[geeks] V490 falling into interactive mode on jumpstart

[Nadine Miller]

Answering both Jonathan and Francois at once:

On Nov 14, 2008, at 4:07 AM, Francois Dion wrote:

> On Fri, Nov 14, 2008 at 2:39 AM, Nadine Miller  
> <velociraptor at gmail.com> wrote:
>> I have 3 V490s, two are identical, one is a slightly older system.   
>> The two
>> "younger" ones jumpstart fine, but the older one falls into  
>> interactive mode
>> after booting off the network.  All three are using the same  
>> profile, begin,
>> and end scripts.  All three have the same hardware configs  
>> (grossly--there
>> maybe revision differences due to the age difference).
>
> Are they all 490 or one is an upgraded 480? Do the 490 use ce0/ce1 for
> network or bge0/1? a mix?

I believe they are all "real" 490s, and I know they all have ce0/1.

On Nov 14, 2008, at 3:48 AM, Jonathan Katz wrote:
>
> It may want something else/more in the sysidcfg. My memory is hazy,  
> but I
> remember similar things on a fleet of V240s that I was bringing on- 
> line.

The only references I've seen to this problem refer to additions to  
sysidcfg, but it's confusing to me that the same file works for the  
other boxes.  I will go dig around in the Sun docs for more info on  
what needs to be in this file.  (And I'll just say that Sun's  
documentation is getting to be as byzantine a maze as Cisco's.)

> Is it a full-on interactive mode, or is it just asking for one or  
> two items
> and then kicks-off with the automated install again? If you have a  
> console
> on the V490 it should say where it is dropping to the interactive  
> install,
> like if it can't match a profile, etc.

I don't think that's the issue, because it fails right to the "help"  
you get at the beginning of the automated install (e.g. "F2" vs  
"ESC_2", etc) as soon as it gets booted, iirc, never getting to the  
"Starting Java" line.

> Is it possible that this V490 has different sized disks than the  
> others? Or
> that the existing internal disk has a disklabel on it that could be
> confusing things?

I didn't think about this, but I am fairly sure that my profile is  
written in such a way that it won't matter.  It could be a confusing  
disk label.

I have a live OS on the box, still, so I can boot the thing and poke  
around.  I know that it can mount the install directories from the  
jumpstart server--that's something I checked by booting to the  
original OS, and manually configuring the network to use the new  
settings.

I'm having issues with my T5120 installs, too, from not being familiar  
with the hardware and not having one with a live OS to look at.  Oddly  
enough sparcv boxes will boot fine off of sparcu kernels, though it  
produces some errors.  I was surprised that it didn't panic.  I also  
need to figure out how to add the sparcv boot files to my jumpstart  
box without rebuilding it.

=Nadine=