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Sun Fire X4640 Server Product Documentation Sun Fire X4640 Server Documentation Library |
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About This Documentation (PDF and HTML)
Hardware Installation and Product Notes
Sun Fire X4640 Server Front and Back Panel Features and Components
Installing the Server Hardware
Removing the Server From the Rack
Getting Service for Your Server
Sun Fire X4640 Server Specifications
Communicating With the ILOM and the System Console
Setting Up Your Operating System
Overview of the Sun Fire X4640 Server Product Notes
Supported Software and Firmware
Solaris Operating System Issues
Windows Operating System Issues
VMware ESX and VMware ESXi Issues
Sun Installation Assistant Issues
MegaRAID Storage Manager (MSM) Issues
Integrated Lights Out Manager (ILOM) Issues
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 Linux
How to Prepare for an Unattended SIA Installation of Windows Server
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
How to Establish Connection Using a VNC Viewer
How to Establish a Connection Using a Serial Console
Debugging Unattended Installation Problems
How to Debug a PXE Image That Does Not Boot
Creating a Bootable SIA USB Flash Drive
How to Get the Syslinux and SIA Software
How to Prepare the USB Flash Drive on a Windows XP System
How to Prepare the USB Flash Drive on a Linux (Red Hat/SUSE) System
Setting BIOS Parameters and Booting Off the SIA USB Flash Drive
How to Set the BIOS Parameters and Boot 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
How to Install Service Tags in Windows
Introduction to Solaris OS and OpenSolaris Installation
Installing the Solaris 10 Operating System
Installing the OpenSolaris Operating System
Booting From OS Distribution Media
Identifying Logical and Physical Network Interface Names for Solaris OS Installation
Preliminary Tasks Before Installing An OS
Introduction to Linux Installation
Sun Installation Assistant (SIA)
Installing Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Installing and Updating SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
Configuring a Linux Server to Support PXE Installation
Booting From OS Distribution Media
Preliminary Tasks Before Installing An OS
Identifying Logical and Physical Network Interface Names for Linux OS Configuration
Introduction to Windows Installation
Sun Installation Assistant (SIA)
Getting Started With Windows Server 2008 Installation
Selecting a Media Delivery Method
Installing Windows Server 2008
Updating Critical Drivers and Installing Supplemental Software
Incorporating Sun Fire Drivers Into a WIM Image
Identifying Network Interfaces in Windows
Introduction to ESX Installation
Installing VMware ESXi 4.0 Installable
Booting From OS Distribution Media
Preliminary Tasks Before Installing An OS
Administration, Diagnostics, and Service
Overview of the ILOM Supplement
Communicating With the ILOM and the System Console
Using ILOM to Monitor the Host
Overview of the Diagnostics Guide
Introduction to System Diagnostics
Using the ILOM to Monitor the Host
Using SunVTS Diagnostics Software
Creating a Data Collector Snapshot
Sun Fire X4640 Server Service Manual Overview
Controlling Power and Performing Hardware Reset
Removing and Installing Components
Configuring the System Using the BIOS Setup Utilities
Before You Begin
You can PXE-boot SIA to do an unattended system firmware upgrade on your Sun server. You can choose tasks such as system BIOS and ILOM upgrade, HBA firmware, and SP recovery. The basic steps for setting up an unattended installation include:
Note - Your server must support firmware upgrades through SIA to use the firmware upgrade option. If you enable an unattended firmware upgrade and an upgrade is not required on the target server (because the upgrade firmware image is either the same or earlier than what’s on the server being upgraded), the unattended install will stop at that point, prompting user intervention to continue. To avoid this, confirm that the firmware image you are using for the upgrade is later than what is already on the target server(s). The firmware version (build number) of the upgrade image is included in the README file. The firmware version (build number) on a target server can be viewed by logging into the server’s service processor and viewing the information through the LOM web interface, or by entering the version command through the CLI.
The SIA state file is a text file that directs the unattended installation of your upgraded firmware. Consider these requirements when creating an SIA state file:
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.
Each variable with its value must be on a separate line in the state file without line breaks.
An SIA state file for an unattended firmware upgrade looks like the following sample, see Table 5 for an explanation of each variable.
Sample SIA State File for firmware upgrade:
Note - Not all servers support the taskList and firmware options in the SIA state file. Refer to the SIA feature list for your server found on the Oracle download site if you are in doubt about support for these options.
[STATE_BEGIN noname apit] apit.unattended=true apit.networking=true apit.welcome.acceptlicense=true apit.networkconfig.needNetwork=true apit.networkconfig.useDHCP=true apit.networkconfig.needProxy=false apit.taskList.selectedTask=SP/Bios Firmware Upgrade apit.remoteUpdate=true apit.remoteupdateURL=http://sia-updates.sun.com/remoteUpdate apit.http_proxy=path_to_my_http_proxy apit.firmware.spIP=n.n.n.n apit.firmware.spPasswd=password_for_sp [STATE_DONE noname apit]
Next Steps
When done, proceed to How to Create the SIA Image and Prepare for PXE Boot.