Overview

C H A P T E R 1

Overview

This book applies to the Sun Fire X4600 and Sun Fire X4600 M2 servers.

About Installing an Operating System on a Sun Fire X4600 Series Server

There are several supported operating system (OS) distributions and several ways to install each. This section is intended only as a general guide that refers you to detailed procedures. For a current list of supported operating systems for the Sun Fire X4600 Series server, refer to the following web site:

http://www.sun.com/servers/x64/x4600/os.jsp

This document contains instructions for installing supported Solaris, Linux, and VMwareESX 3 operating systems.

Prerequisites

You must complete the following steps before you can begin the installation.

Install the server hardware.

(Optional) Configure the service processor. (You can do this after installation if you prefer.)

(Solaris Operating System only) Install and set up the software on the Tools and Drivers CD.

Gather needed information, such as IP address and netmask.

Things You Must Decide

In addition, you must decide the following.

Which operating system are you installing on your Sun Fire X4600/X4600 M2 server?

For a current list of supported operating systems for the Sun Fire X4600 Series server, refer to the following web site:

http://www.sun.com/servers/x64/x4600/os.jsp

Are you configuring the server for diskless booting?

Operating System	Relevant Documentation on Diskless Configurations
Solaris 10	See About Solaris OS Installation or Solaris 10 Installation Guide: Network-Based Installations at `http://docs.sun.com/app/docs/doc/817-5504.`
Red Hat Linux	See About the RHEL Installation or Red Hat Enterprise Linux documentation at `https://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/enterprise/`
SUSE Linux	See About SLES 9 Installation, or About SLES 10 Installation, or SUSE LINUX Enterprise Server 9 or 10 documentation at `http://www.novell.com/documentation/suse.html`

Which installation method are you going to use?

Operating System Installation Method	Solaris	Red Hat	SUSE	VMware
Assisted installation using Sun Installation Assistant (this method provides an easy-to-use process for locally, or remotely, installing your operating system), described in Chapter 2.	NO	YES	YES	NO
Manual installation using one of these methods: Install from distribution media (CD/DVD) locally at the server Install from distribution media (CD/DVD) remotely via KVMS Install from network using PXE	YES	YES	YES	YES

Operating System Installation Method

Solaris

Red Hat

SUSE

VMware

Assisted installation using Sun Installation Assistant (this method provides an easy-to-use process for locally, or remotely, installing your operating system), described in Chapter 2.

YES

Manual installation using one of these methods:

Install from distribution media (CD/DVD) locally at the server
Install from distribution media (CD/DVD) remotely via KVMS
Install from network using PXE

YES

Note - The Sun Fire X4600 server support industry-standard KVMS with devices connected to it through a USB port or the ILOM Remote Console application. For more information on setting up USB connections to your system, see your server hardware documentation. For more information on setting up a remote KVMS connection to your server with the ILOM Remote Console application, see your server’s ILOM documentation (note that there are multiple versions of ILOM, be sure to refer to the guide that matches your server’s installed version of ILOM).

Do you need to update the operating system?

In general, you need to perform updates after the operating system has been installed. For details, see the appropriate chapter for your particular OS.

Do you need to learn about additional server and operating system-specific utilities? For details on supported utilities, refer to your server’s x64 Utilities Reference Manual available on the web at http://docs.sun.com.

What to Do Next

The sections in this guide provide installation information--see the appropriate chapter for your operating system.

You should also gather the installation, administration, and configuration documentation distributed with the operating system. These documents generally accompany the distribution media as printed manuals or are included as PDF files on the media. In many cases, you can download the latest versions of such documents from the web site of the OS vendor.