sapconf versus saptune - again

[scm]

After the blog post about 'sapconf 5' a few hours ago, I was asked by various people:

Shall we use 'sapconf 5' instead of 'saptune 2'?

Before rumors or confusion spread, let me clarify.

In short:

• If you have 'SUSE Linux Enterprise Server' only 'sapconf' is available.


• If you have 'SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications' you can choose between 'sapconf' and 'saptune', but...


• ...'saptune' is the more advanced tool and should be preferred!


• If you are using 'sapconf 4', update to 'sapconf 5' soon.


• If you are using 'saptune', stay with 'saptune'!

 

And here a bit more details:

	sapconf 5	saptune 2
Available on SLES?	yes	no
Available on SLES for SAP Applications?	yes	yes
Does it implements entire SAP notes?	no	yes
Can I configure everything?	yes	yes
Do I have a verify option?	no	yes
Does it rely on tuned?	no	yes1

¹ Only for starting the 'saptune' binary ('tuned' does no tuning itself). Like with 'sapconf 5' 'tuned' gets removed in one of the next versions.

No further major changes to 'sapconf' are planned so far. Removing 'tuned' was on our list for quiet some time.
Of cause it will maintained further, but it stays a simple tool, which just does needful things.

'Saptune' will go on and at the moment we are in development of the next version. Removing 'tuned' is - among other things - on the list.
If you have ideas to better 'saptune', now is a good time to step forward!

I hope the world of 'sapconf' and 'saptune' looks a bit clearer now!

[former_member188065]

I personally don't like saptune and not because of a lack of features.

I dislike getting dragged towards a 4SAP when it's not needed.

saptune would do fine on both SLES incarnations - it's kind of fishy to prevent it's use without technical need

[scm]

Saptune is a dedicated feature for SLES for SAP Applications to add value to that product. It is normal, that you have to invest more (e.g. money) to get more value. With your argument, we should put everything we have into SLES. That would obvious raise the price for subscriptions a lot and as a consequence  all the customers who don't need the now new extras would complain heavily, why they should pay for a lot of things, they don't need.

Anyway saptune is open source and you can use it. The "only" thing you loose is support for it, if not run on SLES for SAP Applications.

If features are missing, report them (to me, via support or your chosen SUSE representative). We have to know what is wanted and needed.

[former_member188065]

Thanks for getting back to me.

Obviously there is more then saptune that makes "SLES for SAP Applications" worth the extra money, given that there is a need for those features. Nobody would expect SuSe to give away the one face to the customer aproach, HA and long term support features (just to name some specials) for free.

Could you please help me out how to access saptune?
Does it need to become compiled or is there a repo with up to date binaries ready to use for the ordinary SLES?

Same question for sapconf 5:

What is the repository that holds the binaries?
I'm asking especially for older SP levels of SLES12

 

[scm]

The saptune and sapconf packages are both available in the normal OS repositories (Pool/Update). A simple 'zypper install ...'  should be install the tools (saptune of cause only on SLES for SAP Applications). If not, something with the registration or the repositories is wrong.

sapconf 5 is available for SLES 12 SP2 onwards (The latest version 5.0.2 for SP3 onwards). Anything before SP3 is out of support (even LTSS).

The source code of saptune is available here: https://github.com/SUSE/saptune
It needs to be compiled (golang). At the end of the README page you find a link "Hints for development" which describes compiling saptune.

Sapconf you can find here: https://github.com/SUSE/sapconf/
Since it is based on bash, compiling is not required.

 

[former_member188065]

Could be something wrong here?

blox~ # zypper in sapconf

Refreshing service 'SUSE_Linux_Enterprise_Server_12_SP4_x86_64'.

Warning: The gpg key signing file 'repomd.xml' has expired.

  Repository:       SLES12-SP4-Pool

  Key Name:         SuSE Package Signing Key <build@suse.de>

  Key Fingerprint:  FEAB5025 39D846DB 2C0961CA 70AF9E81 39DB7C82

  Key Created:      Wed Dec  7 11:57:35 2016

  Key Expires:      Sun Dec  6 11:57:35 2020 (EXPIRED)

  Rpm Name:         gpg-pubkey-39db7c82-5847eb1f

Building repository 'SLES12-SP4-Pool' cache ......................................................................................................[done]

Retrieving repository 'SLES12-SP4-Updates' metadata ..............................................................................................[done]

Building repository 'SLES12-SP4-Updates' cache ...................................................................................................[done]

Loading repository data...

Reading installed packages...

Resolving package dependencies...



The following package is going to be upgraded:

  sapconf



1 package to upgrade.

Overall download size: 66.6 KiB. Already cached: 0 B. After the operation, 420.0 B will be freed.

Continue? [y/n/...? shows all options] (y):

Retrieving package sapconf-4.1.14-40.56.3.noarch                                                                   (1/1),  66.6 KiB ( 73.9 KiB unpacked)

Retrieving: sapconf-4.1.14-40.56.3.noarch.rpm ....................................................................................................[done]

Checking for file conflicts: .....................................................................................................................[done]

(1/1) Installing: sapconf-4.1.14-40.56.3.noarch ..................................................................................................[done]

Additional rpm output:

Updating /etc/sysconfig/sapnote-1680803...

