SUMMARY: Self-configuring Sparcs & ifconfig madness (calling /etc* experts)

From: Bede W P Seymour (bws900@cscgpo.anu.edu.au)
Date: Sat Aug 08 1992 - 16:36:17 CDT


Thankyou sun-managers,

Original query is at the bottom. Basically I wanted to know if it was
possible to get Suns with re-preinstalled disks to be able to configure
themselves and bring themselves up without operator intervention, the first
time they are turned on, as long as information about their ethernet
address, hostname and other stuff has been plugged into the relevant server.

This procedure is detailed in the "Quick Configuration of Desktop SPARCs on
the Network" card, and also in Chapter 3 of Release and Install.

I had found that I couldn't get it to work because the SunOS 4.1.2 ifconfig
program sets the broadcast address wrong for the internet (as most will
already be aware of).

======================================================
Thanks to the following for responding:

rich_b@oldham.gpsemi.com (Richard Bogusz)
David.Miner@East.Sun.COM (Dave Miner)
dhesi@cirrus.com (Rahul Dhesi)
Roy Hallquist <rhallqui@rigel.uark.edu>
sysadmin@toshiba.tic.oz.au (System Administrator)

========================================================
THE DEFINITIVE ANSWER:
----------------------
Dave Miner (David.Miner@East.Sun.COM) mailed me. He actually wrote the
self-configuring procedures that we find in /etc/rc*. He basically
agreed that the broadcast mask is at fault, and you can't really
fix things so that a preinstalled or re-preinstalled disk will come
up on its own in a properly configured server environment.

He added that:

>This stupid broadcast problem is fixed in Solaris 2.0, but of course that
>doesn't help you much.

and also that:

>It turns out that this feature is really presently only useful for mostly
>smaller sites, as most larger sites don't use our preinstalled configuration at
>all; as soon as they get the system hooked up, they do some sort of custom
>software installation. We'll be making that a lot easier in future releases.

...which I think is great. You'll be able to re-preinstall a disk to the
custom configuration that you want, hopefully with a custom label on the disk
too so you can have as much swap as you want instead of the default 16.
Then you just give the disk to user X, tell them to connect it up and turn it
on, and whalla!

One of the local SUN support guys (who I unfortunately can't remember the name
of - sorry) - added that within their own local network they use zeros
in their broadcast, so they use this sort of thing, and other stuff that they
have since cooked up, all the time. Neato - I wish I could :-).

In the original message, I also said:

>As I'm about to give a Sysadmin course, this seems like a dream come true.
>I won't even have to teach a System Installation section!

Rahul Dhesi <dhesi@cirrus.com> pointed out a need for sysadmins of
workstations to go through a System Installation:

>Unwise...the next time they have a system crash, they won't know how to
>fix things except by a complete re-install. I think every sysadmin
>should go through the complete installation process manually once or
>twice. *Then* if they need to install many machines they can speed up
>the rest.

I tend to think that an intelligent auto-configure could get around that,
but I also tend to agree with him!

The original question and all answers follow. Thanks for the bandwidth!
I hope this summary hasn't been too garbled (it's late Saturday night...)

-- 
___________________________________________________________________________
Bede Seymour                               e-mail:  Bede.Seymour@anu.edu.au
UNIX Unit,  CSC, Australian National University, Box 4, Canberra, ACT, 2601 
phone: +61-6-2495027                                     phax:+61-6-2511084  
____"Computer Programming:  Isolation for fun and profit..."  (Rocco)______

From: bws900@cscgpo.anu.edu.au (Bede W P Seymour) Message-Id: <9207310616.AA17726@cscgpo.anu.edu.au> Subject: Self-configuring Sparcs & ifconfig madness (calling /etc/rc* experts) To: sun-managers@eecs.nwu.edu Date: Fri, 31 Jul 92 16:20:27 EST Cc: bws900%cscgpo@anu.anu.edu.au X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4dev PL32] Status: OR

Hello all,

I've been going through the "Quick Configuration of Desktop SPARC on a Network" card which seems to come with most Suns since at least 4.1.1Rev B (see 4.1.2 Release & Install, Installing SUNOS 4.1.2, Ch 3: "Configuring a pre-installed workstation").

