Boot a POWER5 LPAR from the network without going to SMS
For quite a while, we've been installing our POWER5 LPARs one at a time by activating it, booting to SMS, fill all the netboot menus and finally selecting an ethernet adapter as the boot/install device.
But there's another way, which doesn't boot quite as fast(eg. it waits 60 seconds for spanning tree to settle), but you just send the command and all the rest goes automagically.
It's called
With the following parameters:
$SPEED is the speed of the network interface(10,100,1000,auto)
$DUPLEX is the duplex mode of the network interface(half,full,auto)
$NIMSERVER is the IP address of your NIM server
$GATEWAY is the IP address of your default gateway(you MUST give one, even if you're booting from the same subnet)
$CLIENT_ADDRESS is the IP address of the LPAR
$LPAR_NAME is the name of the LPAR as appearing in WebSM
$PROFILE_NAME is the name of the partition profile(we name most of ours "default", makes life a lot easier
)
$MANAGED_MACHINE is the name of the managed machine on which the LPAR is running.
The other parameter do this and don't need to be changed most of the time:
which basically means: "Boot from ent, try all interfaces and use the first one that seems to work(eg. is able to ping the NIM server), and close all existing console sessions on this LPAR".
Funny coincidence on this command: I almost wrote something like this myself using expect, because I hated having to go to SMS all the time. Then I found this lpar_netboot command and it is.....
...an expect script very much like I would have written it
But there's another way, which doesn't boot quite as fast(eg. it waits 60 seconds for spanning tree to settle), but you just send the command and all the rest goes automagically.
It's called
lpar_netbootand works like this:
lpar_netboot -v -A -D -f -i -t ent \
-s $SPEED -d $DUPLEX \
-S $NIMSERVER \
-G $GATEWAY \
-C $CLIENT_ADDRESS \
$LPAR_NAME $PROFILE_NAME $MANAGED_MACHINE
With the following parameters:
$SPEED is the speed of the network interface(10,100,1000,auto)
$DUPLEX is the duplex mode of the network interface(half,full,auto)
$NIMSERVER is the IP address of your NIM server
$GATEWAY is the IP address of your default gateway(you MUST give one, even if you're booting from the same subnet)
$CLIENT_ADDRESS is the IP address of the LPAR
$LPAR_NAME is the name of the LPAR as appearing in WebSM
$PROFILE_NAME is the name of the partition profile(we name most of ours "default", makes life a lot easier
)$MANAGED_MACHINE is the name of the managed machine on which the LPAR is running.
The other parameter do this and don't need to be changed most of the time:
-v Verbose output
-A Return all adapters of the given type
-D Perform ping test, use adapter that successfully ping the server
-f Force close virtual terminal session
-i Force immediate shutdown
-t Specifies network type ent
which basically means: "Boot from ent, try all interfaces and use the first one that seems to work(eg. is able to ping the NIM server), and close all existing console sessions on this LPAR".
Funny coincidence on this command: I almost wrote something like this myself using expect, because I hated having to go to SMS all the time. Then I found this lpar_netboot command and it is.....
...an expect script very much like I would have written it
