Using the Sun Installation Assistant

C H A P T E R 2

This chapter describes operating system installation options using the Sun Installation Assistant (SIA). You can choose to install a Linux operating system on your server using SIA.

About the Sun Installation Assistant (SIA)

The Sun Installation Assistant (SIA) is a tool that assists in the installation of supported Linux operating systems (OS). With SIA, you can install the OS, the appropriate drivers, and if necessary, additional system software by simply booting the SIA media and following the prompts.

SIA does not automate the OS installation process. You still need to follow the vendor installation procedures for your OS, but you do not have to inventory your system hardware, search out and download device drivers most recently supported by Sun, nor will you need to create a separate driver CD. SIA does that work for you.

Features and Benefits

SIA provides the following features and benefits:

Bootable media from either a local drive attached to the server (CD/DVD or USB flash drive), a remote redirected network drive (virtual CDROM or ISO image), or a PXE network boot.

Identification of your platform hardware and installed option cards.

Identification of the operating system media and the supported device drivers that are required for your system.

Note that SIA does not provide the operating system software. The operating system software must be provided by the customer during the SIA installation.

Assisted operating system installation on platform-supported bootable media (hard disk, compact flash).

Installation (if required) of the most recent OS-level device driver(s) supported by Sun, and system software required for your system.

Option to upgrade server BIOS and Service Processor (SP) firmware on supported servers.

Script-based unattended SIA installation of a supported Linux OS from a Linux-based PXE server.

Intuitive error messages if an error or unexpected condition occurs during the installation.

Event log file readily available, if required, at the /root of the newly installed server.

How to Get Started Using SIA

The following information will help you get started using SIA.

For a complete list of supported Sun server platforms, refer to the SIA information page at:

http://www.sun.com/systemmanagement/sia.jsp

The Sun Installation Assistant CD ships with most Sun servers that support the x64 processor architecture. You can also download the latest ISO CD image of the Sun Installation Assistant from the Sun Download page at:

http://www.sun.com/download/index.jsp

Updates to the SIA program can be obtained easily during the SIA installation by using the Remote Update option in the SIA.

The Sun Installation Assistant for Windows and Linux User’s Guide (820-3357) describes using SIA with your server. It can be downloaded from the Sun documentation web site at:

http://docs.sun.com