The idea is that if you have a preinstalled or re-preinstalled disk with your Sun, then all the sysadmin has to do is take the ethernet address of the unit, plug it into NIS, the user then goes off with the Sun and turns it on, and the thing configures itself as it comes up. All the owner of the Sparc has to do is type in a root password for their system and away they go. You can even get it to self-configure an automount for their home-disks.

As I'm about to give a Sysadmin course, this seems like a dream come true. I won't even have to teach a System Installation section! Up until now, we've never done things this way, we usually do a custom install on one disk and use dump/restore over the SCSI to install other new systems.

Anyway, the "self-configuring of preinstalled disks" method runs the following three commands (found in /etc/rc*) to communicate with servers running rarpd, rpc.bootparamd, and NIS:

* ifconfig -ad auto-revarp up (rc.boot)

* hostconfig -p bootparams (rc.boot)

* /usr/etc/install/sysIDtool (rc.local)

THE PROBLEM IS that SunOS's ifconfig sets the BROADCAST address to net.net.net.0 instead of net.net.net.255. If you're connected to most parts of the Internet, then you need a BROADCAST address with 255 on the end, rather than 0. I know I'm not the first person to discover this and I know that the workaround is to hack rc.local but the purpose of the pre-installed disk and this method is that you need a freshly unbooted disk for it to work.

The worst thing is that it _nearly_ works ... it's only when sysIDtool tries to do an RDATE to the TIMEHOST that RDATE fails because of the way ifconfig has set the interface (don't ask me why.. I didn't think rdate used broadcast!)

Even if you hack rc.boot to make the broadcast right, then setup the disk again so that it thinks it is unconfigured (use re-preinstall), it then fails to read the NIS maps because sysIDtool seems to RESET the network interface BACK to having ZEROS in the BROADCAST field.

The only solution seems to be to have a CDROM or some Tape-copy of the CDROM (is this possible?) with a hacked ifconfig.

Any thoughts?

Bede

-- ___________________________________________________________________________ Bede Seymour e-mail: Bede.Seymour@anu.edu.au UNIX Unit, CSC, Australian National University, Box 4, Canberra, ACT, 2601 phone: +61-6-2495027 phax:+61-6-2473425 ____"Computer Programming: Isolation for fun and profit..." (Rocco)______

From: rich_b@oldham.gpsemi.com (Richard Bogusz) Message-Id: <9207310947.AA26123@sn4901.oldham.gpsemi.com> To: bws900@cscgpo.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: Self-configuring Sparcs & ifconfig madness (calling /etc/rc* experts) Status: OR

Bede,

Just a thought but can't you just have a generic rc.local with the ifconfig setting the correct broadcasts and a local /etc/netmasks setting a proper netmask stored on a floppy disk, you could then get your users to install over the original rc.local and netmasks files after booting up in single user mode?

Richard _______________________________________________________________________________

Richard Bogusz Unix Systems Manager GEC Plessey Semiconductors LTD Oldham Lancashire United Kingdom OL9 7LA

Tel: +4461 682 6844 Fax: +4461 688 7898 E-mail: rich_b@oldham.gpsemi.com

_______________________________________________________________________________

From: David.Miner@East.Sun.COM (Dave Miner) Message-Id: <9207311405.AA22798@badboy.East.Sun.COM> To: bws900@cscgpo.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: Self-configuring Sparcs & ifconfig madness (calling /etc/rc* experts) Content-Length: 1642 Status: OR

I'm about as expert as you get, since I'm one of the engineers who wrote this.

> > The worst thing is that it _nearly_ works ... it's only when sysIDtool tries > to do an RDATE to the TIMEHOST that RDATE fails because of the way ifconfig > has set the interface (don't ask me why.. I didn't think rdate used broadcast!) >

It uses broadcast only to ARP for the timehost's IP address, because it sets up a TCP connection to retrieve the date.

> Even if you hack rc.boot to make the broadcast right, then setup the disk > again so that it thinks it is unconfigured (use re-preinstall), it then > fails to read the NIS maps because sysIDtool seems to RESET the network > interface BACK to having ZEROS in the BROADCAST field. >

There really is a good reason for this; within sysIDtool, it actually starts up ypbind temporarily so that it can get things like the netmask and the timehost from the maps. We do this so you can have the timehost on a different subnet.

> The only solution seems to be to have a CDROM or some Tape-copy of the > CDROM (is this possible?) with a hacked ifconfig. >

You're right, because sysIDtool has a system() of "ifconfig -au netmask + broadcast +" hard-coded in it the only solution is a modified ifconfig.

