Install Solaris 10u6 x86 on HP BL460c

Problem:

Trying to install Solaris 10u6 x86 onto a HP BL460c server blade through the iLOv2 . The install errors out with “No Disks Found” message

Solution:

Download and install the HP SmartArray controller driver from HP site (CPQary3-2.0.0-solaris10-i386)

Procedure:

• Mount the ISO as a virtual cdrom from the iLO v2 web interface and boot the server blade
• When the install comes to the point where you are asked to choose what kind of install ( the prompt where it asks whether you want an interactive , desktop , text console etc)
• Choose the option 5 , something like “install 3rd party package/patch”,  and it asks you where to install the package / patch from
• From the iLO v2 interface , umount the Solaris 10 ISO and mount the image of the downloaded driver from HP and choose the option for searching all paths (cdrom , non-usb …etc)
• This will find and install the driver.
• Umount the image of the driver and mount the Solaris 10 ISO again.
• Continue with normal installation

Note:

Since most of our servers are SPARC based , did not want to take the pain to configure Jumpstart for a single server , but if Jumpstart is used for installation, addition of 3rd party packages / patches is easier.

Recommendation :

Choose the option 3, 4 from the installation menu and you get to choose the option to boot from ZFS. It has worked flawlessly for us. Your mileage may vary.

Migrate from EMC powerpath to MPxIO.

As always use at your own discretion. I do not take any responsibility for any screw-up/data loss and please take a good backup

To migrate from Powerpath to Solaris MPxIO, the following steps can be used .This has been working on Solaris 10 with zpools on powerpath devices

Note: Take care when executing “stmsboot -e” on servers like v880/v890 which has fibre connectivity for internal disks.

Note1: If “stmsboot -e” is run on a server which has zfs boot (Solaris 10 10/08), during boot a scary message is displayed on console which   can be safely ignored ( at least for us until now)

1. Remove the Powerpath package using pkgrm and reboot.
2. The machine should come up without Powerpath
3. Run “stmsboot -e -D fp” and follow prompts (Reboot required)

The system should come up with MPxIO enabled and the luns which are part of the zpools change their name from emcpowerXa to the MPxIO format.

If format does not show MPxIO multipathed disks … try adding the support for third party devices in the /kernel/drv/scsi_vhci.conf file. and rebooting the server again.