Download the Oracle Linux

Download the Oracle Linux ISO from OHC onto a user accessible location (eg. Installer's notebook). The exact details on how to perform this step is specific to the users equipment).

Push the OL ISO image onto the USB Flash Drive.

Since the installer's notebook may be Windows or Linux OS-based, the user executing this procedure determines the appropriate detail to execute this task. For a Linux based notebook, insert a USB Flash Drive of the appropriate size into a Laptop (or some other linux host where the iso can be copied to), and run the dd command to create a bootable USB drive with the Oracle Linux 7 iso.

$ dd -if=<path to ISO> -of=<USB device path> -bs=1m
 
Example (assuming the USB is on /dev/sdf and the iso file is at /var/occne)
 
$ dd -if=/var/occne/OracleLinux-7.5-x86_64-disc1.iso -of=/dev/sdf -bs=1m

Connect a Keyboard, Video, and Mouse (KVM) into the Installer Bootstrap Host's monitor and USB ports.

Plug the USB flash drive containing the bootable iso into an available USB port on the Bootstrap host (usually in the front panel).

Reboot the host by momentarily pressing the power button on the host's front panel. The button will go yellow. If it holds at yellow, press the button again. The host should auto-boot to the USB flash drive.

Note: If the host was previously configured and the USB is not a bootable path in the boot order, it may not boot successfully.

If the host does not boot to the USB, repeat step 3, and interrupt the boot process by pressing F11 which brings up the Boot Menu. If the host has been recently booted with an OL, the Boot Menu will display Oracle Linux at the top of the list. Select Generic USB Boot as the first boot device and proceed.

The host attempts to boot from the USB. Select Test this media & install Oracle Linux 7.x and click ENTER. This begins the verification of the media and the boot process.

The INSTALLATION SUMMARY page, is displayed. The following settings are expected. If any of these are not set correctly then please select that menu item and make the appropriate changes.

1. LANGUAGE SUPPORT: English (United States)
2. KEYBOARD: English (US)
3. INSTALLATION SOURCE: Local Media
4. SOFTWARE SELECTION: Minimal Install

INSTALLATION DESTINATION should display No disks selected. Select INSTALLATION DESTINATION to indicate the drive to install the OS on.

Select the first HDD drive ( in this case that would be the first one listed or the 1.6 TB disk) and select DONE in the upper right corner.

If the server has already been installed a red banner at the bottom of the page may indicate there is an error condition. Selecting that banner causes a dialog to appear indicating there is not enough free space (which might mean an OS has already been installed). In the dialog it may show both 1.6 TB HDDs as claimed or just the one.

If the disk selection dialog appears (after selecting the red banner at the bottom of the page), this implies a full installation of the RMS has already been performed (usually this is because the procedure had to be restarted after it was successfully completed). In this case select the Modify Disk Selection. This will return to the disk selection page. Select both HDDs and hit done. The red banner should now indicate the space must be reclaimed. The same steps to reclaim the space can be performed.

Select DONE. This returns to the INSTALLATION SUMMARY page.

At the INSTALLATION SUMMARY screen, select Begin Installation. The CONFIGURATION screen is displayed.

At the CONFIGURATION screen, select ROOT PASSWORD.

Enter a root password appropriate for this installation. It is good practice to use a customer provided secure password to minimize the host being compromised during installation.

$ mkdir /media/usb

Typically the USB device is enumerated as /dev/sda but that is not always the case. Use the lsblk command to find the USB device. An example lsblk output is below. The capacity of the USB drive is expected to be approximately 30GiB, therefore the USB drive is enumerated as device /dev/sda in the example below:

$ lsblk
sdd           8:48   0 894.3G  0 disk
sde           8:64   0   1.7T  0 disk
sdc           8:32   0 894.3G  0 disk
├─sdc2        8:34   0     1G  0 part /boot
├─sdc3        8:35   0 893.1G  0 part
│ ├─ol-swap 252:1    0     4G  0 lvm  [SWAP]
│ ├─ol-home 252:2    0 839.1G  0 lvm  /home
│ └─ol-root 252:0    0    50G  0 lvm  /
└─sdc1        8:33   0   200M  0 part /boot/efi
sda           8:0    1  29.3G  0 disk
├─sda2        8:2    1   8.5M  0 part
└─sda1        8:1    1   4.3G  0 part

The dmesg command also provides information about how the operating system enumerates devices. In the example below, the dmesg output indicates the USB drive is enumerated as device /dev/sda.

