Preparing for an Unattended SIA Installation of Linux

The procedures presented in this section assumes the following:

• You are familiar with RHEL or SLES Linux unattended installations.

• You have created a RHEL Kickstart file or SLES AutoYaST file.

• You have configured the RHEL Kickstart or SLES AutoYaST PXE image with the following options:

  • Additional drivers for your server not installed by SIA. This provides you the full supported feature set for installed server components (such as ACPI, video, network and mass storage) as described in your server installation and Product Notes documentation.

  • Latest operating system installation patches available from the Linux vendor.

  • Required SIA display resolution. SIA should always boot with vga=0x314 from CD-ROM or PXE.

• The Kickstart or AutoYaST file is accessible through an FTP, HTTP, or NFS server.

Creating the SIA Unattended State File for Linux

The SIA state file is a text file that directs the unattended installation of your Linux operating system and other SIA tasks to be performed (such as BIOS/SP firmware upgrade).

Consider these requirements when creating an SIA state file:

• When SIA boots from PXE, the state file must identify the location of the OS media to be installed and the transfer protocol method (FTP, NFS, or HTTP).

• The state file must not contain extraneous spaces or punctuation of any kind.

• The lines specified in the SIA state file must correspond to the steps you would see if you were interactively using the SIA program to perform tasks.

• The install location must be specified as a boot argument in the configuration file (described in How to Create the SIA Image and Prepare for PXE Boot).

  Sample SIA State File for Linux

An SIA state file for an unattended Linux installation looks like the following sample, see Table 1 for an explanation of each variable.

[STATE_BEGIN noname apit]
apit.unattended=true
apit.welcome.acceptlicense=true
apit.networking=true
apit.networkconfig.needNetwork=true
apit.networkconfig.useDHCP=true
apit.networkconfig.needProxy=false
apit.remoteUpdate=true
apit.remoteupdateURL=http://sia-updates.sun.com/remoteUpdate
apit.http_proxy=path_to_my_http_proxy
apit.taskList.selectedTask=Operating System Installation
apit.osid.installMedia=networkLinux
apit.osid.installMethod=http, ftp or nfs
apit.osid.installLoc=path_to_PXE_file
apit.osid.kickstart=path_to_configuration file
[STATE_DONE noname apit]

Setting Up an Unattended Configuration File and PXE OS Install Image for Linux

To set up an unattended configuration file and PXE install image of the OS, refer to the following OS documentation for creating an unattended configuration file and PXE install image, for example:

• Novell AutoYaST unattended installation documentation at http://www.novell.com

• Red Hat’s Kickstart unattended installation documentation at http://www.redhat.com/docs

When done, proceed to How to Create the SIA Image and Prepare for PXE Boot.