C H A P T E R  7

Troubleshooting SIA

This chapter provides information about Sun Installation Assistant (SIA) error messages, the SIA installation log file, as well as procedures for debugging an unattended PXE-based network installation.

Topics in this chapter include:


SIA Error Messages

If SIA encounters an error or an unexpected condition, it generates 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 SIA with versions of Linux or Microsoft Windows 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:

For a list of supported operating systems, see Supported Operating Systems.


SIA Installation Log File

An SIA log file is written to the root directory of the newly installed system.

To review this log file, refer to the file SunInstallationAssistant.log (located at /root for Linux, or C:\ for Windows).


ILOM Remote Console Mouse Issue With SIA

The ILOM Remote Console has a mouse mode setting that configures ILOM to send mouse events to the remote system using either “absolute” or “relative” mode. For the ILOM Remote Console to work properly with SIA, you must configure the mouse setting to relative mode. If your mouse is set to absolute mode, your mouse will not work when using SIA. For more information, see Mouse Settings When Using SIA with ILOM Remote Console.


Debugging Unattended Installation Problems

This section includes procedures for debugging common problems that might occur when setting up an unattended network installation:

PXE Image Does Not Boot

If the PXE image does not boot, do the following.

1. Check the DHCP and TFTP server areas and the integrity of the initrd.img and vmlinuz files.

2. Verify that the kernel boot arguments are correct by consulting the PXE-example configuration (boot/isolinux/isolinux.cfg) provided on the SIA CD/DVD.

3. Verify that the URLs in the SIA state file, Kickstart file, or AutoYaST file are correct. To determine whether the URLs are correct:

a. Test the URL with the command wget URL.

b. Verify that the DNS is working or use IP addresses instead of host names.

c. Check the following table for URL errors that you might encounter.


Problem

What you will see

The state file URL (siaurl) is incorrect.

If the state file URL (siaurl) is incorrect, the installation appears to hang.

Check the console for the following error message that appears after the VNC information:

Unable to fetch unattended statefile: URL

The InstallLoc in the state file URL (siaurl) is incorrect.

The system reboots without an error message and the console displays messages such as the following message before rebooting:

Can’t MD5 ...

The Kickstart entry in state file URL (siaurl) is incorrect.

The installation appears to hang and the console displays the following message:

apit-magic: run: /installer/..."

A parameter in the URL file is incorrect.

When connecting to VNC, you will see that the unattended network installation stopped and is waiting for input.


SIA Boot Starts, Then Stops

The initrd.img file used by SIA is over 100 megabytes. The Solaris TFTP daemon is unable to support the size of the image.

If the SIA starts to boot, then stops with a blank screen and displays a time-out error message, switch to a TFTP server with a different operating system.

VNC Password Does Not Get Set

If the VNC password was not set, the following message displays on the console:


mv /dev/tty /dev/tty-node
ln -s /proc/self/fd/0 /dev/tty
echo password
/usr/X11R6/bin/vncpasswd.real /installer/vncpasswd
echo password
They don’t match. Try again.

This issue is a timing problem. To resolve this problem, reboot the system and restart the installation.