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Sun N1 System Manager 1.3 Operating System Provisioning Guide

Installing Diskless Clients

Installing is to a diskless client what booting is to a “diskfull” client. When an OS deployment job completes for diskfull clients, the OS is installed successfully on the server and the server has booted successfully and is running the OS. When an OS deployment job completes for diskless clients, the diskless client has finished the initial boot. To determine when the diskless client has successfully booted and is running the OS, use the serial console feature to monitor the state of the managed server.

ProcedureTo Install a Diskless Client

The following procedure explains how to install a diskless client using the load server command in the CLI.

You can also install a diskless client from the N1 System Manager browser interface. From the All Servers table, select a server and choose Load OS Profile from the Actions, or drag an OS profile from the Task Shortcuts onto the server name.

Before You Begin
Step

    To install a diskless client, use the load server command.


    load server server[,server...] osprofile osprofile bootip bootip
[diskless-client-installation-attributes]

    Where:

    • server is the management name of a server. To install the diskless client profile on more than one server, separate the server names with a comma (,).

    • osprofile is the name of an OS profile used to install the OS.

    • bootip (Linux only) specifies the IP address for the server's provisioning network interface used to install the server, also known as the Provisioning IP. You can specify a range of IP addresses or a subnet mask. Specify a range of IP addresses as follows: ip-address-ip-address. Example: 10.0.0.1–10.0.0.3.

    • diskless-client-installation-attributes include several diskless client-specific attributes:

      • bootgateway bootgateway – (Linux only) A gateway used to install the server.

      • boothostname boothostname – (Single server and Linux only) A host name used to install the server.

      • bootnameserver bootnameserver – (Linux only) A name server used to install the server.

      • bootnetmask bootnetmask – (Linux only) A netmask used to install the server.

      • bootnetworkdevice bootnetworkdevice – The server's provisioning network interface used to install the server. Valid Solaris values are bge0 (default), bge1, bge2, and bge3. Valid Linux values are eth0 (default), eth1, eth2, eth3, and eth4. Note that when installing the Red Hat 4 OS on Sun Fire X2100 servers, the bootnetworkdevice value must be set to eth1. The default value does not work for this situation.

      • console console – The device name for the server's system console, which may be used to monitor the installation. Default is ttys0 (Linux) and ttya (Solaris).

      • consolebaud consolebaud – The baud rate for the server's system console. Default is 9600.

      • nfsroot nfsroot – The location of the NFS root, such as 10.0.0.115:/my_roots/sol_a. You can specify a comma-separated list of paths, or you can specify a range of paths as follows: 10.1.10.1:/diskless/home/1–40. When specifying a range of paths, the nfsroot directory names must be numbers. This attribute is not required for initrd-based diskless clients.

Example 4–3 Installing a Solaris Diskless Client

The following example installs a Solaris diskless client on a server.


N1-ok> load server 10.1.10.11 osprofile solx86 bootip 10.1.10.11 nfsroot=10.1.10.1:/diskless/solx86

ProcedureTo Install a Group of Diskless Clients

The following procedure explains how to install a group of diskless clients using the load group command in the CLI.

You can also install a group of diskless clients from the N1 System Manager browser interface. From the Server Groups table, select a group and choose Load OS Profile from the Actions, or drag an OS profile from the Task Shortcuts onto the group name.

Before You Begin
Step

    To install a group of diskless clients, use the load group command. 


    load group group osprofile osprofile bootip bootip
[excludeserver server[,server...]
[diskless-client-installation-attributes]

    Where:

    • group is the name of a server group.

    • osprofile is the name of an OS profile used to install the OS.

    • bootip (Linux only) specifies the IP address for the server's provisioning network interface used to install the server, also known as the Provisioning IP. You can specify a range of IP addresses or a subnet mask. Specify a range of IP addresses as follows: ip-address-ip-address. Example: 10.0.0.1–10.0.0.3.

    • excludeserver identifies one or more servers to exclude from the group installation. server is the management name of a server.

    • diskless-client-installation-attributes include several diskless client-specific attributes:

      • bootgateway bootgateway – (Linux only) A gateway used to install the server.

      • boothostname boothostname – (Single server and Linux only) A host name used to install the server.

      • bootnameserver bootnameserver – (Linux only) A name server used to install the server.

      • bootnetmask bootnetmask – (Linux only) A netmask used to install the server.

      • bootnetworkdevice bootnetworkdevice – The server's provisioning network interface used to install the server. Valid Solaris values are bge0 (default), bge1, bge2, and bge3. Valid Linux values are eth0 (default), eth1, eth2, eth3, and eth4. Note that when installing the Red Hat 4 OS on Sun Fire X2100 servers, the bootnetworkdevice value must be set to eth1. The default value does not work for this situation.

      • console console – The device name for the server's system console, which may be used to monitor the installation. Default is ttys0 (Linux) and ttya (Solaris).

      • consolebaud consolebaud – The baud rate for the server's system console. Default is 9600.

      • nfsroot nfsroot – The location of the NFS root, such as 10.0.0.115:/my_roots/sol_a. You can specify a comma-separated list of paths, or you can specify a range of paths as follows: 10.1.10.1:/diskless/home/1–40. When specifying a range of paths, the nfsroot directory names must be numbers. This attribute is not required for initrd-based diskless clients.

Example 4–4 Installing a Group of Solaris Diskless Clients

The following example installs a Solaris diskless client on a group of servers.


N1-ok> load group my-diskless-group osprofile diskless-image bootip 10.5.5.2