Hello List,
I've been grappling with SLES-9 and have already installed it a bunch of
times. I thought it would be helpful to share some of my findings. For
the most part, I feel the SLES-9 install is an improvement over SLES-8:
Pros:
(1) Parallel dasdfmt and fdasd of disks - no separate ssh session needed -
be sure to "select" and "activate" first
(2) More PARMFILE parameters
(3) LDAP can be configured at install time
Cons:
(1) Install process does not appear to recognize the simple cd1/ cd2/ cd3/
... directory structure that SLES-8 install did
(2) LDAP configuration during install seems to have some bugs/features.
On Con (1): there is a new required directory structure for the NFS/FTP
server serving the RPMs. It is addressed in the release-notes but there
seems to be a mistake with the creation of the "order" and "instorder"
files. I wrote a script designed to run in the directory with the 6 SLES-9
.iso files. If you have physical CDs you would first "dd" them to ISO
files on a Linux PC. Here's the script for what it's worth:
------------------------------------------------
#!/bin/bash
function mountCopy
# arg 1: the ISO image to mount
# arg 2: the directory to copy to
{
mount -o loop,ro $1 tmpCD
cd tmpCD
cp -a * ../installroot/$2
cd ..
umount tmpCD
}
# main()
# make the directory structure
mkdir installroot tmpCD
cd installroot/
mkdir sles9 core9 yast
cd sles9
mkdir CD1
cd ../core9/
mkdir CD1 CD2 CD3 CD4 CD5
cd ../..
# mount and copy the 6 CDs
mountCopy SLES-9-s390-RC5a-CD1.iso sles9/CD1/
mountCopy SLES-9-s390-RC5-CD2.iso core9/CD1/
mountCopy SLES-9-s390-RC5-CD3.iso core9/CD2/
mountCopy SLES-9-s390-RC5-CD4.iso core9/CD3/
mountCopy SLES-9-s390-RC5-CD5.iso core9/CD4/
mountCopy SLES-9-s390-RC5-CD6.iso core9/CD5/
rmdir tmpCD/
# make symbolic links
cd installroot
ln -s sles9/CD1/boot boot
ln -s sles9/CD1/content content
ln -s sles9/CD1/control.xml control.xml
ln -s sles9/CD1/media.1 media.1
echo "/sles9/CD1\t/sles9/CD1" > yast/instorder
echo "/core9/CD1\t/core9/CD1" >> yast/instorder
cp yast/instorder yast/order
------------------------------------------------
Then you can NFS-export this directory or set up an FTP server, and all
RPMs should be found.
Regarding Con (2) the LDAP install - if you can configure LDAP at install
time it saves a lot of manual hassles with certificates, LDIF files, etc.
However, it's easy to misconfigure LDAP during the install and then you
have to figure out how much is done and undone. I have more notes on
configuring LDAP if anyone is interested.
The additional PARMFILE parameters can save a lot of typing. Thanks to
John Schnitzler of IBM for pointing these out. They're documented in
preparation.pdf on CD1 under docu/. Here's an example:
===> TYPE SLES9 PARMFILE
ramdisk_size=65536 root=/dev/ram1 ro init=/linuxrc
INST_PASSWORD=123456 IP_ADDR=xxx.yyy.45.33 AUTOINSTALL=yes
IP_HOST=linux.ibm.com IP_GATEWAY=xxx.yyy.45.254
IP_INTERFACE=qeth IP_MTU=1500 IP_NETMASK=255.255.255.0
IP_BROADCAST=xxx.yyy.45.255 READ_DEVNO=600 WRITE_DEVNO=601
DATA_DEVNO=602 PORTNAME=dontcare DASD_Parameter=dasd=100-103
INST_INFO=nfs INST_IP_ADDR=xxx.yyy.45.3
INST_IP_DIR=/mnt/sles9root INST_SCREEN=VNC VNC_PASSWORD=123456
Hope this helps.
-Mike MacIsaac, IBM [EMAIL PROTECTED] (845) 433-7061
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