SLES 10 SP1 Smart Setup CD on rx2600

[imf_admin]

Hello HP hardware experts!

I want to install Suse Linux Ent. Server SP1 on a rx2600 Itanium machine. I downloaded the latest release of the Smart Setup CD (SmartSetup-4.9.6.iso) to start the installation. When I boot the machine with this CD I get the error that the hardware is not supported. I tried to solve this problem by downloading a older version of the CD (SmartSetup-4.8.4.iso) which
I found under the support and driver section for the rx2600 on the HP webpage. But this CD produces the same error on the server. I want to mention that the firmware of the server is a rather old one (2.01). Do I have to upgrade the firmware first to get one of the Linux Setup CD's running? I read another thread in this forum that I first need to go to version 2.10 because no direct upgrade to the latest version is possible. The oldest firmware I can find on the HP page (ISO-image version) is version 2.31. EFI images are more or less useless for me because I cannot access the DVD-Rom.
I tried a few times with the reconnect -r and map -r commands to get the drive working but had no success. Only thing that worked was adding a boot entry to boot from a CD. Any ideas how to overcome those problems?

Thanks for your answers!

Bye, imf_admin.

[Phil uk]

Hi,

You could possibly try as an alternative the EFI images and use a Memory stick instead of the ISO images,


MP (Management) firmware here
(NOTE THAT THIS IS THE FTP VERSION):
Read the release notes for the upgrade paths - You indeed cannot do one big jump.

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/SoftwareDescription.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&prodTypeId=15351&prodSeriesId=2512013&swItem=ux-32412-1&prodNameId=1828449&swEnvOID=54&swLang=13&taskId=135&mode=4&idx=0

CAUTIONS:
1 - If the currently installed firmware is older than E.02.10 then updating to MP firmware revision E.02.29 requires updating to E.02.10 first.
2 - Upgrades to MP firmware beyond E.02.26 will require updating to MP firmware revision E.02.26 first.

Sys,BMC firmware etc- older versions listed further down page:
(read the release notes for the upgrade paths as applicable)

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/SoftwareDescription.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&prodTypeId=15351&prodSeriesId=447335&swItem=ux-46489-1&prodNameId=88839&swEnvOID=54&swLang=13&taskId=135&mode=5

Your version of SmartSetup looks correct-perhaps updating the firmware will help resolve the problem.

Regards,
Phil

[Phil uk]

Sorry,

I missed off the E.02.26 MP link which you may need as a "stepping stone" upgrade.

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/SoftwareDescription.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&prodTypeId=15351&prodSeriesId=2512013&prodNameId=1828449&swEnvOID=54&swLang=13&taskId=135&swItem=ux-32407-1&mode=3

As a tip, have a look at the release notes and revision history tabs - they sometimes have links to the older versions of firmware.

Cheers,
Phil

[Torsten.]

Please post also

EFI> info all

so we can have a look and check.
I have already seen problems with the servers model name producing strange behaviour.

[imf_admin]

I typed in:

EFI> info all -b

and I get after the date line:

Manufacturer: hp
Product Name: server rx2600
Product Number: A6870AR
Serial Number: DE40700075

It's only the first part of the whole output because I don't have any network connection to the machine. Is it possible in the EFI shell to save the informations to a file? There is a HP-UX system installed on the machine but when I boot this system up it gets stuck when searching for a NIS server. How can I abort the search for the NIS server? I tried already all the LAN connections on the back of the machine to get the network working to connect the machine with the NIS. But it didn't work. The LAN LED stays in off status and the system LED blinks in a orange color. Without net access and only the EFI shell it is very hard to collect some infos from the machine.

Thanks for your help.

Bye, imf_admin

[Torsten.]

Re. EFI infos.

1) capture the output within your terminal emulation (save a file on your PC)
or
2) insert an USB stick, change fsx: to this device and run

fs1:> info all > output.txt

re. NIS:

NIS is configured in

/etc/rc.config.d/namesvrs

You could try to abort the boot, go to single user mode, vgchange -a y vg00, mount -a and edit this file:

Without NIS the settings are

NIS_MASTER_SERVER=0
NIS_SLAVE_SERVER=0
NIS_CLIENT=0
NISPLUS_SERVER=0
NISPLUS_CLIENT=0

[Dennis Handly]

You might be able to end the NIS server search by using control-|.

>Is it possible in the EFI shell to save the info to a file?

If you can get it to be saved in a file and you can ever get it booted, you can look at the files on EFI by:
# /usr/sbin/efi_ls -d /dev/rdsk/c3t0d0s1
FileName Last Modified Size
EFI/ 9/22/2005 0
STARTUP.NSH 9/22/2005 296

And then efi_cp.

[Dennis Handly]

>ME: You might be able to end the NIS server search by using control-|.

Oops, sorry, that info was for HP-UX.

[imf_admin]

Hi,

you can find the output of the command

EFI>info all > output.txt

in the attached output.txt. Because there are a few firmwares mentioned in the output I am not sure which one to upgrade first. Is there a recommended strategy to get all the firmwares updated?
I have to mention that I am not very experienced in the maintenance of prof. server machines like this one. So i don't understand what is meant by going to single user mode for example. I have some linux practice but I am completely new to HP-UX. I hope that the infos from the output.txt are helpfull. Thanks for the answers.

Bye, imf_admin

[Sameer_Nirmal]

It looks like SLES 10 and 10 SP1 is not supported on rx2600. So the error "hardware is not supported" seems to legitimate. I referred following HP and Novell website links which confirms about it.

http://h18004.www1.hp.com/products/quickspecs/12650_div/12650_div.html

http://developer.novell.com/yessearch/Search.jsp