Difference between revisions of "Debian on an HP 9000 A500"

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(Created page with "billanddave is an HP9000 A500 server with the following hardware: * Two 750MHz PA8700 processors * 1Gbyte of ECC RAM * Two Tulip Ethernet cards * Two 146Gbyte SCSI hard drives (u…")
 
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* Firmware smart enough to boot the machine from the network
 
* Firmware smart enough to boot the machine from the network
   
Debian 5.0 (Lenny) Installation process:
+
== Debian 5.0 (Lenny) Installation process ==
  +
Why 5.0 and not a current release? The Debian release managers dropped PA-RISC suppo
 
* Install a TFTP server that can be reached by broadcast from the A500
 
* Install a TFTP server that can be reached by broadcast from the A500
 
** atftpd was used here
 
** atftpd was used here
  +
** /etc/inetd.conf was tweaked to so that tftp connections are only accepted on the server's internal IP address. No need to feed files to the world.
  +
* Set up DHCP to point the A500's firmware at the TFTP server
  +
** Here's the stanza used in /etc/dhcp/dhcpd.conf for this machine:
  +
host billanddave {
  +
filename "/var/lib/tftpboot/boot.img";
  +
fixed-address 172.16.0.70;
  +
hardware ethernet 00:30:6e:48:e5:b7;
  +
next-server 172.16.0.1;
  +
option host-name "billanddave";
  +
}
  +
** "next-server ..." tells it which TFTP server to use
  +
** "filename ..." tells it which file to get by TFTP
  +
** "fixed-address ..." gives it a more-or-less static IP address
  +
* put the file from http://http.us.debian.org/debian/dists/lenny/main/installer-hppa/current/images/netboot/2.6/boot.img into the TFTP server's file store. I've renamed it to lenny-parisc-netinst.img

Revision as of 00:31, 3 February 2012

billanddave is an HP9000 A500 server with the following hardware:

  • Two 750MHz PA8700 processors
  • 1Gbyte of ECC RAM
  • Two Tulip Ethernet cards
  • Two 146Gbyte SCSI hard drives (unknown hot-swap capabilities on these)
  • A "Guardian Service Processor" which provides network control of power and remote console access
  • Firmware smart enough to boot the machine from the network

Debian 5.0 (Lenny) Installation process

Why 5.0 and not a current release? The Debian release managers dropped PA-RISC suppo

  • Install a TFTP server that can be reached by broadcast from the A500
    • atftpd was used here
    • /etc/inetd.conf was tweaked to so that tftp connections are only accepted on the server's internal IP address. No need to feed files to the world.
  • Set up DHCP to point the A500's firmware at the TFTP server
    • Here's the stanza used in /etc/dhcp/dhcpd.conf for this machine:
host billanddave {
        filename "/var/lib/tftpboot/boot.img";
        fixed-address 172.16.0.70;
        hardware ethernet 00:30:6e:48:e5:b7;
        next-server 172.16.0.1;
        option host-name "billanddave";
}