Preparing to Install Linux

This section describes how to prepare to install Linux on a BL860c server blade.

Racking, Cabling, and Firmware

The BL860c server blade is a full-height server blade designed for the standard BladeSystem c-Class enclosure and slides into any open slot in the enclosure. Once added to the enclosure, the server blade should go to standby power. The server blade is at standby power if the health LED is amber. If the system health LED turns green and the fan noise gets louder, then the server blade has powered on automatically. You can depress the power button to change to the standby state.

The BL860c server blade includes 4 integrated 1Gb ethernet interfaces that map to ports on the rear of the BladeSystem c-Class enclosure for connecting to the customer network. The mapping of ethernet interfaces to BladeSystem c-Class enclosure ports depends on the type of interconnect modules in the enclosure. For additional details, see Installation Guide: HP Integrity BL860c Server Blade.

The most current firmware can be installed on the BL860c server blade using the HP Integrity Essentials Foundation Pack for Linux (HPIEFPL) Smart Setup utility, which will also update the I/O firmware. The HPIEFPL Smart Setup utility is available for download at:

http://www.hp.com/go/integritylinuxessentials

Console Output

Console output is provided either over the serial port on the serial, USB, and video (SUV) cable as shown in Figure 1 or using a remote console through the iLO 2 MP.

Figure 1 Ports on the SUV Cable

1	Serial port
2	USB ports (2)
3	Video port

For a serial console connection, first attach the SUV cable to the front of the BL860c server blade as shown in Figure 2. Next, attach a null-modem serial cable to the "Console" serial port on the SUV cable and the serial port of a terminal or an external system running a terminal emulation application. For a remote console connections, use either the virtual console available through the iLO 2 MP (using a Java™ enabled Web browser) or use ssh or telnet to connect directly to the iLO 2 remote console.

Figure 2 Connecting the SUV Cable to the BL860c server blade

The SUV cable attached to the BL860c server blade

All output to the console is text-based requiring a minimum terminal emulation of a vt100.

For more information regarding iLO 2 MP functionality, see the HP Integrity Integrated Lights-out 2 Management Processor (iLO 2 MP) Operations Guide for the HP Integrity BL860c, rx2660, rx3600, and rx6600.

Installation Boot Media

The Linux installation boot kernel for the BL860c server blade on the Linux distribution installation media, can be booted using an external USB DVD drive, a remote iLO 2 virtual media, or a network connection using either a Pre-Boot Execution Environment (PXE) network connection or Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) server.




	NOTE: For BladeSystem c-Class enclosures containing an Ethernet Pass-Thru Interconnect Module (Part Number 406740-B21), there is a known connectivity issue when running Linux using the `tg3` ethernet drivers earlier than version 3.71b. This newer `tg3` driver is not distributed with RHEL4U4 or SLES10. Resolution of this issue requires updating to the 3.71b version of the `tg3` ethernet driver. This RPM file is installed as an update on the server once Linux is installed as described in “Updating the tg3 Driver”. For more information regarding the `tg3-3.71b-1.src.rpm` RPM, see “Appendix A: Instructions for Installing a New tg3 Driver for Ethernet Pass-Thru Interconnect Module Users”.

Verify that an installation boot kernel, initrd disk image, and the tg3 Ethernet driver source RPM have been made available using one of the three following methods:

Using an External USB DVD Device

Use of an external USB DVD to boot the install boot kernel requires that the device be connected to the USB port on the serial, USB, and video (SUV) cable with the SUV cable attached to the BL860c Server Blade, as previously described. The USB DVD device, with distribution media in it, becomes visible to boot and install from once the BL860c Server Blade is reset.

HP recommends that the only USB DVD device used is the certified HP MultiBay 9.5mm DVD+/-RW Drive (part number PA851A), which requires the USB External MultiBay Cradle (part number PA509A).

Using iLO 2 Virtual Media

Virtual media (vMedia) provides the BL860c server blade with virtual devices that mimic physical hardware devices, such as a virtual DVD drive hosted on another system, that connects through the network to the server blade as if they were physically connected. The physical vMedia device can be a DVD drive or an ISO image file stored on a local disk drive of another system on the network. Once connected, vMedia devices can then be used to boot the OS distribution installation media using the iLO 2 MP to install Linux on the BL860c server blade or read other CD/DVD media. A vMedia device must be hosted from a system running a Java enabled Web browser available to the BL860c server blade over an ethernet network to the iLO 2 MP interface.

Using a PXE Network Connection

The BL860c server blades support the PXE protocol for booting over a network connection. This requires at least a DHCP/ Trivial File Transfer Protocol (TFTP) boot server on the same segment of the network as the BL860c server blade. You must configure the PXE/DHCP/TFTP server to provide the elilo.efi and elilo-ia64.conf files for PXE boot. Additionally, configure the TFTP server to provide the vmlinuz Linux kernel and initrd images. For details regarding PXE configuration, see “Configuring the PXE Environment”.

Installation Media

Three types of Linux installation media are supported on the BL860c server blade:

CD/DVD media (either an external USB CD/DVD or iLO 2 vMedia),
a local hard disk partition,
or a network repository.

Select one of the following types of Linux installation media for use in installing the OS:

Using CD/DVD Media

Follow the steps described in “Using an External USB DVD Device” or “Using iLO 2 Virtual Media” to make the Linux distribution media available using external USB or vMedia respectively.

Using a Local Hard Disk Partition

Copy the Linux distribution ISO images to a local hard disk partition that will not be modified by the installation process.

Using a Network Repository

Installing from the network requires the creation of a network repository. Both RHEL4U4 and SLES10 provide instructions for creating network installation repositories. For details, see the Red Hat Enterprise Linux Installation Guide for the x86, Itanium™, and AMD64 Architectures or the SUSE Linux 10 Reference Guide.

Installation Considerations

The following sections describe additional installation considerations.

Disk Partitioning

The HPIEFPL Smart Setup utility should be used to update the system and I/O card firmware, and properly partition the hard disk with EFI boot and support tools partitions. In addition, the HPIEFPL Smart Setup utility prompts for the support tools media for installation into the EFI support tools partition.




	IMPORTANT: During the Linux installation, ensure that you do not destroy these partitions. When installing RHEL4U4, select the delete Linux partitions option when you are asked for the disks upon which Linux will be installed.

Development Packages

Periodically it becomes necessary for HP to provide modified versions of drivers for HP hardware to improve functionality, preferences, or resolves newly discovered issues. Kernel drivers are very specific to the kernel running on the system so these drivers must be rebuilt if a new kernel is introduced to the system. For example, after a security maintenance update to the system. It is often more feasible to enable you to build the appropriate driver kernel module for their environment. For this reason, HP distributes drivers in source form. The following kernel development packages from the OS distribution are needed to successfully build kernel drivers:

RHEL4U4

Package Bundle: Development Tools

SLES10

C/C++ Compiler and Tools (from Filter

Patterns)

kernel-source-* package

kernel-syms-* package




	NOTE: Any BL860c server blade enclosures containing the Ethernet Pass-Thru Interconnect Module must include these packages to be able to build the needed `tg3` network driver for continued network connectivity post-installation.