Sun Installation Assistant CD

C H A P T E R 3

About the Sun Installation Assistant CD

Note - The Sun Installation Assistant CD can be used remotely with the ILOM Remote CD-ROM feature and the Remote Console Application. For more details, see the topic that describes the Remote Console application.

The Sun Installation Assistant CD helps you to install a supported Linux operating system (OS) on your Netra X4200 server. It provides a set of Sun-supported drivers that have been tested for quality assurance.

By using the Sun Installation Assistant CD, you can install the operating system, the appropriate drivers, and additional software on your system. The Sun Installation Assistant eliminates the need to create a Driver CD.

Note - The Sun Installation Assistant CD does not automate the OS installation process. You will still need to follow the procedures provided in the Help topics about Red Hat Enterprise Linux and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 9 installation, but you will not need to create a Driver CD. The Sun Installation Assistant automatically installs the Sun-supported drivers.

The Sun Installation Assistant performs the following tasks:

Identifies the hardware on your system.

Installs the operating system.

Identifies and installs drivers and platform-specific software.

The use of the Sun Installation Assistant CD is optional but is provided to make the installation of Linux easier for the user.

Error Messages

If the Sun Installation Assistant encounters an error or an unexpected condition, it will generate an error message. You might encounter a number of straightforward error messages such as the following:

You have inserted Disc 3 but the system requires Disc 2. Please insert Disc 2.

You might also attempt to use the Sun Installation Assistant with versions of Linux that are not supported. In that case you might see error messages such as the following:

The media you have provided is not a release that is supported by Sun Microsystems, Inc. on this platform. You cannot use the Sun Installation Assistant to install this product and associated software.

In this case, choose one of the following options:

To install a supported product, click Back and then insert the appropriate media.

To install this unsupported product, click Exit to exit the Sun Installation Assistant and reboot the system. You can now install the unsupported product as you normally would.

Log File

A log file of the Sun Installation Assistant is written to the /root directory of the newly installed system.

To review this log file, refer to the file /root/SunInstallationAssistant.log.

How to Use the Sun Installation Assistant

This procedure explains how to use the Sun Installation Assistant to install Linux on your server.

Note - The Sun Installation Assistant does not automate the OS installation process. However, you will not need to create a driver CD because the Sun Installation Assistant automatically installs the Sun supported drivers. Once the installation is complete, you will return to the Sun Installation Assistant screen.

The Sun Installation Assistant can be booted from either the server’s CD-ROM, remote KVM with CD-ROM redirection or via a PXE network boot. Instructions for configuring PXE network boot can be found in the topic that describes how to configure the Sun Installation Assistant for PXE boot. In the steps below that mention booting from the CD-ROM, simply substitute selecting network boot.

Media for the Linux system to be installed can be either a network image or a CD-ROM. Installation from a network image on a LAN is significantly faster to install.

Before You Begin

Installing the Sun Installation Assistant software consists of the following procedures:

1. Boot the Sun Installation Assistant via the local CD, remote KVM with CD-ROM redirection, or via PXE booting the images contained on the CD.

2. Follow the prompts to provide the media or network image from which to install Linux.

See the Help topic about how to update the operating system and drivers.

What to Do

To use the Sun Installation Assistant, do the following.

1. Insert the Sun Installation Assistant CD into the server’s CD/DVD drive, use PXE booting, or use the remote KVM with CD-ROM redirection. See the topic that describes how to PXE boot or how to start and stop CD-ROM drive redirection.

2. Power on or reboot the server.

Your server boots the Sun Installation Assistant. This can take a few minutes. The first screen that appears is the Software License Agreement screen.

3. Read through the terms of the agreement.

You must scroll to the bottom of the license text window to make active the Accept radio button.

If you agree, select the Accept radio button and click Next to continue. (The Next button becomes active only when you select the Accept radio button.) The Welcome screen now appears with an introduction to the Sun Installation Assistant.

If you do not agree, select the Decline radio button and click Exit to close the Sun Installation Assistant. The system then prompts you to reboot the server.

4. On the Welcome screen, click Next.

The Welcome screen explains what the Sun Installation Assistant will do. Click Next to proceed.

5. Enable networking.

If you want to use an HTTP or FTP install image, select Yes to bring up the Ethernet interface to reach that network install image. Select No to install from CD-ROM, and skip to Step 7.

6. Configure networking.

Answer questions for the IP configuration and click Next. The Assistant now identifies the hardware on which it is running and scans for any SCSI devices, as the following example shows:

Identifying hardware... identified as .
Scanning for SCSI devices... done.

