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Re: [atomic-devel] Bare metal installation without video display??



See my reply interspersed.

On 08/20/2018 10:26 AM, Dusty Mabe wrote:
On 08/19/2018 10:50 AM, Bob Gustafson wrote:
My particular piece of bare metal seems to have enough memory, disk 
space, Intel x86_64 architecture w/4 cores, ethernet nics, but it does 
not have any video support.

I can move data using ethernet, but user interaction during install must 
go through a 115200n8 serial port.
Do you see the isolinux boot menu on the serial console? If so you just need
to edit the first entry and add console=ttyS0 to the kernel command line. 
Thanks very much for your reply.

I don't get that far on the serial console. I think that dialog is being painted to a video frame buffer..

This is what I see on an attempt using a USB stick:
SeaBIOS (version rel-1.10.0.1)                                                 
Press F10 key now for boot menu, N for PXE boot                                
Select boot device:                                                            
                                                                               
1. USB MSC Drive   PMAP           << I chose this item                                                       
2. SD card SS04G 3781MiB                                                       
3. ata0-0: Samsung SSD 850 EVO mSATA 250GB ATA-9 Hard-Disk (23                 
4. iPXE (PCI 00:00.0)                                                          
5. Payload [memtest]                                                           
6. Payload [setup]                                                             
                                                                               
Booting from Hard Disk...
Blinking USB light, also attempts by anaconda to feel around its environment
From Wireshark:
..
Option: (60) Vendor class identifier
  Length: 44
  Vendor class identifier: anaconda-Linux 4.16.3-301.fc28.x86_64 x86_64
       

      
I have avoided using Anaconda since F20, but for this first install, I 
think interacting with Anaconda would be the best route.

   (I anticipate installing many times as I feel out the bare metal and 
increase my own knowledge.)
If you are going to install many many times I would suggest using something
like PXE and a kickstart based install.
I have tried many different approaches to installation - I favor paths with visibility. I turned on logging from the dnsmasq server and am running Wireshark on every attempt. Kickstart seems to favor a non-interactive series of steps and so config errors are not so catchable.

Using a USB stick - I see the little red light blink many times with quiet periods in between, then dark. Nothing on the console after the "Booting from Hard Disk..." line. I'm sure that I am only a "misplaced comma" away from success, but ..

Currently I am watching Wireshark list continuing DHCP Discover packets, but no reply from the dnsmasq server..

Perhaps the line in systemctl status dnsmasq -> "ignoring nameserver 192.168.50.60 - local interface" has some relationship

Just one more whack-a-mole...
-----------------

Kickstart is probably my eventual installation technique, especially for the 2nd and 3rd piece of bare metal. But for the 1st, there are still too many pieces of the puzzle that are out of place. There is the dnsmasq configuration, a combination of dhcp, dns, tfptd. Fortunately most of these commas are visible through Wireshark. Many of these pieces I haven't had a previous need to conquer, and it has been slow slogging.

Fedora Documentation with working examples would be a big help. (but everyone wants 'their use case' as an example..)

I have installed a working Linux system (Voyage) on my bare metal, but of course that is not available during the pre-boot and boot phases of Fedora Atomic.

 

My host system is a healthy Fedora 28. Minicom is my serial port 
software - seems to work ok.

The Fedora-AtomicHost-ostree-x86_64-28-20180806.0.iso has vesamenu.c32, 
but no menu.c32 file.

I'm looking for suggestions as to how I should proceed.


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