Re: problems with remote install using ipmi serial-over-ip

[Miles Fidelman <mfidelman@meetinghouse.net>]

Chris Davies wrote:
> Miles Fidelman <mfidelman@meetinghouse.net> wrote:
> > Well, I've been trying to do a remote install onto a server (Supermicro
> > X8SIE-LN4F motherboard) - booting via PXE, and using a serial-over-IP
> > terminal provided by the IPMI board.
> > The serial-over-ip terminal, sort of works.... - I can get the installer
> > to load, and give me a boot> prompt, and a simple CR gets it running.  I
> > can go all the way through, and it sure seems like I've partitioned the
> > drive, installed all the software, and so forth, but.... when I restart,
> > the system hangs.  I'm guessing it might be a grub install problem, but
> > now I'm stuck...
> Does the IPMI give you a virtual CD/DVD drive, too? My experience with
> remote installations on Dell kit a couple of years ago was that the
> drive order changed after installation, and the boot code wasn't happy
> with that.
>
> I used to need to edit the kernel boot line, along with the hd(0,0)
> stanza, and then also fix up /etc/fstab. (That last has been handled
> somewhat better by referencing the root partition by label or uuid,
> but back then it wasn't done that way.)

Yeah... it sure does seem to be a grub issue.

Finally managed to figure out how to get into the installer's rescue 
mode, over a remote serial connection.  It turns out that the installer, 
when accessed over a remote serial connection, forgets its kernel 
options when going into rescue mode

i.e.:
the installer netboots (PXE) with boot options loaded from 
/srv/tftp/debian-installer/amd64/boot-screens/txt.cfg:
console=ttyS2,115200n8 earlyprint=serial,ttyS2,115200n8 priority=low

when the boot: prompt comes up on the remote serial console

boot: CR #works just fine
boot: rescue CR # fails miserably
boot: rescue console=ttyS2,115200n8 #works just fine

Sigh....

Off to figure out what grub-install messed up!



--
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.
In practice, there is.   .... Yogi Berra