It will then automatically proceed to the next screen.

7. Select installation method.

Select whether you want to install the Linux distribution from CD, HTTP, or FTP. If the network has not been enabled yet and you select HTTP or FTP, you will be prompted to enable the network.

8. Provide installation media.

Installing from HTTP or FTP:

If you selected network installation, you will be prompted to supply the URL of the network image to install from. For example:

http://host.name/path/to/install/image

http://ip.address/path/to/install/image

ftp://host.name/path/to/install/image

ftp://ip.address/path/to/install/image

Installing from CD:

The Assistant now identifies the hardware on which it is running and scans for any SCSI devices. It will then eject the Sun Installation Assistant CD and display a list of supported Linux distributions. This list of distributions is specific to the server hardware.

The Netra X4200 server supports the following Linux distributions:

Red Hat Linux 3.0 Update 5 and later updates, 32-bit and 64-bit

Red Hat Linux 4.0 Update 1 and later updates, 64-bit

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 9 SP1 and later SPs, 64-bit

Insert Disc 1 for one of the supported distributions into the server’s CD/DVD drive.

Note - To install SLES9 SP1, insert the SLES9 CD 1 first. You will be prompted to insert the SP1 CD after the SLES9 installation is complete.

Note - For the administrator’s convenience, the CD-ROM redirection feature of the SP can be used. See the topic that describes how to start and stop CD-ROM drive redirection.

Note - You must supply the OS media on the same CD-ROM as you booted the Sun Installation Assistant.

9. Click Next.

The Assistant identifies the Linux distribution, as the following example shows:

Identifying distribution... identified as Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 Update 1 AS - 64bit.

Note - If you provide an unsupported media, you will see an error message.

10. Click Next to start the installer for this distribution.

The installation software specific to the version of Linux that you are installing now takes over.

11. Proceed through the installer screens.

12. After the installation is complete, the Sun Installation Assistant installs RPMs for the Linux OS kernel(s) that you have just installed.

The Assistant installs only those RPMs for your specific Linux OS kernel.

Note - This operation replaces the steps for manually upgrading the drivers for your server, as outlined in the Help topics that describe how to update the drivers.

13. Verify that the correct software has been installed.

The final screen identifies additional software that is installed, as the following example shows:

The Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 Update 1 AS - 64bit installation has completed.
Installing drivers... completed.
The installation has completed.

Note - You will be prompted to insert the SLES9 SP1 CD from this screen before the drivers are installed. Installing the patches from the SP1 CD will take a few minutes.

14. Click Reboot to reboot the server with the newly installed operating system.

How to Configure the Sun Installation Assistant for PXE Boot

This procedure explains how to configure a Preboot Execution Environment (PXE) to boot the Sun Installation Assistant on your server.

What to Do

Note - This section presumes the user is already familiar with configuring a PXE boot server. The following information is relevant to adding the Sun Installation Assistant boot target on an existing PXE boot server.

Configuring the Sun Installation Assistant software for PXE boot consists of the following procedures:

1. Preconfigure your network to support PXE as described in Appendix A.

2. Create a new subdirectory in the PXE Linux directory for the Sun Installation Assistant images.

# mkdir /home/pxeboot/suninstall

3. Insert the Sun Installation Assistant CD into the PXE server CD drive and mount the CD.

4. Copy the vmlinuz and initrd files from the CD to the PXE Linux directory. Use the correct path to the mounted CD image. This example uses /mnt/cdrom.

# cp /mnt/cdrom/boot/isolinux/vmlinuz /home/pxeboot/suninstall
# cp /mnt/cdrom/boot/isolinux/initrd.img /home/pxeboot/suninstall

5. Add the Sun Installation Assistant to the PXE configuration file. Enter the following lines to /home/pxeboot/pxelinux.cfg/default:

Note - Type the text block from append through netboot as one continuous string with no returns.

default suninstall

label suninstall

kernel vmlinuz

append initrd=initrd.img vga=0x314 ramdisk_size=400000 root=/dev/ram netboot

6. Unmount and remove the CD.

Booting the Sun Installation Assistant From the PXE Server

1. Connect the Netra X4200 server to the same network as the PXE server and power on the system.

2. Press the F12 key on your system while it is initializing to start a network boot. The system will attempt to get an IP address from the DHCP server.

3. Press the F8 key to begin the downloading of the PXE boot image.

4. When you are prompted at the boot: prompt, type in suninstall.

5. The Sun Installation Assistant image downloads onto your system. You can continue with the installation as described inHow to Use the Sun Installation Assistant.