There is a man page available, as there are for most command line tools, though the use of this tool is simple enough to describe here briefly. Simply decide what scheduled actions should be enabled for use by system administrators. The following options enable the various scheduled action modes:

Once a mode is set—and for many, mgr-actions-control --enable-all is common—your system is now ready for config management through SUSE Manager.

To list the configuration files for the machine and the labels of the config channels containing them, issue the command:

mgrcfg-client list

The output resembles the following list:

Config Channel File config-channel-17 /etc/example-config.txt config-channel-17 /var/spool/aalib.rpm config-channel-14 /etc/rhn/rhn.conf

These are the configuration files that apply to your system. However, there may be duplicate files present in the other channels. For example, issue the following command:

mgrcfg-manager list config-channel-14

and observe the following output:

Files in config channel 'config-channel-14' /etc/example-config.txt /etc/rhn/rhn.conf

You may then wonder where the second version of /etc/example-config.txt went. The rank of the /etc/example-config.txt file in config-channel-17 was higher than that of the same file in config-channel-14. As a result, the version of the configuration file in config-channel-14 is not deployed for this system, although the file still resides in the channel. The mgrcfg-client command does not list the file because it will not be deployed on this system.

To download the most relevant configuration file for the machine, issue the command:

mgrcfg-client get /etc/example-config.txt

You should see output resembling:

Deploying /etc/example-config.txt 

You may then view the contents of the file with less or another pager. Note that the file is selected as the most relevant based upon the rank of the config channel containing it. This is accomplished within the Configuration tab of the System Details page. Refer to Section 3.4.2.9, “System Details” for instructions.

To view the labels and names of the config channels that apply to the system, issue the command:

mgrcfg-client channels

You should see output resembling:

Config channels: Label Name ----- ---- config-channel-17 config chan 2 config-channel-14 config chan 1 

The following table lists the options available for mgrcfg-client get:

To view the differences between the config files deployed on the system and those stored by SUSE Manager, issue the command:

mgrcfg-client diff

The output resembles the following:

--- /tmp/@3603.0.rhn-cfg-tmp 2004-01-13 14:18:31.000000000 -0500
+++ /etc/example-config.txt 2003-12-16 21:35:32.000000000 -0500
@@ -1,3 +1,5 @@
+additional text 

In addition, you may include the --topdir option to compare config files with those located in an arbitrary (and unused) location on the client system, like so:

# mgrcfg-client diff --topdir /home/test/blah/
/usr/bin/diff: /home/test/blah/etc/example-config.txt: No such file or directory
/usr/bin/diff: /home/test/blah/var/spool/aalib.rpm: No such file or directory 

To quickly determine if client configuration files are different than those associated with it via SUSE Manager, issue the command:

mgrcfg-client verify

The output resembles the following:

modified /etc/example-config.txt /var/spool/aalib.rpm 

The file example-config.txt is locally modified, while aalib.rpm is not.

The following table lists the options available for mgrcfg-client verify:

To create a config channel for your organization, issue the command:

mgrcfg-manager create-channel channel-label

If prompted for your SUSE Manager username and password, provide them.

Once you have created a config channel, use the remaining modes listed above to populate and maintain that channel.

To add a file to a config channel, specify the channel label as well as the local file to be uploaded, such as:

mgrcfg-manager add --channel=channel-label /path/to/file

In addition to the required channel label and the path to the file, you may use the available options for modifying the file during its addition. For instance, you may alter the path and file name by including the --dest-file option in the command, like:

mgrcfg-manager add --channel=channel-label--dest-file=/new/path/to/file.txt /path/to/file

The output resembles the following:

Pushing to channel example-channel Local file >/path/to/file -> remote file /new/path/to/file.txt 

The following table lists the options available for mgrcfg-manager add:

By default, the maximum file size for confiugration files is 128KB. If you need to change that value, find or create the following line in the /etc/rhn/rhn.conf file: web.maximum_config_file_size=128 Change the value from 128 to whatever limit you want in bytes.

