Common Steps Needed for Installing Red Hat Linux to a VM or LPAR

The NFS, FTP or HTTP server to be used for installation over the network must be a seperate machine which can provide the complete RedHat tree — this machine is referred to as RPMSERVER. Both the RedHat/base/ and RedHat/RPMS/ directories must be available and populated with all files from the two installation CD-ROMs.

	Note
	The directory specified in the following refers to /location/of/disk/space. This means it is the directory up to, but NOT including, the RedHat distribution directory. For example, if you have a Red Hat Linux 7.2 CD-ROM mounted on /mnt/cdrom, /location/of/disk/space would be /mnt/cdrom.

To copy the RedHat tree from each CD-ROM on a Linux machine, and make this tree available:

• Insert CD-ROM 1 and execute the following commands:

  • mount /mnt/cdrom

  • cp -var /mnt/cdrom/RedHat /location/of/disk/space

    Where /location/of/disk/space is a directory you create such as /export/7.2/.

  • unmount /mnt/cdrom

• Insert CD-ROM 2 and execute the following commands:

  • mount /mnt/cdrom

  • cp -var /mnt/cdrom/RedHat /location/of/disk/space

    Where /location/of/disk/space is a directory you create such as /export/7.2/.

  • unmount /mnt/cdrom

• Next, make /location/of/disk/space accessible to the installation program via NFS, FTP, or HTTP and verify access from a client.

• For NFS, export the directory by adding an entry to /etc/exports. To export to only one S/390 VM or LPAR add an entry like:

  /location/of/disk/space your.s390.ip.address(ro,no_root_squash)

  To export to all machines (not appropriate for all NFS systems), add:

  /location/of/disk/space *(ro,no_root_squash)

  Restart the NFS daemon (on a Red Hat Linux machine, use /sbin/service nfs restart) to force NFS to reload the /etc/exports file.

  Attempt to mount the directory exported to a temporary directory and view its contents following this example (assuming a Red Hat Linux machine):

  mkdir /mnt/mytemp mount -o rw,rsize=8192 -t nfs /whatever/s390-root /mnt/mytemp cd /mnt/mytemp ls umount /mnt/mytemp rmdir /mnt/mytemp

  If, with ls, you did not see the RedHat directory, then the wrong path may have been mounted and/or exported.

• FTP and HTTP installations also support a second tree structure. To make it easier to access the contents of the two CD-ROMs, you can mount your CD-ROMs or ISO images with the following mount points:

  /location/of/disk/space/disc1/ /location/of/disk/space/disc2/

  For example:

  mount -o loop CD1.iso /location/of/disk/space/disc1/

Hard Disk installations require a working Linux system on your S/390, and the use of ISO (or CD-ROM) images rather than the entire installation tree. Depending upon how Red Hat Linux for S/390 was acquired, you may have either a set of CD-ROMs, or ISO images.

Hard drive installations only work from ext2 or ext3 filesystems. If you have a filesystem other than ext2 or ext3 you will not be able to perform a hard drive installation.

• Set of CD-ROMs — you need to create CD-ROM ISO image files from the two installation CD-ROMs. These can be created on a Linux machine by inserting the first CD-ROM into the CD-ROM drive and running:

  dd if=/dev/cdrom of=/tmp/CD1.iso

  Repeat for the second CD-ROM, with:

  dd if=/dev/cdrom of=/tmp/CD2.iso

  This command may raise an error message when the end of data on the CD-ROM is reached - this can be ignored. The ISO images created can now be used for installation, once copied to the correct DASD.

• ISO images — simply transfer these images to the correct DASD.

  Verifying that ISO images are intact before you attempt an installation, will help to avoid problems. To verify the ISO images are intact prior to performing an installation, use an md5sum program (many md5sum programs are available for various operating systems). An md5sum program should be available on the same Linux machine as the ISO images.

  Make the correct DASDs accessible to the new VM or LPAR, and then proceed with installation.