Network installation of SuSE on POWER LPAR

You have DVD image with SLES11 SP4 for POWER and want to deploy Linux on LPAR created on POWER system using network (probably with autoyast).

Building PXE

PXE environment for this deployment is allmost same as for x86 platform. This can be implemented on any suitable Linux distribution. Here is an example of creating PXE environment using SLES11SP4 running on x86_64 platform.

I've mounted about 10g volume on /export/src to hold repository, then all references in configuration files will point to this location.

TFTP configuration.

According to SuSE recommendation, a package "atftp" should be installed. It should replace other packages if they had installed previously. Create/edit/edit with Yast configuration file /etc/sysconfig/atftpd, like:

# egrep -v "^#|^$" /etc/sysconfig/atftpd
ATFTPD_OPTIONS="--daemon "
ATFTPD_USE_INETD="no"
ATFTPD_DIRECTORY="/export/src/tftpboot"
ATFTPD_BIND_ADDRESSES=""

Create directory and restart atftpd service by your favorite command:

# mkdir /export/src/tftpboot
# /etc/init.d/atftpd restart
Stopping Advanced Trivial FTP server                              done
Starting Advanced Trivial FTP server                              done

Test TFTP server:

# cd /tmp
/tmp # echo "test" > /export/src/tftpboot/t
/tmp # atftp localhost
tftp> get t
tftp> quit
/tmp # cat t
test

Copy repository

Mount CDROM (or ISO image) on /mnt/cdrom (for example) and just copy all it's content to desired directory (/export/src/S11SP4-POWER/ in my case ).

# rsync -av /mnt/cdrom/ /export/src/S11SP4-POWER/

You can unmount /mnt/cdrom, you will not need it anymore.

Installing / configuring HTTP server

There is number of options of HTTP server in SuSE, I like apache2, therefore I've installed apache2package. Add /etc/apache2/conf.d/src.conf configuration file to default installation and restart service:

# cat /etc/apache2/conf.d/src.conf
Alias /src "/export/src"
<Directory "/export/src">
        Options +Indexes
        AllowOverride All
        Order deny,allow
        Deny from all
        Allow from all
</Directory>
# /etc/init.d/apache2 restart
Syntax OK
Shutting down httpd2 (waiting for all children to terminate)    done
Starting httpd2 (prefork)                                       done

Check with browser that you can see http://<YOUR-PXE-IP>/src/S11SP4-POWER/

DHCP configuration

Install dhcp-server package, if not installed already. Edit /etc/dhcpd.conf configuration file and restart service:

# cat /etc/dhcpd.conf
allow booting;
allow bootp;
option domain-name "localdomain";
option domain-name-servers 192.168.70.1;
option routers 192.168.70.1;
option ntp-servers 192.168.70.1;
ddns-update-style none;
default-lease-time 14400;

subnet 192.168.70.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 {
  range dynamic-bootp 192.168.70.100 192.168.70.200;
  default-lease-time 14400;
  max-lease-time 172800;
  next-server 192.168.70.88;
  filename "yaboot.ibm";
}
# /etc/init.d/dhcpd restart
Shutting down ISC DHCPv4 4.x Server                               done
Starting ISC DHCPv4 4.x Server [chroot]                           done

My installation network is 192.168.70.0 as follow from subnet section. My PXE server has 192.168.70.88 as mentioned in next-server section. Bootloader yaboot.ibm will be downladed to client.

Checking DHCP: Connect something configured DHCP to PXE network and see lease obtained (on PXE server check /var/log/messages).

Popuating /tftpboot directory

Copy the following files:

# cd /export/src/S11SP4-POWER/suseboot/
# cp -av initrd64 linux64 yaboot.ibm /export/src/tftpboot/

Create yaboot.conf file:

# cat /export/src/tftpboot/yaboot.conf
message=yaboot.txt
timeout=300
prompt
default=install

image[64bit]=linux64
  label=install
  append="quiet sysrq=1 install=http://192.168.70.88/src/S11SP4-POWER/ vnc=1"
  initrd=initrd64

image[64bit]=linux64
  label=rescue
  append="quiet sysrq=1 rescue=1 install=http://192.168.70.88/src/S11SP4-POWER/ vnc=1"
  initrd=initrd64

The mentioned 192.168.70.88 IP is my PXE server, your can be differ.

The keyword message points to yaboot.txt file, let's create it:

# cat /export/src/tftpboot/yaboot.txt











  SLES 11 SP4 for SAP, POWER platform

  Type  "install"  to start the YaST installer from net.
  Type  "rescue"   to start the rescue system from net.

Deployment

Open (via HMC) console of LPAR, interrupt boot sequence with 1 key. I have no exact screenshots of boot procedure, but you have to select network card as boot device

Important: No IP configuration should be performed for this card !

Select BOOTP protocol with normal boot.