To view the differences between the config files on disk and the latest revisions in a channel, issue the command:

mgrcfg-manager diff --channel=channel-label --dest-file=/path/to/file.txt \
/local/path/to/file

You should see output resembling:

/tmp/dest_path/example-config.txt /home/test/blah/hello_world.txt
--- /tmp/dest_path/example-config.txt config_channel: example-channel revision: 1
+++ /home/test/blah/hello_world.txt 2003-12-14 19:08:59.000000000 -0500
@@ -1 +1 @@
-foo
+hello, world 

The following table lists the options available for mgrcfg-manager diff:

To compare different versions of a file across channels and revisions, use the -r flag to indicate which revision of the file should be compared and the -n flag to identify the two channels to be checked. Refer to Section A.3.11, “Determining the Number of File Revisions” for related instructions. Specify only one file name here, since you are comparing the file against another version of itself. For example:

mgrcfg-manager diff-revisions -n=channel-label1-r=1-n=channel-label2-r=1/path/to/file.txt

The output resembles the following:

--- /tmp/dest_path/example-config.txt 2004-01-13 14:36:41 \ config channel: example-channel2 revision: 1
--- /tmp/dest_path/example-config.txt 2004-01-13 14:42:42 \ config channel: example-channel3 revision: 1
@@ -1 +1,20 @@
-foo
+blaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah
+-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
+Version: GnuPG v1.0.6 (GNU/Linux)
+Comment: For info see http://www.gnupg.org
+
+iD8DBQA9ZY6vse4XmfJPGwgRAsHcAJ9ud9dabUcdscdcqB8AZP7e0Fua0NmKsdhQCeOWHX
+VsDTfen2NWdwwPaTM+S+Cow=
+=Ltp2
+-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

The following table lists the options available for mgrcfg-manager diff-revisions:

To download all the files in a channel to disk, create a directory and issue the following command:

mgrcfg-manager download-channel channel-label --topdir . 

The output resembles the following:

Copying /tmp/dest_path/example-config.txt -> \ blah2/tmp/dest_path/example-config.txt 

The following table lists the options available for mgrcfg-manager download-channel:

To direct the contents of a particular file to stdout, issue the command:

mgrcfg-manager get --channel=channel-label \
/tmp/dest_path/example-config.txt 

You should see the contents of the file as output.

To list all the files in a channel, issue the command:

mgrcfg-manager list channel-label

You should see output resembling:

Files in config channel `example-channel3': /tmp/dest_path/example-config.txt 

The following table lists the options available for mgrcfg-manager get:

To list all of your organization's configuration channels, issue the command:

mgrcfg-manager list-channels 

The output resembles the following:

Available config channels: example-channel example-channel2 example-channel3 config-channel-14 config-channel-17 

Note that this does not list local_override or server_import channels.

To remove a file from a channel, issue the command:

mgrcfg-manager remove --channel=channel-label /tmp/dest_path/example-config.txt

If prompted for your SUSE Manager username and password, provide them.

The following table lists the options available for mgrcfg-manager remove:

To destroy a config channel in your organization, issue the command:

mgrcfg-manager remove-channel channel-label 

The output resembles the following:

Removing config channel example-channel Config channel example-channel removed 

To find out how many revisions (revisions go from 1 to N where N is an integer greater than 0) of a file/path are in a channel, issue the following command:

mgrcfg-manager revisions channel-label /tmp/dest_path/example-config.txt 

The output resembles the following:

Analyzing files in config channel example-channel \
/tmp/dest_path/example-config.txt: 1 

To create a new revision of a file in a channel (or add the first revision to that channel if none existed before for the given path), issue the following command:

mgrcfg-manager update \
--channel=channel-label \
--dest-file=/path/to/file.txt /local/path/to/file

The output resembles the following:

Pushing to channel example-channel: Local file example-channel/tmp/dest_path/example-config.txt -> \ remote file /tmp/dest_path/example-config.txt 

The following table lists the options available for mgrcfg-manager update:

To upload multiple files to a config channel from local disk at once, issue the command:

mgrcfg-manager upload-channel --topdir=topdir channel-label

The output resembles the following:

Using config channel example-channel4 Uploading /tmp/ola_world.txt from blah4/tmp/ola_world.txt 

The following table lists the options available for mgrcfg-manager upload-channel: