HP Insight Control Software for Linux - Manual (Page 87)

9 Installing operating systems on managed systems
This chapter addresses the following topics:
•
“Linux OS installation overview” (page 87)
•
“Using installation configuration files for unattended installations” (page 88)
•
“Prerequisites to OS installations on managed systems” (page 92)
•
“Installing RHEL on managed systems” (page 94)
•
“Installing SLES on managed systems” (page 95)
•
“Installing VMware ESX and VMware ESXi operating systems” (page 96)
•
“Installing another variant of Linux on managed systems” (page 99)
•
“Generic procedure for installing an OS on one or more managed systems” (page 101)
9.1 Linux OS installation overview
The Insight Control for Linux installation tools enable you to install a Linux OS to one or more target
managed system s. The process for installing a Linux OS on one server is the same as the process
for ten servers or a hundred servers.
Linux OS installation tasks are launched from the following HP SIM menu:
Deploy
→Operating System
IMPORTANT: Installing a Linux OS on a managed system erases data on the managed system.
Before you begin, be sure that you have captured or backed up any data you want to retain.
Preserving user data on volumes other than the principle target volume is not guaranteed. Presume
that data on primary and secondary volumes is erased.
Insight Control for Linux uses the task scheduling features of HP SIM so that you can run software
installation operations immediately or run the operation at a user-defined scheduled date and time.
See
Chapter 4 (page 29) for information about understanding task results.
For DL100 Series servers, you can observe the installation through a serial console connection.
For more information, see
Section 22.4 (page 188) . For iLO based servers, you can observe the
installation through a remote console.
9.1.1 Interactive versus unattended installations
Insight Control for Linux allows you to install an OS interactively or unattended:
•
An interactive installation method means that the Insight Control for Linux OS installation tools
reboot the selected target server or servers into the native installation application of the OS,
which requires step-by-step user interaction to provide responses to the OS installation process.
•
An unattended installation method reads RHEL Kickstart and SLES AutoYaST installation files,
which contain the responses to the OS installation process. This method requires no user
interaction.
Insight Control for Linux OS installation tools give you the option to launch the following types
installation sessions:
Table 13 Types of Installation Sessions
Unattended Interactive Installation
Red Hat (Kickstart) Red Hat Interactive RHEL
SLES (AutoYaST) SLES Interactive SLES
9.1 Linux OS installation overview 87