Booting the Tools and Drivers CD from a PXE Server

A P P E N D I X D

This chapter contains information on booting the Tools and Driver CD from a PXE server. It contains information on the following topics:

If you have a server that does not have a DVD drive, you can run the Pc-Check diagnostics and flash the BIOS from a Preboot Execution Environment (PXE) server.

The following topics are included in this section:

Setting up the Tools and Drivers CD Image on the PXE Server

Accessing the Tools and Drivers CD From the Target Server

Setting up the Tools and Drivers CD Image on the PXE Server

You will need the following to set up the PXE server:

Red Hat kickstart server with a CD or DVD drive

Instructions for setting up the Red Hat kickstart server can be found in the system administration guides for Red Hat Enterprise Linux:

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 manual at:

http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/enterprise/ RHEL-3-Manual/sysadmin-guide/

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 manual at:

http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/enterprise/ RHEL-4-Manual/sysadmin-guide/

Tools and Drivers CD

MEMDISK kernel from the SYSLINUX project. Access this kernel at: http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/boot/syslinux/

To set up the PXE server:

1. Log in to the PXE server as root (superuser).

2. Determine the directory where the Red Hat image is installed on the PXE server.

The default directory for the PXE image is usually /tftpboot/linux-install. The remainder of this procedure assumes that the PXE files have been installed in this directory.

Note - If your PXE files are not installed in the /tftpboot/linux-install directory, modify the procedure as necessary.

3. Make a directory for the Tools and Drivers CD contents.

# mkdir /tftpboot/linux-install/suppl_tau

4. Insert the Tools and Drivers CD into the PXE server, and copy the boot.img file located in the root directory of the CD to the new server supplemental directory created in Step 3.:

# cp /mnt/cdrom/boot.img /tftpboot/linux-install/suppl_tau

5. Download the MEMDISK kernel.

a. Go to the latest SYSLINUX project web site at:

http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/boot/syslinux/

b. Save the latest syslinux-version.zip file to your root directory.

Where version is the latest SYSLINUX project version.

Note - Version 3.63 was the latest version at the time of this writing.

6. Unzip the zip file.

For example:

# unzip syslinux-3.63.zip

7. Change to the memdisk directory.

For example:

# cd /syslinux-3.63/memdisk

8. Copy the memdisk kernel to the new Tools and Drivers Directory created in Step 3.

For example:

# cp /syslinux-3.63/memdisk/memdisk /tftpboot/linux-install/suppl_tau

9. Edit the Boot Message Screen as follows:

a. Open the boot.msg file in a text editor.

# vi /tftpboot/linux-install/msgs/boot.msg

b. Type the following line after 0 -Local Machine.

suppl_tau - Sun Fire xxx Server Tools and Drivers CD

Where xxx is the server number, ie X4250.

c. Save and close the boot.msg file.

10. Edit the default PXE Configuration file as follows.

a. Open the default file in a text editor:

# vi /tftpboot/linux-install/pxelinux.cfg/default

b. Type the following lines after the label0 section:

label suppl_tau
kernel suppl_tau/memdisk
append initrd=suppl_tau/boot.img

c. Save and close the default file.

11. Test the installation on the test machine.

Accessing the Tools and Drivers CD From the Target Server

You will need the following to run diagnostics on a target Sun Fire server:

PXE server configured as shown in Setting up the Tools and Drivers CD Image on the PXE Server.

Sun Fire server set up on the same network as the PXE server.

1. Connect the Sun Fire server to the same network as the PXE server.

2. Power on (or reboot) the Sun Fire server.

3. Press the F12 key during POST.

4. The Boot Message Screen located on your PXE server at /tftpboot/linux-install/msgs/boot.msg displays on the screen.

5. Type suppl_tau at the prompt and press Return.

The MEMDISK kernel and the bootable portion of the Tools and Drivers CD are downloaded to the test machine over the network and into memory.

Once downloaded, the bootable portion of the Tools and Drivers CD will be booted.

6. The main menu of the bootable portion of the Tools and Drivers CD is displayed on the target Sun Fire server.

7. You can now run the hardware diagnostics or update the System BIOS.

See Chapter 3 in this document for information on running Pc-Check diagnostics software.