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Sun Installation Assistant 2.3 through 2.4 User's Guide for x64 Servers Sun Fire X4640 Server Documentation Library |
About This Documentation (PDF and HTML)
Shell Prompts in Command Examples
Introduction to Sun Installation Assistant
Getting Started With Sun Installation Assistant
SIA Version 2.3 Through 2.4 Features and Benefits
Supported Servers and SIA Media Availability
Starting SIA and Preparing for Deployment or Recovery Tasks
Local and Remote Media Options
How to Start SIA and Prepare for Tasks Using Local or Remote Media
How to Create a RAID Volume Using SIA
How to Delete a RAID Volume Using SIA
How to Install Windows With SIA Using Local or Remote Media
How to Install Linux With SIA Using Local or Remote Media
Using SIA to Upgrade System Firmware
How to Upgrade the System BIOS and ILOM Firmware
How to Upgrade Expander Firmware
Using SIA to Recover a Service Processor
How to Recover a Service Processor
Performing an SIA PXE-Based Attended Installation
Obtain the SIA PXE Image Files
How to Create the SIA Image and Prepare for PXE Boot
How to Boot SIA From a PXE Server for an Attended Installation
Performing an SIA PXE-Based Unattended Installation
Obtain the SIA PXE Image Files
Contents of the SIA State File
How to Prepare for an Unattended SIA Installation of Windows Server
How to Prepare for an Unattended SIA Firmware Upgrade
How to Create the SIA Image and Prepare for PXE Boot
How to Boot SIA From a PXE Server and Perform an Unattended Installation
Observing an SIA PXE-Based Unattended Installation
Set Up Passwords for Root and Virtual Access
Using a Virtual Console or Secure Shell (SSH) Connection
Debugging Unattended Installation Problems
Creating a Bootable SIA USB Flash Drive
Setting BIOS Parameters and Booting Off the SIA USB Flash Drive
Identifying a Linux Boot Device on a Sun Fire X4500 Server
How to Identify a Linux Boot Device on a Sun Fire X4500 Server
How to Install Service Tags in Linux
Before You Begin
The procedures presented in this section assumes the following:
You are familiar with OEL, RHEL or SLES Linux unattended installations.
You have created an OEL or RHEL Kickstart file, or a SLES AutoYaST file.
You have configured the OEL or 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.
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.
Each variable with its value must be on a separate line in the state file without line breaks.
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 4 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]
To set up an unattended configuration file and PXE install image of the OS, refer to the following documentation sources:
For using Kickstart unattended installation with either Oracle Enterprise Linux or Red Hat Enterprise Linux, refer to documentation available at http://www.redhat.com/docs.
For using AutoYaST unattended installation with SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, refer to documentation available at http://www.novell.com/home/.
Next Steps
When done, proceed to How to Create the SIA Image and Prepare for PXE Boot.