Can't lanboot Integrity blade

[Tom Brown]

We have four brand new BL60p blade servers in two racks. None of them have tape drives, so we cannot use make_tape_recovery to create (or, more importantly, use) bootable Ignite tapes. So, I have configured one of the servers as an Ignite server, and make_net_recovery seems to work fine. However, I have tried all the recommended ways to configure a client blade to boot to the Ignite server for recovery.

First I tried configuring the Ignite server with DHCP (bootpd) support, which doesn't work. I am convinced this is because the PXE requests are being answered by a Microsoft or Cisco DHCP server on the LAN (HP-UX admins have no control over the LAN configuration in our shop).

Next I tried using instl_bootpd instead of DHCP; this doesn't work either, with similar results.

Now I am down to trying a direct-boot profile as described in "Alternative to DHCP for Itanium-based Servers Supporting Direct Boot Profiles" as described in the Ignite-UX Administration Guide (B2355-90997, September 2006) Appendix B, pp. 334-340. This doesn't work, either.

Essentially, I am at a loss. It appears that Ignite-UX will be of no use to us on these blade servers. Does anyone have any experience or ideas to contribute?

If we cannot boot from an Ignite server over the network to recover (e.g. from a failed boot drive) the operating system, would it be possible to build a bootable DVD for each system from the make_net_recovery images stored on the Ignite server? The documentation does not seem to address this particular situation, as it concentrates on the "Golden Image" concept for a push-installation scenario. We would rather have a bootable DVD image for each server, based on the make_net_recovery images we would periodically capture.

[Pete Randall]

The Admin Guide has a section on building your own install DVD:

http://www.docs.hp.com/en/B2355-90997/ch10.html


Pete

[Tom Brown]

Thank you for your response, Pete. I do plan to devote 80% of my time for the next week or so to studying chapter 10 and the various other chapters, man pages, and terminology (I didn't even know there was such a thing as a "stanza" in HP-UX, did you?) mentioned in that chapter.

My only fear is that the end result will be something that doesn't work any better than the chapters on using Ignite for recovery and the various articles on booting to an Ignite server on the same subnet.

Obviously, if the lanboot concept did work as documented, things would be a lot easier.

[Steven E. Protter · Accepted solution]

Shalom,

I've built the DVD according to the instructions in Pete's link.

I've built and booted for both Integrity and PA-RISC systems.

Seems you have gone about the proccess of trying Ignite properly.

What I did for my rp5450 servers in my prior job was to build a private network on secondary NIC cards. This permitted me to bypass network issues.

I'm not sure my idea will work with a blade server.

SEP

[Tom Brown]

Hi Steven,
Thank you for your thought-provoking reply! Each blade server does have four (4) NICs, so the idea of a crossover cable immediately springs to mind!! Did you use simple tools like ifconfig and the hosts file, or did you have to install extra routers/hubs/dns/dhcp components in your private LAN?

Did you build your bootable DVDs from make_net_recovery images?

[Tom Brown]

Steven G. Protter:

The crossover cable works wonderfully. In each rack I have two blades, and each blade is now an Ingnite server.

On each server, make_tape_recovery writes to the other server over the private LAN. In the hosts file, of course still refers to the other server on public LAN via lan0; refers to the other server via the crossover cable on (I chose) lan2.

For recovery, go to the "dead" server, power it on, and select the EFI shell from the boot menu. At the shell prompt, enter 'lanboot select' and chose the private lan (in my case, interface 3 or lan2). On the ignite server, I use instl_bootptab to associate the incoming MAC address over the crossover cable to the private IP.

The recovery boot goes fine and the make_net_recovery archives are visible to work with.

Maybe these tips will be helpful to someone else. The main lesson I learned is that if there are Microsoft DHCP servers on your subnet, just toss 90% of the information in the Ignite-UX documentation. It won't work.




I'm using instl_boottab to associate the private LAN IP with the private LAN

[Tom Brown]

Steven,

Please forgive me for mis-typing our middle initial.

- Tom

[Tom Brown]

SEP: I wish you could edit your own posts here. Now I have misspelled 'your.'

The last clause of my long post was leftover from my M$ Windows clipboard. Sorry about that. I would edit it out if I could.

And, of course, I am using make_net_recovery instead of make_tape_recovery. Again, there are NO local tapes on these blades.

[Wyman Wong Man Wai]

This thread recall me of this thread:
http://forums1.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?threadId=1099332

It is too bad to see direct-boot profile does not work on BL60p. Direct-boot profile is suppose to work around DHCP issue. Is it a bug in BL60p?