Installing Red Hat Enterprise 4 on to a G5 Proliant DL380

[Lee Garstin]

Hi,

I need to install Red Hat on to the above server, though when i attempt to deploy the installation through smartstart 7.60, I have only options for Netware and Windows installations.

I've tried installing without smartstart, though the red hat installations doesn't seem to recognise the p400 controller that my Array is set on (I have three logical drives set, one using 1+0, and the other two using 0).

I think I've included everything, if not please let me know and I'll fill in any gaps.

Thanks in advance for any advice you can offer.

[Steven E. Protter]

Shalom,

The fact that smartstart does not have a Linux assist option will not stop you from installing Linux.

Your server by default will if it has two matching disks and hardware raid have a raid 1 setup.

You don't need the smartstart at all to configure the built in storage, the utility built into the BIOS will do the job well.

If you need to attach to a fiber array then you can use smartstart. That kind of storage configuration is not really OS dependent.

SEP

[Lee Garstin]

Shalom Stephen,

This brings me on nicely to another issue.

I've attempted to install the OS independently of SmartStart, however when anaconda runs, it does not appear to recognise the p400 controller that my array is using.

I am presented with a list of controllers, of which the p400 isn't one of them, so i attempt to install with a third party driver. The only option I am given is /dev/hda as the location of any driver. Unfortunately the driver is only available on a flash drive or CD. Does anybody have any ideas as to how I can get this controller recognised within anaconda, bearing in mind there is no floppy drive available?

Again, thanks for any assistance you may be able to offer.

[Vitaly Karasik_1]

Lee, do you use the latest RHEL4 update level - 4?

[Vitaly Karasik_1]

As for using driver diskette without floppy drive - it's a good question.
Probably you can use virtual floppy drive via ILO?
Or map USB flashdisk as floppy into BIOS?
Or use Andrea Rossi suggestion - http://forums1.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?threadId=792469&admit=-682735245+1169535851033+28353475?

[Jared Middleton]

I had a similar scenario last month. DL380 G5, RHEL 4, no floppy, couldn't get kickstart to read from a USB flash drive, and iLO virtual floppy had some issue. However, an IT co-worker just happened to have something I hadn't seen before... a real floppy drive with a USB "tail" on it (instead of normal floppy connector). I plugged this in to a server USB port, rebooted w/RHEL CD, and presto, the system recognized the device (as /dev/fd0 or whatever), and my custom Kickstart was off and running.

Regards,
Jared Middleton

[Lee Garstin]

Firstly thankyou for all of your suggestions so far. Your help so far has been invaluable in resolving my issue.

Something I had forgotten to mention was the fact that I'M actually using Red Hat Enterprise 4 ES, not the EL edition.

So far, I have now managed to get external storage devices recognised in order to install a suitable driver disk for the p400 controller. My only real issue now is, I can't find a suitable driver disk for the hardware and software i'm using.

If anyone has any suggestions, I would be most grateful.

Once again, thanks for all your help so far.

Lee Garstin

[Vitaly Karasik_1 · Accepted solution]

>Something I had forgotten to mention was >the fact that I'M actually using Red Hat >Enterprise 4 ES, not the EL edition

RHEL 4 has three flovors - WS, ES and AS. All use the same kernel, so this not relevant for our problem.

Did you try to use virtual floppy?

>p400 controller. My only real issue now >is, I can't find a suitable driver disk >for the hardware and software i'm using
This is the version for RHEL4 EMT64 http://h18004.www1.hp.com/support/files/server/us/download/25369.html

[Lee Garstin]

Just to let everyone know, this issue has now been resolved.

We managed to sniff out a USB floppy drive, and by using the 'linux dd' option, were able to load the drivers suggested above - thanks!

If anyone happens to come accross this thread, it would be useful to know that any USB device i plugged in during the installation is recognised as a SCSI device (/dev/sda).

Thanks for all your invaluable help guys.

Lee

[Lee Garstin]

Thanks Guys

Lee