strategies for changing boot order

[John Monaco]

Alan,

     After our systems are built, the secondary NIC is connected to a 
private network, which doesn't have a PXE-Boot server on it. The private 
network is between master and slave pairs, and sometimes it includes 
various third-party servers too. The master and slave systems each have 
static IP addresses, and neither system is serving as a PXE-Boot or DHCP 
  server; so the queries during the boot process for a PXE-Boot server 
go unanswered.

     Our primary NIC is connected to the corporate network, and is 
unconcerned about PXE-Boot and DHCP servers that might be present there.

     This configuration gives us the option to simply connect the 
secondary NIC to a local subnet with a KickStart server, and PXE-Boot 
off of it to rebuild the system if we needed to. We've never actually 
needed to take advantage of that feature, but it is nice to have.

     When we do need to rebuild systems, we actually use a USB DVD-ROM 
drive, with a customized bootable CD-ROM image, that uses the current 
KickStart script on our production KickStart server. This method is 
handy if your subnets support DHCP, using:

boot: linux ks=nfs:<server>:/<path>

     Since we've been doing this for nearly three years now, with 
various Red Hat releases, I could go on and on about all of the 
possibilities.

         Sincerely,

         John S. Monaco

         System Administrator & "Linux Dude"
         TI WW MAKE IT
         Infrastructure System Engineering and Administration
         E-mail: xjmonaco at ti.com
         Phone:  (214) 567-5831


Alan Horn wrote:
> Well yes.. but then the system will always attempt to pxeboot. So either 
> you're going to then disable the dhcp server for that nic, or physically 
> unplug it, or some other form of intervention ?
> 
> The motherboards I use also have two onboard NICs, so I can certainly test 
> out the same methods you're using.
> 
> Ideally, I'd like to flip the bios boot order _from_ the %post phase, but 
> I'm not sure how doable or portable any method like this would be.
> 
> I'd love more details though. Thanks for the response !
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Al
> 
> 
>  On Wed, 22 Dec 2004, John Monaco wrote:
> 
> 
>>Alan,
>>
>>    We've been using a motherboard which has two on board NICs. We set 
>>the secondary port for PXE enabled in the BIOS, and have it at the top 
>>of the BIOS boot list. This works out pretty well for us.
>>
>>    If you need me to go into further details about this strategy, 
>>please let me know.
>>
>>        Sincerely,
>>
>>        John S. Monaco
>>
>>        System Administrator & "Linux Dude"
>>        TI WW MAKE IT
>>        Infrastructure System Engineering and Administration
>>        E-mail: xjmonaco at ti.com
>>        Phone:  (214) 567-5831
>>
>>
>>Alan Horn wrote:
>>
>>>Hi,
>>>
>>>I know that some of this is going to be fairly hardware specific, but what 
>>>strategies do folks use for flipping boot order back to the primary 
>>>ide/scsi system disk after doing a pxeboot install ?
>>>
>>>The way I do it right now is :
>>>
>>> o Initially enable pxeboot in the bios (if not set)
>>> o Reboot box, go back into bios, set boot order to NIC pxeboot before HDD
>>> o Unattended kickstart install
>>> o Catch install after final reboot and jump into bios to reset boot 
>>>   order.
>>>
>>>Obviously I'd like to do away with the last step to make it truly 
>>>unattended after the setup phase.
>>>
>>>Any ideas ?
>>>
>>>Cheers,
>>>
>>>Al
>>>
>>>
>>>_______________________________________________
>>>Kickstart-list mailing list
>>>Kickstart-list at redhat.com
>>>https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/kickstart-list
>>>
>>
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>>
> 
> 
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