USB devices not being seen in anaconda during RHEL4 kickstart

[Al Alder]

Had  a very similar problem with some HP servers
and RHEL 4.  RHEL 4 did not recognize the disk controller
in the newer HP machines.  Our solution was to go to
RHEL 4.6 which had the driver for the newer
disk controllers.  So you are running into a similar problem with your USB
stick.  RHEL5.3 works because
its initrd image has the driver for the USB.  You can
1) rebuild your initrd image with the USB driver
2) just use RHEL 5.3
I investigated number 1, but couldn't find any documentation that explained
how to that for the initial
install boot initrd.  Am sure I could have monkeyed with it and gotten it to
work if I had had the time.
We went with our option 2 and had to upgrade everything to RHEL 4.6.

On Fri, Mar 13, 2009 at 11:52 AM, Ben <bda20 at cam.ac.uk> wrote:

> Wotcha,
>
> I've got a pile of Sun x4140 and x4240 servers here which I'm required to
> install RHEL4 (update 7) on.  I've already installed RHEL5.3 on them
> flawlessly, booting from a USB stick with a syslinux and <machine>.cfg
> kickstart setup on it for a HTTP-based install.  The USB device appears as
> sdb.
>
> This works (for installing RHEL5.3 Server 32-bit):
> label wibbly
>  kernel vmli5s32
>  append initrd=int5s32.img ks=hd:sdb1:/configs/wibbly.cfg
> console=ttyS0,9600
>
> This does not (for installing RHEL4 u7 AS 32-bit):
> label gonk
>  kernel vmli4s32
>  append initrd=int4s32.img ks=hd:sdb1:/configs/gonk.cfg console=ttyS0,9600
>
> Now I'm trying it with RHEL4 and failing utterly.  The machine itself will
> boot from the USB stick in the proper manner via syslinux and display the
> boot.msg.  It'll accept keyboard input and boot the vmlinuz and initrd.img
> for AS4 (update 7) and start the process (see above).  However at the point
> at which it should read from 'sdb1' to get the configuration (the IP, HTTP
> kickstart tree URL, etc.) it just presents me with the dialogue box for
> selecting the language to install in.  Not only that but if I proceed
> manually and get to the partitioning stage there's no sign of anything but
> the internal (RAID) disk(s) (announced as sda).
>
> I've tried disabling the "Hand-off EHCI" setting and trying all the other
> USB-related options in the BIOS but nothing seems to make anaconda see USB
> devices.
>
> Does anyone have any suggestions, please?
>
> With thanks,
>
> Ben
> --
> Unix Support, MISD, University of Cambridge, England
> Plugger of wire, typer of keyboard, imparter of Clue
>        Life Is Short.          It's All Good.
>
> _______________________________________________
> Kickstart-list mailing list
> Kickstart-list at redhat.com
> https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/kickstart-list
>



-- 
Later,

Al Alder
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listman.redhat.com/archives/kickstart-list/attachments/20090313/a97545c8/attachment.htm>