The system is now installed, but not yet configured for use. Users, hardware of services are not configured yet. If the configuration fails at one of the steps of this stage, it restarts and continues from the last successful step.
First, provide a password for the account of the system administrator (the root user). Configure your Internet access and network connection. With a working Internet connection, you can perform an update of the system as part of the installation. You can also connect to an authentication server for centralized user administration in a local network. Finally, configure the hardware devices connected to the machine.
root is the name of the superuser, the administrator of the system. Unlike regular users, who may or may not have permission to do certain things on the system, root has unlimited power to do anything: change the system configuration, install programs, and set up new hardware. If users forget their passwords or have other problems with the system, root can help. The root account should only be used for system administration, maintenance, and repair. Logging in as root for daily work is rather risky: a single mistake could lead to irretrievable loss of system files.
For verification purposes, the password for root must be entered twice. Do not forget the root password. Once entered, this password cannot be retrieved.
When typing passwords, the characters are replaced by dots, so you do not see the string you are typing. If you are unsure whether you typed the correct string, use the field for testing purposes.
openSUSE can use the DES, MD5, or Blowfish encryption algorithms for passwords. The default encryption type is Blowfish. To change the encryption type, click and select the new type.
The root can be changed any time later in the installed system. To do so run YaST and start .
WARNING: The root User
The user root has all the permissions needed to make changes to the system. To carry out such tasks, the root password is required. You cannot carry out any administrative tasks without this password.
The hostname is the computer's name in the network. The domain name is the name of the network. A hostname and domain are proposed by default. If your system is part of a network, the hostname has to be unique in this network whereas the domain name has to be common to all hosts on the network.
In many networks, the system receives its name over DHCP. In this case it is not necessary to modify the hostname and domain name. Select instead. To be able to access your system using this hostname, even when it is not connected to the network, select . If you often change networks without restarting the desktop environment (e.g. when switching between different WLANs), do not enable this option, because the desktop system may get confused when the hostname in /etc/hosts changes.
To change hostname settings at any time after installation, use
YaST . For more information, see
Section 20.4.1, Configuring the Network Card with YaST,
(↑ Reference ).
If you are installing openSUSE on a laptop computer, is enabled. NetworkManager is a tool that enables automatic connection with minimal user intervention. It is ideal for WLAN and mobile computing. If you want to use the traditional method without NetworkManager, click . Find detailed information about NetworkManager in Section 10.0, Managing Network Connections with NetworkManager. If you are installing openSUSE on any other type of machine, the traditional method without NetworkManager is selected by default. This configuration step also lets you configure the network devices of your system and make security settings, for example, for a firewall or proxy.
The network can also be configured after the system installation has been completed. If you skip it now, your system is left offline unable to retrieve any available updates. To configure your network connection later, select and click .
The following network settings can be configured in this step:
Enable or disable the use of NetworkManager as described above. Also change the
IPv6 support here. By default the IPv6 support is enabled. To disable
it, click . For more information about
IPv6, see Section 20.2, IPv6—The Next Generation Internet,
(↑ Reference ).
By default SuSEfirewall2 is enabled on all configured network
interfaces. To globally disable the firewall for this computer, click on
. If the firewall is enabled, you may
the SSH port in order to allow remote
connections via secure shell. To open the detailed firewall
configuration dialog, click on . See Section 35.4.1, Configuring the Firewall with YaST,
(↑ Reference ) for detailed information.
All network cards detected by YaST are listed here. If you have
already set up a network connection during the installation (as
described in Section 1.9.2, Network Setup) the card
used for this connection is listed as . A
click on opens the
dialog, where you can change
existing configurations, set up networks cards not configured yet, or
add and configure additional cards. See Section 4.2, Internet Connection Via Network for checklists of configuration
requirements for the various connection types and Section 20.4.1, Configuring the Network Card with YaST,
(↑ Reference ) for configuration details.
If your computer is equipped with an internal DSL modem, an internal ADSL Fritz Card, an ISDN card or a modem, clicking on the respective headline opens the configuration dialog. Refer to Section 4.0, Accessing the Internet for further information.
To enable remote administration of your machine via VNC, click . in the following dialog and adjust your firewall settings accordingly.
If you have a proxy server controlling the Internet access in your network, configure the proxy URLs and authentication details in this dialog.
HINT: Resetting the Network Configuration to the Default Values
Reset the network settings to the original proposed values by clicking . This discards any changes made.
After having configured a network connection, you can test it. For this purpose, YaST establishes a connection to the openSUSE server and downloads the latest release notes. Read them at the end of the installation process. A successful test is also a prerequisite for registering and updating online.
If you have multiple network interfaces, verify that the the desired card is used to connect to the Internet. If not, click .
To start the test, select and click . In the next dialog, view the progress of the test and the results. Detailed information about the test process is available via . If the test fails, click to return to the network configuration to correct your entries.
If you do not want to test the connection at this point, select then . This also skips downloading the release notes, configuring the customer center, and updating online. These steps can be performed any time after the system has been initially configured.
To get technical support and product updates, first register and activate your product. If you are offline or want to skip this step, select . This also skips openSUSE online update.
In , select whether to send unsolicited additional information when registering. Click on to obtain in-depth information about data privacy and the data collected.
