Sun Fire V60x Server
 
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>You have a monitor and keyboard available to do the installation.
>You are using a very old version of Red Hat.
This will not always be the case. You may need to use a serial
port as a console instead.
This document is a cookbook for how to prepare for the installation of Red
Hat Enterprise Linux 3 AS on a Sun Fire[TM] V60x server, using the serial port
as a console. However, these notes should apply to other Linux versions and
the other x86 servers (V65x and V20z).

The Sun Fire V60x and Sun Fire[TM] V65x Server Linux Operating System Installation Guide (817-1956-10) assumes that a CD installation will use a monitor and keyboard, which will not always be available.
The RHEL 3 CD-ROM boot image is built to assume a monitor/keyboard
installation. Attempting to install by booting from the CD-ROM while
connected to the serial port results in a lot of garbage characters
printed to the serial port. This happens as the boot loader tries to
display a splash image to the serial console device. At that point, the
serial port will stop responding, and you will not be able to continue the
installation.
To use the serial port as a console to perform a CD-based installation
requires a boot floppy, modified to reflect that the console is a serial
port. This is very similar to the installation for Solaris x86.
To create the floppy:
1. Mount CD 1 of the Linux install media (the boot CD) on a Solaris or
Linux system that has a floppy drive.
2. Insert a blank, formatted floppy into the floppy drive.
3. Use the command "cd" to go to the images directory on the mounted CD for
an automounted CD on Solaris, the path will be /cdrom/cdrom0/images).
4. Use the command "dd if=bootdisk.img of=/dev/fd0c" to create the boot
floppy.
5. Unmount the CD.
6. Mount the boot floppy image (In Solaris[TM], run volcheck, or as root, run
"mount -F pcfs /dev/fd0c /mnt").
7. Use the command "cd" to go to /floppy/floppy0 or /mnt or, if using a
Linux system, to wherever the system mounted the floppy image.
8. Modify the file BOOT.MSG to remove the line "^Xsplash.lss".
9  Modify SYSLINUX.CFG by adding the line "serial ttyS1" after the line
"default linux". The first line of the file should be "default linux".
10. Unmount the floppy.
Note: This procedure can be done on a Windows system as well, but it
requires the use of the "rawrite" utility rather than "dd", and does not
require an explicit mount of the floppy drive to modify BOOT.MSG and
SYSLINUX.CFG.
Once the floppy has been created, you can begin your installation.
1. Make sure the BIOS knows that you are using a serial console.
a. As you power on the system, select F2** to enter setup, when
prompted.
b. Use the arrow keys to go to the Server tab, select "Console
Redirection", and press Return.
c. Select Serial 1(DB9) or Serial 2(RJ45). On the V60x and V65x, there
is no DB9 connector, so select Serial 2.
**The expected F-key sequences are based on a classic VT100 emulation. In
particular, F2 is expected to be the sequence esc O Q (with no spaces). If
a given emulation does not send this value for F2, the sequence will work
if typed as three separate keystrokes.
2. Make sure the BIOS will boot the floppy before the CD-ROM.
a. Press the Escape key until you are at the top level of the BIOS
menus.
b. Use the arrow keys to go to the Boot tab.
c. Select Boot Device Priority, and press Return.
d. Check the first three Boot Device settings if they are different
than the following:
-1st Boot Device: "Removable Devices" (aka the Floppy drive)
-2nd Boot Device: "ATAPI CD-ROM"
-3rd Boot Device: "Hard Drive"
Note: The other two boot devices will be set to the network ports.
e. If the first three settings are different, modify them by following
this procedure for each setting:
-Arrow to the setting.
-Press Return.
-Select the correct device on the pop-up menu.
-Press Return.
3. Save changes to the BIOS.
a. Press the Escape key until you are at the top level of the BIOS
menus.
b. Use the arrow keys to go to the Exit tab, select Exit Saving
Changes, and select Yes.
Note: After changing the BIOS, the system will reset. There will be a delay
while POST runs and then the system will attempt to boot.
4. Boot the floppy. If you had not inserted the floppy and CD before, do so
now.
5. At the boot prompt boot:), type "linux text console=ttyS1".
This means "do a text (not graphical) installation using ttyS1 as the
console".
6. At this point, you can follow the official installation documents to
guide you through the installation.
Note: You do NOT need to load the device driver diskette for RHEL 3, as the
necessary scsi drivers are already in the newer kernel.

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