Boot Lan

[Nobody's Hero]

I have successfully performed a network ignite recovery on one of my test systems. Question, is it imperative to have the Built-in LAN active? Do you have to ensure that the card is configured and there is an active lan cable attached.?

[Nobody's Hero]

What I mean is. On the client, does the Built in lan module need to be active in order to boot accross the network from the client side?

[Pete Randall]

I must be missing something, Robert. I can't imagine how you would expect to do an network recovery without a network attachment! Am I confused?


Pete

[Leif Halvarsson_2]

Hi,
I think he mean if he must boot from the internal lan or can boot from any lan card. The answere is that at least with older computers it is necessary to use the built in lan. I am not sure about newer boxes, with some it is possible to boot from any PCI slot but from a LAN card in any slot ? I will try this on one of our serveres very soon.

[Pete Randall]

The internal lan as opposed to another? I believe you will need to use the internal.


Pete

[Nobody's Hero]

Yes, thanks for replying. I never use the built in lan card on our systems. I use the 10/100 PCI cards or HSC cards on older boxes.
The built-in cards are only 10mb on some of the K's. If the built-in card is not active on a client (I am using another interface card..PCI for example), will I still be able to boot from the client - to the ignite server?

[Pete Randall]

Robert,

I'm not real experienced with Ignite network restores, but I believe that at this point since you're just booting, you've loaded no LAN software, etc., you're going to end up on the built-in LAN card. There's no other choice at that point in time.

I could be wrong (it's happened once or twice) but that's my story and I'm sticking to it - for the moment!


Pete

[John Bolene · Accepted solution]

The built in lan is the only one that can be used as it is the only one that has built-in drivers in the ISL.

If the ISL does not know about the card, it cannot use it.

[Pete Randall]

Thankyou, John, that's what I was clumsily trying to say. You've got no access to others during boot.


Pete

[Nobody's Hero]

Thanks John,

You mean there is no config file I can change to tell the ISL to boot from a specific LAN card? So I guess in order to be able to boot from all our ignite clients in my datacenter, I'll have to configure and connect the built in lan?

Thanks,
RPM

[Steven E. Protter]

For actually booting the box as stated, has to be built in lan, no exceptions.

Its really important that the lan speed be known.

After the boot though, you can push/pull the ignite image through any NIC card you want.

On the server in instl_adm -d to check your settings.

You can output the settings to a file, change them and change your ignite settings as follows:

instl_adm -d > name_of_file

instl_adm -f name_of_file

SEP