For your convenience, the SGI server ships with all the required software preinstalled on your system hard drive. However, in certain circumstances, it may be necessary for you to rebuild the system disk image using CD-ROMs.
 | Warning: The following covers a complete reinstall from scratch. Any data you already have on your system disk will be destroyed. If you are installing a RAID PCI card for the internal drives, all data already on the internal drives will be lost. It is up to you to back up data you cannot afford to lose before you continue. |
At the end of this process, your system disk will be functionally equivalent to the state it was in when shipped from the factory. In particular, that means you will have to reassign the hostname and network addresses and redo the Bastille server lockdown. You must also reapply all patches and custom configuration changes to the application(s) included, and reinstall any third-party application(s).
This chapter covers the following:
See the hardware documentation for additional information.
 | Note: The procedures in this appendix assume that you are the superuser. |
You will want to reinstall from CD-ROM in the following circumstances:
Installing in a country to which SGI may not ship a prebuilt system disk image due to United States export restrictions
Installing a RAID PCI card for the internal drives
Upgrading to a faster and/or larger hard drive
Upgrading the operating system version (if approved by SGI)
Customizing the partitioning scheme on your system disk
Customizing the file systems on your system disk
Recovering from a break-in
Replacing a failed system hard drive
| Note: The SGI Internet Server for e-commerce software cannot be installed as a whole on a non-SGI system. Please consult the copyright notice enclosed with your CD-ROMs if you are considering using this software for any purpose other than the SGI server. |
To perform the reinstallation, you will need the following CD-ROMs:
Red Hat 6.2 (both CD-ROMs)
SGI ProPack 1.4
SGI Internet Server for E-commerce Disk #1, Open-Source Apache and SSL Software
SGI Internet Server for E-commerce Disk #2, SGI Internet Server Environment and Mercantec Softcart Software
The SGI factory basic I/O system (BIOS) settings allow you to boot your system off the CD-ROM. To change the boot device, press Ctrl-Alt-Esc to enter SETUP mode during the boot process.
Inspect the Boot Device Priority in the Boot menu. The CD-ROM should appear higher up on the list than the hard disk. If in doubt, please contact SGI Customer Support.
| Note: This may not work from a serial terminal emulator. |
To prepare the hardware for reinstallation, do the following:
Shut down the system.
Power off the system.
Update your hardware configuration if applicable.
Note: Some hardware components may require installation by an SGI support engineer, or your support contract may be void. If in doubt, please contact SGI Customer Support.
Do the following to install the Linux operating system:
If you are deploying an SGI RAID controller PCI card, follow the installation instructions shipped with it.
Power the system on.
Immediately after power on, insert the Red Hat 6.2 CD-ROM.
Select text mode for your installation by entering text and pressing the Enter key, as documented on the opening screen.
Follow the directions for Red Hat installation in Red Hat Linux 6.2 The Official Red Hat Linux Installation Guide.
Select the custom installation.
The remainder of this section focuses on nonstandard configuration suggestions from SGI.
The SGI Internet Server for e-commerce uses the following partitioning scheme:
Ideally, the total amount of swap space should be at least equal to real main memory installed in your system; this ensures that core files can be completely dumped. If you care about core dumps, you should create additional swap space partitions before creating the final large partition.
On a production SGI server, you generally want to avoid actual swapping to maintain nominal performance. However, the maximum size of a single block of real memory that the operating system will allocate is limited to the total amount of swap space available. For certain applications, you will want to increase the swap space allocation to 2-3 times the amount of real memory.
For more details, please see the following:
http://www.linux.com/howto/mini/Partition/index.html |
To install the SGI ProPack overlay, do the following:
Insert the SGI ProPack 1.4 CD-ROM.
Mount the CD-ROM, change to the cdrom directory, and execute the INSTALL script by entering the following:
# /bin/mount /dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom # cd /mnt/cdrom # ./INSTALL
Check the Performance Tools checkbox in the Package Group Selection screen.
Unmount the SGI ProPack 1.4 CD-ROM:
# /bin/umount /mnt/cdrom
To install the SGI Internet Server for e-commerce software, do the following:
Insert the SGI Internet Server for E-commerce Disk #1, Open-Source Apache and SSL Software CD-ROM.
Mount the CD-ROM, change to the cdrom directory, and execute the UPGRADE script by entering the following:
# /bin/mount /dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom # cd /mnt/cdrom # ./UPGRADE
Unmount the Disk #1 CD-ROM:
# /bin/umount /mnt/cdrom
Insert the SGI Internet Server for E-commerce Disk #2, SGI Internet Server Environment and Mercantec Softcart Software CD-ROM.
Mount the CD-ROM, change to the cdrom directory, and execute the INSTALL script by entering the following:
# /bin/mount /dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom # cd /mnt/cdrom # ./INSTALL
Unmount the Disk #2 CD-ROM:
# /bin/umount /mnt/cdrom
Enter the following to activate configuration and Bastille Linux questions upon reboot:
# /bin/touch /root/.SGICONF |
Follow the steps documented in this guide (see “What Do I Need to Do?” in Chapter 1) and the hardware documentation.