IMPORTANT: Support for openSUSE
Free installation support is only available for customers of the openSUSE retail box. Make sure to specify your in order to become entitled for support. Find more information about the free installation support at http://www.novell.com/support/products/opensuse/. Refer to Section 13.7, Support for openSUSE for more information on all support options available for openSUSE.
Upon a successful registration, a repository containing official online updates is added to the repository catalog. This repository is used in the following step to update your system.
If the was successful, select whether to
perform a YaST online update. If there are any patched packages
available on the servers, download and install them now to fix known bugs
or security issues. For detailed instructions see Section 3.1, YaST Online Update,
(↑ Reference ). Directives on how to perform an online
update in the installed system are available at
Section 3.7, Keeping the System Up-to-date or Section 3.0, Online Update,
(↑ Reference ).
IMPORTANT: Downloading Software Updates
The download of updates might take quite some time, depending on the bandwidth of the Internet connection and the size of the update files. In case the patch system itself is updated, the online update will restart and download more patches after the restart. If the kernel was updated, the system will reboot before completing the configuration.
If network access was configured successfully during the previous steps of the installation, you can now choose from several user management options. If a network connection has not been configured, create local user accounts. For detailed information about user management, see Section 5.0, Managing Users with YaST.
Users are administered locally on the installed host. This is a suitable option for stand-alone workstations. User data is managed by the local file /etc/passwd. All users who are entered in this file can log in to the system even if no network is available.
If YaST found a former version of openSUSE or another system using /etc/passwd, it offers to import local users. To do so, check and click . In the next dialog, select the users to import and click .
After entering the first name and last name, specify a username (login). Click for the system to automatically generate a username. Finally, enter a password for the user. Reenter it for confirmation (to ensure that you did not type something else by mistake). To provide effective security, a password should be between five and eight characters long. The maximum length for a password is 128 characters. However, if no special security modules are loaded, only the first eight characters are used to discern the password. Passwords are case-sensitive. Special characters like umlauts are not allowed. Other special characters (7-bit ASCII) and the digits 0 to 9 are allowed.
IMPORTANT: Username and Password
Remember both your username and the password because they are needed each time you log in to the system.
Two additional options are available for local users:
Checking this box sends the user messages created by the system services. These are usually only sent to root, the system administrator. This option is useful for the most frequently used account, because it is highly recommended to log in as root only in special cases.
The mails sent by system services are stored in the local mailbox /var/spool/mail/username, where username is the login name of the selected user. To read e-mails after installation, you can use any e-mail client, for example KMail or Evolution.
This option is only available if KDE is used as the default desktop. It automatically logs the current user into the system when it starts. This is mainly useful if the computer is operated by only one user.
WARNING: Automatic Login
With the automatic login enabled, the system boots straight into your desktop with no authentication at all. If you store sensitive data on your system, you should not enable this option if the computer can also be accessed by others.
Click to create more than one user. Refer to Section 5.0, Managing Users with YaST for more information about user management.
Users are administered centrally on an LDAP server for all
systems in the network. More information is available in Section 26.4, Configuring an LDAP Client with YaST,
(↑ Reference ).
Users are administered centrally on a NIS server for all
systems in the network. See Section 25.2, Configuring NIS Clients,
(↑ Reference ) for more
information.
SMB authentication is often used in mixed Linux and Windows networks.
Detailed information is available in Section 27.3, Configuring a Linux Client for Active Directory,
(↑ Reference ).
IMPORTANT: SMB authentication also requires to .
You can also add additional user accounts or change the user authentication method in the installed system. For detailed information about user management, see Section 5.0, Managing Users with YaST .
Along with the selected user administration method, you can use Kerberos
authentication. To use Kerberos authentication, select . For more information on Kerberos,
refer to Section 38.0, Network Authentication—Kerberos,
(↑ Reference ).
NOTE: Content of the Authentication Menu
If you have chosen a custom package selection for installation, not all mentioned authentication methods may be displayed, because the required packages are not installed.
After completing the user authentication setup, YaST displays the release notes. Reading them is recommended, because they contain important up-to-date information which was not available when the manuals were printed. If you successfully tested the Internet connection, read the most recent version of the release notes, as fetched from openSUSE's servers. Use or start the SUSE Help Center to view the release notes after installation.
At the end of the installation, YaST opens a dialog for the configuration of the graphics card and other hardware components connected to the system, such as printers or sound cards. Click the individual components to start the hardware configuration. For the most part, YaST detects and configures the devices automatically.
You can skip any peripheral devices and configure them later, as described in Section 2.0, Setting Up Hardware Components with YaST . To skip the configuration, select and click .
However, you should configure the graphics card right away. Although the display settings as configured by YaST should be generally acceptable, most users have very strong preferences as far as resolution, color depth, and other graphics features are concerned. To change these settings, select the respective item and set the values as desired.
HINT: Resetting Hardware Configuration to the Default Values
You can cancel any changes to the hardware configuration by clicking . YaST then shows the original proposal again.
After a successful installation, YaST shows the dialog. In this dialog, select whether to clone your newly installed system for AutoYaST. To clone your system, select . The profile of the current system is stored in /root/autoyast.xml.
AutoYaST is a system for installing one or more openSUSE systems automatically without user intervention. AutoYaST installations are performed using a control file with installation and configuration data. Finish the installation of openSUSE with in the final dialog.