Patching method

The Fixlets for all SUSE content use zypper, the default package manager for SUSE Linux Enterprise. Zypper gives you more flexibility in terms of patch deployment and in providing results that are suitable for SUSE Linux Enterprise solutions. It uses a command-line interface and simplifies the process of installing, uninstalling, updating, and querying software packages. It is based on ZYpp, also known as libzypp. For more information about Zypper, see the documentation at http://www.suse.com or see the Novell Support website at https://www.novell.com/support/.

Zypper reduces dependency issues, improves performance, and is more reliable in terms of installing security patches. This method also allows you to use custom repositories for patching. For more information about custom repository support, see Custom repositories management.

Zypper utility configuration settings

The native tools sites use all the settings in /etc/zypp/zypp.conf.

The following Zypper configuration settings are set to values that come from another file, which is dynamically created during Fixlet execution:

• cachedir
• configdir
• metadatadir
• packagesdir
• reposdir
• repo.add.probe
• repo.refresh.delay
• solvfilesdir

Identifying file relevance with Native tools content

The native tools captures file relevance in the same way as EDR. Both methods check for the relevance clause exist lower version of a package, but not exist higher version of it. If both tools are applied to the same deployment, the relevance results are the same.