kickstart failure from CDROM

[Benjamin Thompson]

I've got an xw8000, dual Xeon system. I'm attempting to load RH9 from a vendor CD that has a ks.cfg file in the top directory. The vendor CD boots and ks.cfg is supposed to startup, load RH9 from "Local CDROM", then when all 3 CDs are done, prompt me to reinstall my vendor CD to finish with some RPM additions, "housekeeping", etc..

The CD-ROM isn't found after I select the Installation Location as Local CDROM (Yes, I saw the "patch" links here about prolant servers, but the links are dead). I assume the CD-ROM issue has something to do with the RH9 driver? bug. The vendor told me he swapped one drive for another and was able to make it work. I have a DT855 that came with the xw8000 (it was a "no go"), and picked up an HP 420i (no go also). Is there a CD or DVD drive I can get that WILL work? And, no, I'm stuck using RH9 in this manner for technical and legal reasons. Is there a driver I can load, when asked, that would get around the suspect driver in RH9?

Lastly, I tried running the kickstart program from a floppy using "linux ks=floppy" at "boot:" and RH9 CD1 in the CDROM. It went well until I got to the "%Post" in the ks.cfg file. It didn't do any of the "%Post --nochroot" installation stuff (e.g. I never got asked to put the vendor CD in the drive - one of the first things in %Post). I could REALLY use some help.

[Steven E. Protter]

Dell Xeon servers should not act at all like Proliant servers.

PErhaps you could make a network boot disk or cd and downloand the RH-9 from the vendor ftp site, or a local nfs server on your network.

Then we don't have any problem with local cd's.

That may fail as well.

Perhaps your cd-rom is bad or has the switches configured in some non-standard way. I've found this issue with cable select settings in the past.

SEP

[Benjamin Thompson]

BTW, the following is the %Post section (that's not working from the floppy) of my ks.cfg file.

%post --nochroot
#Set up for install
#/mnt/sysimage is the hard drive
#/tmp/cdrom is the cdrom driver (if present)
#/dev/console is terminal 1
cddrv=/tmp/cdrom
# Determine cd device
if [ ! -e ${cddrv} ]
then
cddrv=`grep cdrom /proc/ide/*/media | sed -e "s/\/proc\/ide/\/dev/" | sed -e "s/\/media.*//"`
fi
echo "Post processing started" > /mnt/sysimage/tmp/rhks.log
cd /
mkdir /cdrom
#Move to terminal 1 cause that's where read looks for input
chvt 1
correctdisk=0
#Loop until they enter the correct cd
while [ ${correctdisk} -eq 0 ]
do
if [ ! -e /cdrom/ks.cfg ]
then
umount ${cddrv} > /dev/null 2>&1
echo "Message about to be delivered" >> /mnt/sysimage/tmp/rhks.log
echo "" > /dev/console
echo "" > /dev/console
echo "" > /dev/console
echo "Load the XiO boot disk into the CD drive and hit enter to continue" > /dev/console
read ans
echo "Message acknowledged" >> /mnt/sysimage/tmp/rhks.log
mount ${cddrv} /cdrom
else
correctdisk=1
fi
done
#Go to where messages will be written which is 3
chvt 3
echo "Loading additional files"
echo "Correct CD Mounted" >> /mnt/sysimage/tmp/rhks.log
#Determine if updating smp or not
smp=`rpm -qa -r /mnt/sysimage | grep kernel-smp | wc -l`
echo "smp is equal to " >> /mnt/sysimage/tmp/rhks.log
echo "${smp}" >> /mnt/sysimage/tmp/rhks.log
#rpmdb pkg expects /var/lib/rpm. Don't dissappoint them
ln -s /mnt/sysimage/var/lib/rpm /var/lib
#Load the correct set of rpm files
if [ ${smp} -ge 1 ]
then
rpm -Uvh --root /mnt/sysimage /cdrom/errata/comps.rpm /cdrom/errata/kernel-2.4.20-8.i686.rpm /cdrom/errata/initscripts-7.14-1.i386.rpm /cdrom/errata/kernel-source-2.4.20-8.i386.rpm /cdrom/errata/kernel-smp-2.4.20-8.i686.rpm /cdrom/errata/rhn-applet-2.0.9-0.9.0.1.i386.rpm /cdrom/errata/kernel-doc-2.4.20-8.i386.rpm /cdrom/errata/rpmdb-redhat-9-0.20030313.i386.rpm | tee -a /mnt/sysimage/tmp/rhks.log
else
rpm -Uvh --root /mnt/sysimage /cdrom/errata/comps.rpm /cdrom/errata/initscripts-7.14-1.i386.rpm /cdrom/errata/kernel-source-2.4.20-8.i386.rpm /cdrom/errata/kernel-2.4.20-8.i686.rpm /cdrom/errata/rhn-applet-2.0.9-0.9.0.1.i386.rpm /cdrom/errata/kernel-doc-2.4.20-8.i386.rpm /cdrom/errata/rpmdb-redhat-9-0.20030313.i386.rpm | tee -a /mnt/sysimage/tmp/rhks.log
fi
# Determine if bcm 5700 or not
bcm=`lsmod | grep bcm5700 | wc -l`
# Install bcm5700 if needed
if [ ${bcm} -ge 1 ]
then
rpm -ivh --root /mnt/sysimage /cdrom/bcm5700-6.0.2-1.i386.rpm | tee -a /mnt/sysimage/tmp/rhks.log
fi
#Clean up
echo "RPMs installed" >> /mnt/sysimage/tmp/rhks.log
umount ${cddrv}
echo "CD unmounted" >> /mnt/sysimage/tmp/rhks.log
chvt 7



As far as jumpers, etc., they're set to Master on the secondary IDE controller (only device on it). As before, everything works if I just install from RH9 w/o the vendor boot/kickstart CD, which, btw, they use on lots of systems. As for bad CD, as I said, I put a new HP 420i in and got the same result.