Ignite Lan Boot Issue

[Citibank_1]

Hi All,

Trying to setup a ignite server and this issue shakes the entire program.Most of our servers are either Superdomes or RPs and in most of these servers we are not using the core/builtin n/w card,instead we are using additional network cards in I/O Slots.Now HP official comment is that we can network boot and recover a system only thru builtin/core n/w card only.

I would like to know if any of you have a second opinion on this.I feel its totally weird,if we can recover a system only thru built in network card

[Senthil Kumar .A_1]

Hi,

Since you have confirmed that HP official has stated, I can't really contend with that. Anyway when I do "sea" at PDC, I get only few "lan" bootable paths that was sufficient enough to get our server booted through ignite or even recover as per our setup.

In special cases as you mentioned, that is for non-built in n/w cards, we do circumvent the issue by booting into the CD and choosing "ignite install" option. Wherein we are given the option of choosing the network path from which to boot or recover. This being said, I feel it is the ability of ignite boot image being able to scan and identify the rest of n/w paths apart from builtin n/w cards.

With the above para i can only infer that, it should be the non ability of the PDC code in scanning the same. I'm not to sure as to why there is a limitation because I would not know the internals of the PDC scan capability for boot paths. May be there is bound to be some limitations at that stage which would have promted HP to be contended with only scaning the builtin LAN path. I would not see any other reason why they could have omitted otherwise.

I'm sure this is not a satisfying answer you are looking for, it is just my observation.

Regards,
Senthil Kumar .A

[Chris Watkins_1]

My workaround to this was always to boot from install media,
and select the option to install from an ignite server.

It will have you setup networking for the install, and will
allow you to choose from network cards other than the builtin.

I've done this on L and N class, and RP3440's, but not
not from any of our VPar machines (rp8420's) yet, so YMMV.

[JASH_2]

Citibank,

Have you managed to do a make_net_recovery on the server(s) that you may want to restore yet? If not, can you tell me the problems or errors you are getting?

I had problems with getting a rp7410 with multi NICs to get going, but got round it with the way the filesystems were exported on the ignite server.

Regards,

JASH

[Steven E. Protter]

Shalom Citibank,

Ignite will let you recover a system through a non-built in card.

It simply will not let you BOOT through a non-built in network card.

You can use instl_adm to set the parameters for how the load will be after boot.

I've done an entire system rollout using Ignite in the past and will say that boot must be through the card, but actual data tranfer and recovery can be through any card.

SEP

[rick jones]

I suspect it all comes down to a question of whether or not the system firmware has a driver for the non-core NIC(s). That, and of course a question of testing to say if it is "supported" vs simply "works."

For example, IIRC the core NICs in an rp are an "Intel" 10/100 and a Broadcom 5701-based Gigabit. Likely as not the only drivers in the firmware would be for those two NIC's.