The problem was discovered on a p601 while installing RHEL 6 via Kickstart. The p601 could not Kickstart over the network via netboot (ppc64.img) as it could with RHEL 5. During the tftpboot sequence, the image starts to load but then fails.
The determination was to boot the host from yaboot and not the netboot. Create a yaboot structure on the kickstart server to install vmlinuz and ramdisk, then boot from those installed images.
1. Create following directory structure under “tftpboot” directory
mkdir /var/lib/tftpboot/ppc
mkdir /var/lib/tftpboot/etc
2. Mount power Linux media and copy following files
cp -r /media/RED_HAT/ppc/ppc64/vmlinuz /var/lib/tftpboot/ppccp -r /media/RED_HAT/ppc/ppc64/initrd.img /var/lib/tftpboot/ppc
cp -r /media/RED_HAT/ppc/chrp/yaboot /var/lib/tftpboot/
3. Create following file under /var/lib/tftpboot/etc directory
vi /var/lib/tftpboot/etctimeout=0
default=linux
image=ppc/vmlinuz
label=linux
initrd=ppc/initrd.img
append="ramdisk_size=8192 console=hvc0 rhgb quiet ks=nfs:172.22.10.10:/export/kickstart/anaconda-ks.cfg ksdevice=eth1"
read-only
:wq!
4. Create kickstart directory under /export and share with NFS
mkdir /export/kickstartvi /export/kickstart/anaconda-ks.cfg
install
nfs --server=172.22.10.10 --dir=/media/RED_HAT
lang en_US.UTF-8
keyboard us
network --onboot no --device eth0 --bootproto dhcp --noipv6
network --onboot yes --device eth1 --bootproto dhcp --noipv6
rootpw --iscrypted $6$f3/IsblKw1qH9dS8$MMFKqXq1APM.FhAwOogdR3V.cvNajlqmfVUN9ZqxUX6XTCdp0E4ZYiHxbj57xajCd/q6PyiVnbiVnzWn8Edq2/
firewall --disabled
authconfig --enableshadow --passalgo=sha512
selinux --disabled
timezone --utc Asia/Karachi
bootloader --location=partition --driveorder=sda --append="crashkernel=auto console=hvc0 rhgb quiet"
clearpart --none
part prepboot --fstype=prepboot --size=10
part /boot --fstype=ext4 --size=100
part /opt --fstype=ext4 --size=31200
part swap --size=12288
part / --fstype=ext4 --grow --size=200
%packages
:wq!
5. Now share following directories with NFS
vi /etc/exports/media/RED_HAT/ *(ro,insecure,no_root_squash)
/export/kickstart *(ro,insecure,no_root_squash)
:wq!
6. Configure dhcp services as stated below
vi /etc/dhcp/dhcpd.confalways-reply-rfc1048 true;
allow bootp;
deny unknown-clients;
not authoritative;
default-lease-time 600;
max-lease-time 7200;
ddns-update-style none;
subnet 172.22.10.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 {
host client1 {
fixed-address 172.22.10.20;
hardware ethernet aa:d7:3d:3c:df:5;
next-server 172.22.10.10;
filename "yaboot";
}
}
:wq!
7. You must copy /var/lib/tftpboot/etc/yaboot.conf file to 01-mac-address-of-client-machine
cp -p /var/lib/tftpboot/etc/yaboot.conf 01-aa-d7-3d-3c-df-58. Start NFS and DHCP Service
chkconfig dhcpd onchkconfig nfs on
service dhcpd start
service nfs start
9. Boot IBM blade from network to start installation
From the SMS menu, set server to perform network boot over ethernet and install host via Kickstart script. If something goes wrong then you must revisit this document and your entire kickstart configuration.