Note: The output is shortened here for display purposes.

$ dmesg
...
[8850.211757] usb-storage 2-6:1.0: USB Mass Storage device detected
[8850.212078] scsi host1: usb-storage 2-6:1.0
[8851.231690] scsi 1:0:0:0: Direct-Access     SanDisk  Cruzer Glide     1.00 PQ: 0 ANSI: 6
[8851.232524] sd 1:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg0 type 0
[8851.232978] sd 1:0:0:0: [sda] 61341696 512-byte logical blocks: (31.4 GB/29.3 GiB)
[8851.234598] sd 1:0:0:0: [sda] Write Protect is off
[8851.234600] sd 1:0:0:0: [sda] Mode Sense: 43 00 00 00
[8851.234862] sd 1:0:0:0: [sda] Write cache: disabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
[8851.255300] sda: sda1 sda2
...

The USB device should contain at least two partitions. One is the boot partition and the other is the install media. The install media is the larger of the two partitions. To find information about the partitions use the fdisk command to list the filesystems on the USB device. Use the device name discovered via the steps outlined above. In the examples above, the USB device is /dev/sda.

$ fdisk -l /dev/sda
Disk /dev/sda: 31.4 GB, 31406948352 bytes, 61341696 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk label type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x137202cf
 
   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *           0     8929279     4464640    0  Empty
/dev/sda2            3076       20503        8714   ef  EFI (FAT-12/16/32)

In the example output above, the /dev/sda2 partition is the EFI boot partition. Therefore the install media files are on /dev/sda1. Use the mount command to mount the install media file system. The same command without any options is used to verify the device is mounted to /media/usb.

$ mount /dev/sda1 /media/usb
 
$ mount
...
/dev/sda1 on /media/usb type iso9660 (ro,relatime,nojoliet,check=s,map=n,blocksize=2048)

Create a repo file /etc/yum.repos.d/Media.repo with the following information:

[ol7_base_media]
name=Oracle Linux 7 Base Media
baseurl=file:///media/usb
gpgkey=file:///etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-oracle
gpgcheck=1
enabled=1

Disable the default public yum repo. This is done by renaming the current .repo file to end with something other than .repo. Adding .disabled to the end of the file name is standard.

Note: This can be left in this state as the Installer Bootstrap Host is re-paved in a later procedure.

$ mv /etc/yum.repos.d/public-yum-ol7.repo /etc/yum.repos.d/public-yum-ol7.repo.disabled

The output of yum repolist should look like the example below. Verify there no errors regarding un-reachable yum repos.

$ yum repolist
Loaded plugins: langpacks, ulninfo
repo id                           repo name                         status                       
ol7_base_media                    Oracle Linux 7 Base Media         5,134                                                                          
repolist: 5,134

Verify installation of dhcp, xinetd, and tftp-server.

Note: Currently dnsmasq is not being used. The verification of tftp makes sure the tftp file is included in the /etc/xinetd.d directory. Installation/Verification does not include actually starting any of the services. Service configuration/starting is performed in a later procedure.

Verify dhcp is installed:
-------------------------
$ cd /etc/dhcp
$ ls
dhclient.d  dhclient-exit-hooks.d  dhcpd6.conf  dhcpd.conf  scripts
 
Verify xinetd is installed:
---------------------------
$ cd /etc/xinetd.d
$ ls
chargen-dgram  chargen-stream  daytime-dgram  daytime-stream  discard-dgram  discard-stream 
echo-dgram  echo-stream  tcpmux-server  time-dgram  time-stream
 
Verify tftp is installed:
-------------------------
$ cd /etc/xinetd.d
$ ls
chargen-dgram  chargen-stream  daytime-dgram  daytime-stream  discard-dgram  discard-stream 
echo-dgram  echo-stream  tcpmux-server  tftp  time-dgram  time-stream