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¿ 1/9/2007 - Installing OpenBSD via Serial Console on a HP Proliant Blade Server Blade

I had the chance to play with a blade server this weekend.  Specifically a HP Proliant with 10 BL10e G2 blades in it.

I decided to install OpenBSD.  Also decided to do it via the administration console (which gives you a serial console to each blade).

Per the OpenBSD website, says you can install OpenBSD via the console, so why not give it a shot?  Keyboards, Floppy Drives and Screens are for loosers :)

Besides, there is a practical side to this... if the blade needs reinstalling while it is in a server room rack at a remote location, then you can do it from your office :)

Ok, so here are the basic steps:

  1. Login to the admin module
  2. Get the MAC address of the NIC #1 on the blade you want to install
  3. Set up a DHCP setting which includes the MAC address and the pxeboot filename per the OpenBSD website
  4. Extract the kernal from an OpenBSD boot floppy (see below)
  5. Make a custom boot.conf to fix the port and speed to com1 and 115200 respectively (see below)
  6. Copy the bsd file and etc directoy of your custom floppy image to /tftpboot/
  7. Boot your blade,
  8. Connect to your blade
  9. Select PXE boot (ESC-SHIFT-2 at the appropriate prompt)
  10. Type "floppy41.fs" or whatever name you called your floppy
Now... the details:

This is what you put in your boot conf file:

set tty com0
stty com0 115200

The first line redirects all output to the com0 port (which is the one you connect to via the Admin module) the second line sets the speed.  This is needed because OpenBSD defaults to 9600 and the  HP administrative console connects to the blade at 115200.  If you don't do this, then when you boot, it will look like it has frozen just after loading the image.  Sometimes it will give you ### other times nothing.

The lines in the dhcpd.conf file look something like:

host blade {
  hardware ethernet 00:BB:CC:DD:EE:FF;
  fixed-address 10.0.0.2;
  next-server 10.0.0.1;
  filename "pxeboot";
}

The first line says "This config is only to be applied to a computer with the MAC address of 00:BB:CC:DD:EE:FF"

The second line says "Give this computer the IP address 10.0.0.2" (useful for restricting access to your TFTP server).

The third line says "Once you give the card an IP address, tell it the TFTP server IP address is 10.0.0.1"

The third line says "When it connects, download to the NIC the pxeboot file"  You can find this file in /usr/mdec/pxeboot and can just copy it as is to /tftpboot

Steps to do the floppy are (following taken and modified from OnLamp)

Get a floppy from the OpenBSD site.

Then:

# vnconfig /dev/svnd0c /tmp/floppy41.fs
# mount /dev/svnd0c /mnt
# cp /mnt/bsd /tftpboot/
# umount /mnt
# vnconfig -u /dev/svnd0c
# mkdir /tftpboot/etc
# vi /tftpboot/etc/boot.conf

Then add the two lines from above and save the boot.conf file.

This needs to all go into /tftpboot as OpenBSD's tftpd server is chrooted to /tftpboot by default.

Make sure all your files in /tftpboot are world readable which a chmod -R o+r /tftpboot/*

Good luck!

Mikel
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