Booting/Installing a PE2950 from EMC SAN disk

[Mukarram Syed]

Thanks much Bahadir.
I'll try this out.

And thanks to all who responded.

Regards

-Mukarram.

-----Original Message-----
From: Bahadir Kiziltan [mailto:bahadir.kiziltan at gmail.com] 
Sent: Sunday, August 26, 2007 11:04 PM
To: Mukarram Syed
Cc: linux-poweredge at dell.com
Subject: Re: Booting/Installing a PE2950 from EMC SAN disk

On 8/27/07, Mukarram Syed <muksyed at stanford.edu> wrote:
> Thanks for the suggestions.
> It will be a few days or maybe a week or two until I try this however I
have
> some questions on your response:
>
> - enter the HBA BIOS during post and then enable BIOS
> ---- where should I do this part, not very clear.  When the system boots
> up, I need to go into the HBA BIOS and enable BIOS, how?

Hit Alt+E when you see things related to Emulex during post. You
should see an option called "Enable BIOS" somewhere in BIOS.

> - you should see the available LUN created and select it as a boot device
> ---- where should I do this, is this in the HBA BIOS? Or in the system
BIOS?

NOT in the system BIOS. Your HBA can see the LUNs and you choose a LUN
as a boot device after enabling HBA BIOS.

> How should I configure my ks.cfg file so that anaconda will automagically
> install OS on the SAN drive?

It would work without having to modify the kickstart file. The
partitioning schema defined in the ks file may need to be updated.

Bahadir.

> Thanks
>
> -Mukarram.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Bahadir Kiziltan [mailto:bahadir.kiziltan at gmail.com]
> Sent: Saturday, August 25, 2007 12:05 PM
> To: Mukarram Syed
> Cc: linux-poweredge at dell.com
> Subject: Re: Booting/Installing a PE2950 from EMC SAN disk
>
> Hi,
>
> I assume that you have only one HBA and your server is connected to a
> clariion array via SAN switch.
>
> - first create a zone covering wwn_HBA and wwn_SPAx then activate the
zone.
> - on navisphere gui, manually register the host via connectivity status
> window
> - create a LUN to be used for OS installation (should be owned by SPA)
> - create a storage group
> - put manually registered host and LUN into the storage group created
> - enter the HBA BIOS during post and then enable BIOS
> - you should see the available LUN created and select it as a boot device
>
> After that, it's a regular OS installation. RHEL supports emulex HBAs
> and provides the required drivers out-of-the-box. Installer represents
> the LUN as sda. Remember installing kernel-devel package. Finally,
> install navisphere software.
>
> Then activate the other zone covering wwn_HBA and wwn_SPBx.
>
> I have boot-from-SAN servers with dual HBAs in production environment.
> I find qlogic HBAs and drivers much more flexible than emulex as they
> provide driver based HBA failover capabilities especially for Linux
> environment.
>
> Bahadir.
>
> On 8/23/07, Mukarram Syed <muksyed at stanford.edu> wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Hi,
> >
> > Any suggestions would be appreciated on this Subject of
Installing/Booting
> a
> > PE2950 from EMC SAN disk:
> >
> >
> >
> > I have been using Kickstart to install RedHat Linux on local disks and
> > booting from them.  But a requirement arose in our department to install
> > Linux on a SAN disk which I have never done before.
> >
> > We will be using Emulex Card with lpfc drivers.  How could one
incorporate
> > loading the lpfc driver upon bootup so that it could recognize the SAN
> disk
> > and install OS on this.  Should I rebuild the kernel or the initrd file
to
> > load the lpfc drivers?  If yes, how?
> >
> > Which partitions will it use to install the OS (sda/sdb or something
> else)?
> >
> >
> >
> > Please advice.
> >
> >
> >
> > I also posted this on the Kickstart mailing list, but did not get any
> > response since my post.
> >
> >
> >
> > Thanks Much in advance
> >
> >
> >
> > -Mukarram.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Mukarram Syed
> >
> > Unix Systems Administrator,
> >
> > Administrative Services, Stanford University
> >
> > 340 Panama Street,
> >
> > Godzilla Building,
> >
> > Stanford, CA 94305 MC 2226.
> >
> > Phone: 650-736-7647
> >
> > Cell: 408-480-8841
> >
> > Email: muksyed at stanford.edu
> >
> >
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>
>