Creating a NIM install for a VIO server based client LPAR
Prep work:
- Create client LPAR and configure to use storage and networking from the VIO server
- Obtain IP networking information for new server. You will need: – IP address – Subnet mask – Broadcast address – Gateway address
Client discovery:
The MAC address of the client is required before anything else can be done.
1. In the Hardware Management Console (HMC), right click on the client profile and select Activate.
1a. For vio/ivm, using web-gui select the LPAR you created (using the wizard), select Checkbox and choose “Activate”.
2. Check “Open a terminal window or console session”. If that doens’t work, connect to vio/ivm server and do a mkvt -ID <# of lpar>
3. Click advanced, set Boot mode to “SMS” and click OK.
4. A terminal will open and the LPAR will initiate booting. Press the relevant key when asked to select this terminal as the system console.
5. From the top SMS menu, select “Setup Remote IPL” (option 2) and hit enter
6. The list of installed NICs will be displayed. The virtual adapter should come up as “Interpartition Logical LAN”. Look up the hardware address of the NIC you wish to boot from (will look something like “a20811321929”) and record it.
7. In the HMC in the Server Management windows, right click on the client LPAR Partition and select “Shut down partition”, then select “Immediate” and click OK. Click Yes for “I am sure” and No for “replacing a cache battery”.
7a. For ivm/vio, select checkbox for the LPAR, and click the “Shutdown” button,
on the next screen select “Immediate” and click OK.
NIM Server setup:
1. Log into the NIM server, su to root, and run smitty.
2. Go to “Software Installation and Maintenance”, “Network Installation Management”, “Perform NIM Administration Tasks”, “Manage Machines”, “Define a Machine”.
3. Enter the hostname of the client machine and hit enter. If the client machine does not yet have a DNS entry for its IP address, add it to /etc/hosts.
4. In the machine definition, the following items need to be defined: * Communication protocol: shell (old, use nimsh for 5.3+) * Cable Type: tp * Network Speed Setting: auto * Network Duplex Setting: auto * Network Adapter Hardware Address: enter the hardware of the address of the NIC being used (from step 6 in “Client discovery”.
Hit return when done and the machine config will be created on the NIM server. Press escape then 0 to exit out of smitty, then start smitty again.
5. Go to “Software Installation and Maintenance”, “Network Installation Management”, “Perform NIM Software Installation and Maintenance Tasks”, “Install and Update Software”, “Install the Base Operating System on Standalone Clients”. In the popup window, select the machine just created as the target (use the forward / (/) to search for a machine name). Select “rte” as the install type (unless another is specifically required) and the version of AIX to install. Then select the appropriate “spot” to use.
5a. In the case of ‘installing from a mksysb’ you will be required to have a spot. Here is a command to create a spot from a mksysb:
nim -o define -t spot -a source=server101_image_mksysb -a server=master -a location=/opt/nim/spot spot_aix61tl8
NOTE: The generation of a SPOT from a mksysb will only help with booting it and performing a bos_inst, anything else will require a normal SPOT creation from the installation media.
6. In the drop down menu that appears, make the following changes in addition to any required for the system being installed: * Initiate reboot and installation now? No * Set bootlist for installation at the next reboot? Yes * VERIFY install and check file sizes? Yes * ACCEPT new license agreements? Yes (there twice, both have to be Yes)
Hit enter, then enter again and exit smitty with escape-0
NIM client install:
Next step is to boot the client and configure it for a network install.
1. In the HMC, right click on the client profile and select Activate
1a. For vio/ivm select check-box for LPAR and click Activate.
2. Check “Open a terminal window or console session”. Alternately, connect to the vio/ivm machine, and do a mkvt -id <id #>.
3. Click advanced, set Boot mode to “SMS” and click OK.
4. A terminal will open and the LPAR will initiate booting. Press the relevant key when asked to select this terminal as the system console.
5. From the top SMS menu, select “Setup Remote IPL” (option 2) and hit enter
6. Select the NIC that is being installed to (verify against the hardware address recorded earlier) and hit enter.
7. From the Network Parameters menu press 1 for IP Parameters. Use “bootp” instead of iSCSI. Enter in the client networking information, along with the Server IP address of the NIM server. Press escape to get back to the IP Parameters menu.
8. Select the Adapter Configuration menu. Ensure Speed and Duplex are set to auto. Ensure Spanning Tree is disabled. Ensure Protocol is set to Standard. Press escape to get back to the IP Parameters menu.
9. Press 3 for ping test. This will display a summary of the networking configuration and give an option to Execute Ping Test – this will ping the Server IP address given to ensure network connectivity is available. This will return after a few seconds with a ping success or fail. Press escape to get back to the IP Parameters menu.
10. Press escape all the way back to Main Menu (or select M). Press 5 to select boot options, then 1 to select install/boot device, 6 for network, and then select the interface just configured and hit enter. Select Normal Mode Boot, then 1 to exit SMS. The system will now do a bootp load from the NIM server of the OS requested.