Manual installations as well as unattended installations require one or multiple installation repositories that contain packages for the operating system to be installed (SLES).
Optionally, one or multiple add-on products (such as OES 11) and optional patches can be deployed as part of the installation.
The repository that contains the operating system packages and special metadata is mandatory. The other repositories mentioned are optional. The following repository types can be accessed by the installation engine:
Local repositories located on CD-ROMs, DVDs, HDs, or USB devices.
Remote repositories accessible by HTTP, FTP, NFS, SMB, or TFTP.
These repositories can be advertised via SLP.
Supported repository types are yast2 and rpm-md. yast2 repositories correspond to the SUSE installation media format and are the only repository type that can be used for operating system installations.
rpm-md (Repository Metadata) is the original repository type of YUM (Yellowdog Updater, Modified) and is supported only for the installation of add-on products or updates.
Local installation repositories have advantages over remote repositories in rare cases where network bandwidth is a limiting factor.
One example is the installation of a branch office server. Novell Consulting has had very good experiences with the use of internal USB sticks to store the repositories to install this type of server.
Wherever possible, remote installation repositories are recommended by Novell Consulting for an AutoYaST framework because they provide the following advantages:
Independence from physical boot media
Only one boot medium is required. Everything else is retrieved via the network
Higher throughput can be achieved in most environments by network installations
Multiple products can be installed together without the need to change the installation media (such as SLES 10 SP4 and OES 2 SP3, or SLES 11 SP2 and OES 11 SP1, or SLES 11 SP4 and OES 2015 SP1)
A central repository for all servers prevents the necessity to distribute physical installation media to all systems
Installation sources can be used for later deployments of additional software packages without the need to swap physical media
A remote installation repository must be specified at the boot prompt as follows:
install=<protocol>://<IP Address|DNS-Name>/<path to media content>
For example:
install=http://10.10.10.221/sles10sp4_x86_64