Itanium Ignite install issue

[Tim Hempstead]

Hi,
We've got in some new BL60p Itanium Blades which we are trying to install HPUX 11i v2 on. Now we have installed one the long and slow way using USB DVD and have created a golden image of it. We now would like to install that onto the other four systems.

I have created a dbprofile in the EFI of the other systems called ignitepro which looks like this:

Profile Name: ignitepro
Network Type: IPv4
Client IP address: $CLIENTIP
Gateway IP address: $GATEWAYIP
Subnet Mask: 255.255.252.0
Server IP address: $IGNITESVRIP
Boot File: /opt/ignite/boot/nbp.efi
Optional Data:

(where the $VARIABLES are the appropriate addresses) and I have followed the steps in the documentation to integrate the golden image into the Ignite server software on the installed system.

But when I try and boot the BL60p I get the following:

Shell> lanboot select -dn ignitepro
01 Acpi(HWP0002,400)/Pci(1|0)/Mac(0019BB3A4612)
02 Acpi(HWP0002,400)/Pci(1|1)/Mac(0019BB3A4611)
03 Acpi(HWP0002,400)/Pci(3|0)/Mac(0019BB3A460E)
04 Acpi(HWP0002,400)/Pci(3|1)/Mac(0019BB3A460D)
Select Desired LAN: 01
Selected Acpi(HWP0002,400)/Pci(1|0)/Mac(0019BB3A4612)


Client MAC Address: 00 19 BB 3A 46 12
Client IP Address: $CLIENTIP
Subnet Mask: 255.255.252.0
BOOTP Server IP Address: $IGNITESVRIP
DHCP Server IP Address: 0.0.0.0
Boot file name: /opt/ignite/boot/nbp.efi

Retrieving File Size
PXE-E18: Timeout. Server did not respond.
Exit status code: Invalid Parameter

From looking around I have repointed the bootps entry in inetd.conf to use instl_bootd instead of the usual daemon. Also I am wondering if this is due to the (MS) DHCP server on the network interfering with the PXE boot requests. I have turned on inetd logging but cannot see any attempts to access the system at all.

Does anyone have any ideas what is causing this problem?

Tim

[Steven E. Protter]

Shalom Tim,

I've never seen Ignite boot of PXE. The fact the server is trying reflects HP's merging of technology from the Intel server line.

The most likely cause of this issue is the ignite server is not on the same subnet as the ignite client.

The thing to do is set up a boot helper to aid the ignite boot process between networks.

SEP

[Tim Hempstead]

The Ignite server is on the same subnet.

[Ivan Krastev]

Try to add lan0 as a boot option in efi menu.

regards,
ivan

[Jean-Yves Picard]

Hello,

I had more or less same issue.
I had to turn off my windows DHCP server.

My dhcptab looks like :
dhcp_device_group:\
re:\
ncid:\
class-id="PXEClient:Arch:00002:.*":\
lease-time=300:\
subnet-mask=255.255.255.0:\
addr-pool-start-address=10.183.4.100:\
addr-pool-last-address=10.183.4.101:\
bf=/opt/ignite/boot/nbp.efi

see http://docs.hp.com/en/5991-6396/5991-6396.pdf
pp 84-90.

I was able to go a bit further, but I stumble on other problems (which I cannot remember right now)

good luck, may Unix be with you!

Jean-Yves Picard

[Tim Hempstead]

There are boot options already ofr each of the network interfaces but they do not work either.

I'm referencing the "Booting Itanium-Based Clients using the Network" section of the Ignite admin guide (version 26).

t

[Wyman Wong Man Wai]

Your dbprofile looks good. The use of dbprofile allow network boot without DHCP, so you can ignore your MS DHCP server.

You may check
1. /opt/ignite/boot/nbp.efi does exist
2. inetd is running with tftp entry (ignite settings)
They should be installed and setup automatically if you have installed Ignite-UX-11-23 and run ignite server setup.

[Tim Hempstead]

People,

Ok, I managed to get things working a couple of days ago but it wasn't exactly straight forward. I'll try and provide some details here on what I did in case anyone else has the same issues.

Notes
1). dbprofile just doesn't work at all. I do not know why but even when you take the other network factors out of the equation it does not work properly as a method to boot off of an Ignite server, (even over a private lan)
2). if you have a DHCP server on your network it will screw up your attempt to boot one of these Blades off of an Ignite server even if you are not using DHCP. It would appear to still eat the PXE boot requests preventing them from getting to the Ignite server.
3). This assumes that your Ignite server has a Golden Image configured into its configuration and available for installs.

Ok this is what we had to do.
- Have our networks guys create a VLAN on the Blade switch linking an unused lan port on each blade together into a private lan with no DHCP servers etc etc etc The Ignite server should be connected to this network too. I used 192.168.0.x addresses with a netmask of 255.255.255.0 but you should take into account your network configuration policies.

- On the ignite server edit inetd.conf. You need to create a line which looks like the instl_bootd line created by Ignite but is actually called bootps, (commenting the original bootps line), so it picks up requests on the bootps port. inetd -c to apply.

- Edit the instl_boottab file in /etc/opt/ignite and create an entry for your client of the form:
ipaddress:macaddress::reserve
(you can get the MAC address from doing a lanboot select at the EFI prompt on the client). The ipaddress should be on the private vlan previously created.

- If the instl_bootd process is running then kill it off, (you may not need to do it but it means that it will be restarted by inetd in a minute and should hopefully reread the instl_boottab file).

- Startup Ignite on your Ignite server.

- On the client do a lanboot select at the EFI prompt using the card connected to the private vlan.

This should then connect to the instl_bootd daemon on the server and get the ipaddress defined there. It should then connect to Ignite over the private vlan and Ignite imaging should continue in the usual manner, (which meant in my case 2hrs debugging typos in my ignite configuration files as I couldn't test them in advance and then 15mins to actually image the server!).

Once the system is imaged and up and running you can then configure one of its other network ports on the client system to talk to your main lan in the usual way.

Hope this helps somebody

Tim