RE: [suse-autoinstall] Simultaneous SuSE 10.0 Autoyastinstalls fail!

14 Feb 2006

      Hello,

Not sure how much of this is relevant now I know the problem has changed,
but I'll reply anyway :-)

Mattijs: I don't specify the machine to give out the DHCP hostname in the
XML file, because I don't like relying on remote servers unless I have to.
The machine will have a static IP address eventually, so I'd like to specify
that as soon as possible.

2) I don't use VNC. I have a KVM switch plugged into the back of every
single machine.

Hans-Joachim: That is correct. I do not have a rules.xml file anywhere, and
autoyast points to the directory. As I said, it is picking up the correct
XML file based on the MAC address, but it's hanging at 56% of "emacs-21.3".

Thanks again,
Richard.

-- 
Richard Hobbs (Systems Administrator)
Toshiba Research Europe Ltd. - Speech Technology Group
Web: http://www.toshiba-europe.com/research/
Normal Email: richard.hobbs@crl.toshiba.co.uk
Mobile Email: mobile@mongeese.co.uk
Tel: +44 1223 376964        Mobile: +44 7811 803377
...
-----Original Message-----
From: Hans-Joachim Ehlers [mailto:HansJoachim.Ehlers@eumetsat.int] 
Sent: 14 February 2006 10:43
To: Richard Hobbs; suse-autoinstall@suse.com
Subject: RE: [suse-autoinstall] Simultaneous SuSE 10.0 
Autoyastinstalls fail!
So if you have for each machine a seperate config file then check if
autoyast points to a directory or file.
In your case it must point to a directory and no 
./rules/rules.xml must
exist.
All from memory.
hth
Hajo
...
...
...
"Richard Hobbs"  
14/02/06 11:34:36
Hello,
Mattijs: I can appreciate that if I boot all 8 machines 
simultaneously,
they
might overload the DHCP Server, but if I boot one machine up first,
wait for
it to begin installing the packages, and then boot a second 
machine up,
as
soon as the second machine starts it's installation, the first machine
(and
the second machine) hangs.
And yes, the machines can see the XML file (or else they won't not
begin
installing) and they can also see the installation source (or they
would not
start installing the packages).
Remember, it breaks after installing quite a few packages (maybe 25%
complete).
Hans-Joachim: I have a different XML config file for each MAC address
of the
machine I am installing, see below:
============================================================
nfsserver:/install/configProfiles # ls -l
total 220
drwxr-xr-x  3 root root   400 Feb 14 10:14 .
drwxr-xr-x  6 root root   176 Feb  8 08:52 ..
-rw-r--r--  1 root root 24032 Feb 14 10:12 000E0C062613
-rw-r--r--  1 root root 24021 Feb 13 16:21 001422B0351F
-rw-r--r--  1 root root 24020 Feb 13 16:25 001422B0C567
-rw-r--r--  1 root root 24021 Feb 13 16:42 001422B0C624
-rw-r--r--  1 root root 24020 Feb 13 16:25 001422B0C633
-rw-r--r--  1 root root 24020 Feb 13 16:23 001422B0C666
-rw-r--r--  1 root root 24020 Feb 13 16:28 001422B0C726
-rw-r--r--  1 root root 24021 Feb 13 16:28 001422B0C993
-rw-r--r--  1 root root 24021 Feb 13 16:29 001422B0C9FC
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root    88 Feb  7 15:59 oldProfiles
-rw-r--r--  1 root root   610 Feb  3 11:26 template.xml
nfsserver:/install/configProfiles #
============================================================
So, if I want to install a new machine of identical hardware, I simply
copy
an existing profile, and modify the hostname and IP address. Why will
this
approach not work?
Also, I am using DHCP to boot the machines, but the XML file has a
static IP
address (which is the same as the IP address given to the machine from
DHCP).
Thanks again,
Richard.
-- 
Richard Hobbs (Systems Administrator)
Toshiba Research Europe Ltd. - Speech Technology Group
Web: http://www.toshiba-europe.com/research/ 
Normal Email: richard.hobbs@crl.toshiba.co.uk 
Mobile Email: mobile@mongeese.co.uk 
Tel: +44 1223 376964        Mobile: +44 7811 803377
...
-----Original Message-----
From: Mattijs Janssens [mailto:m.janssens@opencfd.co.uk] 
Sent: 14 February 2006 09:59
Cc: suse-autoinstall@suse.com 
Subject: Re: [suse-autoinstall] Simultaneous SuSE 10.0 
Autoyast installs fail!
I don't know whether this is applicable to your situation but 
I have a 
cluster where if I boot them all at the same time some of 
the machine
...
don't get their hostname set. Don't know whether the network 
isn't ready 
or maybe the dhcp server gets overloaded. I can imagine for 
your booting 
this might upset the installation.
Another thing: the machines can see the xml file. Can they 
also see the 
installation source?
Richard Hobbs wrote:
...
Hello,
I have a working and fully tested DHCP server, TFTP server, 
NFS file server
and XML config profile which I have used to build the first 
of many servers.
The whole system has worked fine, but now I've hit a rather 
critical problem
- doing more than one server at a time seems to break them all!
I have rebuilt our first server perhaps 15 times due to 
testing the XML
profile, and each time it worked perfectly. I now have 8 
machines which I
would like to install, so I've copied the 001422B0C61F XML file to
a
filename which matches the other MAC addresses, and I have 
told our DHCP
server to give out the necessary MAC addresses as well.
The only things I have changed in our XML config profile is the
any
reference to the hostname, and the MAC address and IP 
address. Everything
else is the same.
When I boot up all 8 machines from the network, they all 
boot into the boot
loader from the TFTP server, and they all boot into 
autoyast. They all load
their own XML config files, but part of the way through 
installing the
packages, the machines hang. Ctrl + Alt + F[1-6] does 
nothing, so all I can
do is reboot using Ctrl + Alt + Del.
The TFTP Server, NFS Server and the server hosting the 
config profiles (also
over NFS) is the same machine, which can easily keep up 
with the demand for
files... So much so, in fact, that the system load hardly 
increases at all
during an install of a remote machine.
What could be stopping me doing multiple NFS autoyast installs??
Any suggestions are welcome.
Thanks in advance,
Richard.
-- 
Best regards,
Mattijs
Mattijs Janssens
OpenCFD Ltd.
The Mews, Picketts Lodge,
Picketts Lane, Salfords,
Surrey RH1 5RG.
Tel: +44 (0)1293 821272
Email: M.Janssens@OpenCFD.co.uk 
URL: http://www.OpenCFD.co.uk
-- 
To unsubscribe, e-mail: suse-autoinstall-unsubscribe@suse.com 
For additional commands, e-mail: suse-autoinstall-help@suse.com
_____________________________________________________________________
...
This e-mail has been scanned for viruses by Verizon Business 
Internet Managed Scanning Services - powered by MessageLabs. 
For further information visit http://www.mci.com
_____________________________________________________________________
This e-mail has been scanned for viruses by Verizon Business Internet
Managed Scanning Services - powered by MessageLabs. For further
information visit http://www.mci.com
-- 
To unsubscribe, e-mail: suse-autoinstall-unsubscribe@suse.com 
For additional commands, e-mail: suse-autoinstall-help@suse.com
_____________________________________________________________________
This e-mail has been scanned for viruses by Verizon Business 
Internet Managed Scanning Services - powered by MessageLabs. 
For further information visit http://www.mci.com
_____________________________________________________________________
This e-mail has been scanned for viruses by Verizon Business Internet Managed Scanning Services - powered by MessageLabs. For further information visit http://www.mci.com