The basic OS provisioning environment has the following requirements:
N1 SPS Master Server — A system upon which the N1 Service Provisioning System software is installed and that is configured to run as a Master Server.
OS provisioning server — A Solaris or RedHat system upon which the OS provisioning server is installed through the plug-in. The OS provisioning server runs DHCP services to respond to target host requests. For a list of supported OS releases for the OS Provisioning server, see OS Provisioning Components.
For Solaris OS provisioning servers, you must install the Java 1.4.2 release on the system before you create the OS Provisioning server. The Java 1.4.2 release must be located, or linked to, the /usr/bin/java directory.
For RedHat OS provisioning servers, you must install the Java 1.4.2 32–bit release and the dhcp-3.01–10_EL3 RPM on the system before you create the OS Provisioning server. The Java 1.4.2 release must be located, or linked to, the /usr/bin/java directory. If a 64–bit Java version is installed on the system, link /opt/SUNWn1osp/lib/libgridos.so to /opt/SUNWn1osp/lib/libgridos_rhel3_x86_64.so.
Boot and install server – The server that provides the OS images to provision to the target host. Choose the type of boot and install server that is appropriate for your environment.
Solaris boot and install server — To provision Solaris systems, you need a Solaris boot and install server.
Linux boot and install server — To provision Linux systems, you need a Linux or Solaris boot and install server on which Linux is installed.
Windows boot and install server — To provision Windows systems, you need a Windows boot and install server on which Windows 2003 with Service Pack 1 is installed.
You must configure the network interfaces on the boot and install server before you can provision your target hosts with the provisioning software.
The OS provisioning server, boot and install servers, and provisioning targets must be accessible in a network through a native LAN, a VLAN or through routers. Refer to the appropriate networking and operating system documentation for more information about configuring your network.
DHCP packets from the provisioning targets must be able to reach the OS provisioning server.
The N1 SPS Master Server, OS provisioning server, and Solaris boot and install server can be one physical system. However, running all three servers on one system increases the load on the server and increases the network traffic that the server has to handle. Keeping them separate enables you to scale better in the future.