We recently acquired four new machines (Sun X4270s). As usual as I've done
with dozens of other machines I constructed RHEL5 kickstart .cfg files for
them and made additions to the syslinux.cfg of the form:
label ct-phy-dom01
kernel vmli5s64
append initrd=int5s64.img ks=hd:sdb1:/configs/ct-phy-dom01.cfg console=ttyS0,9600
label ct-phy-dom02
kernel vmli5s64
append initrd=int5s64.img ks=hd:sdb1:/configs/ct-phy-dom02.cfg console=ttyS0,9600
label ct-phy-dom03
kernel vmli5s64
append initrd=int5s64.img ks=hd:sdb1:/configs/ct-phy-dom03.cfg console=ttyS0,9600
label ct-phy-dom04
kernel vmli5s64
append initrd=int5s64.img ks=hd:sdb1:/configs/ct-phy-dom04.cfg console=ttyS0,9600
# vmli5s64 = vmlinuz for RHEL5, server, 64bit
# int5s64.img = initrd.img for RHEL5, server, 64bit
# (note that the name of the initrd file must conform to 8.3 rules, just
# like in DOS or it doesn't work!)
I placed the machine-specific .cfg files and the syslinux.cfg on a USB stick
as we do for certain installs and powered the first machine (ct-phy-dom01)
on. After typing "ct-phy-dom01" at the boot: line the machine installed via
HTTP perfectly. However after that all the other machines failed to
install. After watching ct-phy-dom02-4 repeatedly stop at the point at
which they should load stage2.img from the HTTP server I theorised it was
something to do with the network. Cue over an hour of network testing,
changing cables, checking VLANs and adding ksdevice=<MAC address of chosen
NIC in the server> to the syslinux.cfg. Nothing worked. At no point could
I ping the IP (in the ks.cfg) of the box I was installing.
Eventually, even though I was booting via serial I plugged in a monitor and
paged through the other virtual consoles and noticed that at install the
machines were all selecting the ct-phy-dom01.cfg file despite what the
syslinux.cfg specified. Obviously this meant they were trying to raise the
IP of ct-phy-dom01 which had already been built and was up and running.
No matter what I tried I could not get any of the other machines
(ct-phy-dom02-04) to use their own cfg files until I started commenting out
the lines of servers I wasn't building in syslinux.cfg. Want to build
ct-phy-dom02? Comment out ct-phy-dom01's lines. ct-phy-dom03? Comment out
ct-phy-dom01 _and_ ct-phy-dom02. Etc.
Now, can anyone explain why?
Ben
--
Unix Support, MISD, University of Cambridge, England
Plugger of wire, typer of keyboard, imparter of Clue
Life Is Short. It's All Good.
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