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Sun Fire X4640 Server Linux Installation Guide Sun Fire X4640 Server Documentation Library |
About This Documentation (PDF and HTML)
Introduction to Linux Installation
Sun Installation Assistant (SIA)
Installing Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Overview of Red Hat Enterprise Linux Installation
Installing RHEL From Distribution Media
Installing and Updating SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
Introduction to Installing SLES From Distribution Media
How to Install SLES From Distribution Media
Configuring a Linux Server to Support PXE Installation
How to Copy Files from the Tools and Drivers CD
How to Install and Configure a DHCP Server
How to Install Portmap on Your DHCP Server
How to Configure the TFTP Service on Your DHCP Server
How to Install and Configure the neopxe Boot Server Daemon
How to Configure the NFS Service on Your PXE Server
How to Disable the Firewall for SUSE Linux
How to Disable the Firewall for Red Hat Linux
Creating a PXE Image for SUSE Linux
How to Set Up and Copy SUSE Software to a Directory
How to Install RHEL and SUSE Linux From a PXE Server
Booting From OS Distribution Media
How to Boot From OS Media Locally
How to Boot From OS Distribution Media or ISO File Remotely
Preliminary Tasks Before Installing An OS
Accessing the Server Output During Installation
How to Configure the Serial Port
How to Erase Your Boot Hard Disk
Identifying Logical and Physical Network Interface Names for Linux OS Configuration
SUSE Linux - How to Identify Logical and Physical Network Interface Names While Installing the OS
RHEL - How to Identify Logical and Physical Network Interface Names While Installing the OS
When you create a Red Hat Linux Preboot Execution Environment (PXE) installation image on the same server that is your DHCP server, it will also act as your PXE server. The PXE server provides the operating system files to your PXE client.
Before you install a Red Hat Enterprise Linux image on your PXE server, you must configure your Linux network to support PXE images. See Overview of PXE Servers.
Before You Begin
The PXE installation procedure requires the following items:
A CD/DVD drive on the DHCP Server.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux media set. This can be a set of CDs or a DVD.
A copy of the Red Hat files from the Tools and Drivers CD. See How to Copy Files from the Tools and Drivers CD for details.
# mkdir -p /home/pxeboot/rhel4/
Note - The examples in this procedure use /home/pxeboot/rhel4/ as an example. You can use a different target directory if you choose. For example, you could use /home/pxeboot/rhel5/. If you used a different directory name, substitute it where appropriate.
Note - Eject and insert CDs only when the CD/DVD drive is unmounted.
# mount dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom
# cp -r /mnt/cdrom/* /home/pxeboot/rhel4/
# umount /mnt/cdrom
If you are installing from a DVD, you only have to do this once. When the copy is done, proceed to the next step.
# cp /home/pxeboot/rhel4/images/pxeboot/vmlinuz /home/pxeboot/rhel4/ # cp /home/pxeboot/rhel4/images/pxeboot/initrd.img /home/pxeboot/rhel4/
# cp /tmp/rhel4u3-pxefile/ks.cfg /home/pxeboot/rhel4/
The kickstart configuration file contains a configuration that might not be optimal for your operating environment. Modify the file as necessary to suit your environment.
For example, to make the RHEL 5.3 installation process fully automatic, add the following line to the end of the kickstart configuration file:
key --skip
Edit the nfs line is as follows:
nfs --server n.n.n.n --dir /home/pxeboot/rhel4/
where n.n.n.n is the IP address of your PXE server. Ensure that the location indicated after --dir is pointing to the top level of your image.
Note - Type the text block from append through ks.cfg as one continuous string with no returns.
default rhel4 label rhel4kernel rhel4/vmlinuz append ksdevice=eth0 console=tty0 load_ramdisk=1 initrd=rhel4/initrd.img network ks=nfs:n.n.n.n:/home/pxeboot/rhel4/ks.cfg
where n.n.n.n is the IP address of your PXE server.
Note - For console-based installations, add console=ttyS0,9600 to the append line.
Next Steps