Updating /etc/sysconfig/sapconf ...

File '/etc/systemd/logind.conf.d/sap.conf' already exists, nothing to do.

blox:~ # zypper lr

Repository priorities are without effect. All enabled repositories share the same priority.



# | Alias                                                                   | Name                         | Enabled | GPG Check | Refresh

--+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------+---------+-----------+--------

1 | SLES12-SP2-12.2-0                                                       | SLES12-SP2-12.2-0            | No      | ----      | ----

2 | SUSE_Linux_Enterprise_Server_12_SP4_x86_64:SLES12-SP4-Debuginfo-Pool    | SLES12-SP4-Debuginfo-Pool    | No      | ----      | ----

3 | SUSE_Linux_Enterprise_Server_12_SP4_x86_64:SLES12-SP4-Debuginfo-Updates | SLES12-SP4-Debuginfo-Updates | No      | ----      | ----

4 | SUSE_Linux_Enterprise_Server_12_SP4_x86_64:SLES12-SP4-Pool              | SLES12-SP4-Pool              | Yes     | (r ) Yes  | Yes

5 | SUSE_Linux_Enterprise_Server_12_SP4_x86_64:SLES12-SP4-Source-Pool       | SLES12-SP4-Source-Pool       | No      | ----      | ----

6 | SUSE_Linux_Enterprise_Server_12_SP4_x86_64:SLES12-SP4-Updates           | SLES12-SP4-Updates           | Yes     | (r ) Yes  | Yes

blox:~ # zypper se sapconf

Refreshing service 'SUSE_Linux_Enterprise_Server_12_SP4_x86_64'.

Loading repository data...

Reading installed packages...



S  | Name    | Summary                                          | Type

---+---------+--------------------------------------------------+-----------

i+ | sapconf | Kernel Parameter Initializiation for SAP Systems | package

   | sapconf | Kernel Parameter Initializiation for SAP Systems | srcpackage

blox:~ # zypper in sapconf

Refreshing service 'SUSE_Linux_Enterprise_Server_12_SP4_x86_64'.

Loading repository data...

Reading installed packages...

'sapconf' is already installed.

No update candidate for 'sapconf-4.1.14-40.56.3.noarch'. The highest available version is already installed.

Resolving package dependencies...



Nothing to do.

[scm]

It looks normal. Don't forget, that SLEs 12 SP4 is out of support since 30 June 2020. You need LTSS!

(https://www.suse.com/lifecycle/)

If you have LTSS you find sapconf 5 in the repositories:

sles12sp4:~ # zypper se -s sapconf

Refreshing service 'SUSE_Linux_Enterprise_Server_12_SP4_x86_64'.

Refreshing service 'SUSE_Linux_Enterprise_Server_LTSS_12_SP4_x86_64'.

Loading repository data...

Reading installed packages...



S | Name    | Type       | Version        | Arch   | Repository 

--+---------+------------+----------------+--------+------------------------

  | sapconf | package    | 5.0.2-40.65.1  | noarch | SLES12-SP4-LTSS-Updates

  | sapconf | package    | 5.0.1-40.62.1  | noarch | SLES12-SP4-LTSS-Updates

  | sapconf | package    | 5.0.0-40.59.2  | noarch | SLES12-SP4-LTSS-Updates

  | sapconf | package    | 4.1.14-40.56.3 | noarch | SLES12-SP4-Updates 

  | sapconf | package    | 4.1.13-40.53.1 | noarch | SLES12-SP4-Pool 

  | sapconf | srcpackage | 5.0.2-40.65.1  | noarch | SLES12-SP4-LTSS-Updates

  | sapconf | srcpackage | 5.0.1-40.62.1  | noarch | SLES12-SP4-LTSS-Updates

  | sapconf | srcpackage | 5.0.0-40.59.2  | noarch | SLES12-SP4-LTSS-Updates

  | sapconf | srcpackage | 4.1.14-40.56.3 | noarch | SLES12-SP4-Updates 

[matta1]

Just wondering how saptune is updated with newer OS recommendations ?

This note for BOBJ came out in 2019

2858388 - Servers appear to be stopped/restarting and scheduled jobs fail randomly on Linux/Unix

But I am am not convinced that has been covered under the saptune solution SAP_BOBJ.

current order of enabled notes is: 941735 1771258 1984787 2578899 SAP_BOBJ

 

We have recently patched saptune but seems to not be covered..

There is a note to address it manually under Red Hat but I was hoping that saptune would deliver updated values as they are required.

Matt

 

[scm]

We monitor the SAP Notes shipped with saptune for relevant changes and update regular.

The "Note" SAP_BOBJ references the chapter "Additional requirements for SUSE" of the "Business  Intelligence Platform Installation Guide for Unix" document.  (The comment in the configuration of that Note explains it: saptune note show SAP_BOBJ)

To get a Note (like 2858388) added to saptune, please open a SR or a SAP ticket (BC-OP-LNX-SUSE component) and after a review, we add them in one of the next versions (depends a bit, if additional coding is required).

This specific Note has no clear recommendation which value to set and which users should be affected. If we ship it, the value would be empty and would need to be configured first.

This can done by a custom Note (saptune note create) already by the way. The parameter for setting limits is  LIMITS= (see man 5 saptune-note).