is seeing the "ftp" and killing the session.

Thanks again for your help

Cheers,
Stephen

Hi Karl,

I got it working and here is how.

I went to a console screen and tried
ftp ftp.uni-bremen.de
and was successful in logging in anonymously which is strange as I thought that I would be blocked by the firewall. Anyway, I then went back to YAST and Online Update and re-entered the server but using FTP; this failed. So, instead of checking Anonymous I entered the anonymous details myself and I got a connection and am now updating my system.

From this I am assuming that somewhere my personal details as used by anonymous are not correct. Can you tell me where those details would be stored/entered?

Cheers,
Stephen

Run update with an http mirror like

http://mirrors.kernel.org/suse

You can manually select the source in the curses version of yast2. Type:

init 3

at a root console.

type:

yast2

Do an online update using the http mirror I gave you.

I don't know where the anonymous login details are stored, but they may be hardcoded? A lot of the YaST2 update configuration appears to be kept in /var/lib/YaST2/you, but I can't see any login details. For example, on my system the file /var/lib/YaST2/you/config contains:

LastServer="http://ftp.uni-bremen.de/pub/mirrors/suse/ftp.suse.com/suse/;Germany: University Bremen (http);"
LastServerType="remote"
LastUpdate="1129052954"

and the file youservers contains the list of servers that YaST offers.

If you use a http bases update source then there should not be a need for the anonymous login issue.

Glad you are getting updates anyway!

All the best,

Karl

Thanks to all who have helped me with this issue.