Re: Using cobbler for a PPC Install

[James Laska]

On Wed, 2009-06-17 at 15:10 -0400, Mackell, Thomas O wrote:
>  
>    I would like to install a Linux machine on a Pseries lpar.
>  
>  Would this actually work like the regular linux installs? Or is there
>  a bunch of hoops to jump through, to get this to work.
>  
>  BTW, Going to try Redhat 5.3 for the install, if it makes any
>  difference.   
I haven't yet proposed a howto for ppc support in cobbler. :(  However,
I can say that support for ppc mimics support for i386/x86_64 with a
notable exception around network boot support (aka PXE).

Powerpc uses yaboot over the network to mimic PXE booting.  The only
drawback with using yaboot-based network booting inside cobbler is that
it doesn't support profile-based kickstart installs like PXE does.  Only
system-based kickstart installs are supported when using the yaboot
network boot support.  

If you'd like network boot support with your ppc system, I would
recommend using the latest yaboot binary included in Fedora 11.  The
version supplied by cobbler is slightly out of date and planned for an
update in a future release.  To use the latest version:

        # cd /tmp
        # wget
       
http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux/releases/11/Fedora/ppc...
        # mv yaboot /var/lib/tftpboot/yaboot-1.3.14

If you are just using koan on ppc, it should work just like `koan
--replace-self` on other architectures.

Have fun!

Thanks,
James

-- 
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 James Laska         -- jlaska(a)redhat.com
 Quality Engineering -- Red Hat, Inc.
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