This stupid broadcast problem is fixed in Solaris 2.0, but of course that doesn't help you much.

Dave

--------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dave Miner dave.miner@east.sun.com SunSoft, Inc., Administration Application Services (508) 671-0463 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: dhesi@cirrus.com (Rahul Dhesi) Message-Id: <9207311544.AA17620@ss103.cirrus.com> To: bws900@cscgpo.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: Self-configuring Sparcs & ifconfig madness (calling /etc/rc* experts) Newsgroups: cirrusl.admin.sun-managers References: <9207310616.AA17726@cscgpo.anu.edu.au> Status: OR

>As I'm about to give a Sysadmin course, this seems like a dream come true. >I won't even have to teach a System Installation section!

Unwise...the next time they have a system crash, they won't know how to fix things except by a complete re-install. I think every sysadmin should go through the complete installation process manually once or twice. *Then* if they need to install many machines they can speed up the rest. -- Rahul Dhesi <dhesi@cirrus.com> also: dhesi@rahul.net

From: Roy Hallquist <rhallqui@rigel.uark.edu> Message-Id: <199207311939.AA11076@rigel.uark.edu> Subject: System administration course To: bws900@cscgpo.anu.edu.au Date: Fri, 31 Jul 92 14:39:40 CDT Reply-To: RH06113@UAFSYSB.UARK.EDU Phone: (501) 575-2905 X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Status: OR

Bede, I'm also trying to setup a sysadmin course for Sun/UNIX-in-general. Do you have any recommendations on books or other materials? How long will your course be?

Thanks...

...Roy

-- Roy Hallquist, Jr. BITNET: rh06113@uafsysb Computing Services Internet: rh06113@uafsysb.uark.edu University of Arkansas or rhallqui@uafhp.uark.edu Fayetteville, AR 72701 Phone: (501) 575-2905

From: David.Miner@East.Sun.COM (Dave Miner) Message-Id: <9208031337.AA04839@badboy.East.Sun.COM> To: bws900@cscgpo.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: Self-configuring Sparcs & ifconfig madness (calling /etc/rc* experts) Content-Length: 1506 Status: OR

> Dave, > > I take it as read then that all SUN's investment in printing Chapter 3 of > "Installing SUNOS 4.1.2", and the investment in the "Quick Configuration > of Desktop SPARC Over the Network" card, is wasted? >

Not sure I understand what you mean by wasted here. It's true that this feature isn't as useful as it might be, and it's also true that we changed what our default broadcast address is, but we also still understand the old one.

It turns out that this feature is really presently only useful for mostly smaller sites, as most larger sites don't use our preinstalled configuration at all; as soon as they get the system hooked up, they do some sort of custom software installation. We'll be making that a lot easier in future releases.

> It seems funny that there is no note about this in the documentation or > Read-this-firsts, that I have seen - but I guess SOLARIS 2.0 is pretty > well here already. > > Anyway, I just thought I'd grab you while I've got you for one question - > do you know if it is possible to make a boot/install QIC-tape from a > CDROM? >

Maybe in 4.x, but I don't know how since we never have a need to. I don't think it can be done at all in Solaris 2.x.

Dave

--------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dave Miner dave.miner@east.sun.com SunSoft, Inc., Administration Application Services (508) 671-0463 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Mon, 3 Aug 92 10:01:51 EST From: sysadmin@toshiba.tic.oz.au (System Administrator) Message-Id: <9208030001.AA28852@toshiba.tic.oz.au> To: bws900@cscgpo.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: Self-configuring Sparcs & ifconfig madness (calling /etc/rc* experts) Status: OR

> Hello all, > > I've been going through the "Quick Configuration of Desktop SPARC on a > Network" card which seems to come with most Suns since at least 4.1.1Rev B > (see 4.1.2 Release & Install, Installing SUNOS 4.1.2, Ch 3: "Configuring > a pre-installed workstation"). > > The idea is that if you have a preinstalled or re-preinstalled disk with > your Sun, then all the sysadmin has to do is take the ethernet address of the > unit, plug it into NIS, the user then goes off with the Sun and turns > it on, and the thing configures itself as it comes up. All the owner > of the Sparc has to do is type in a root password for their system > and away they go. You can even get it to self-configure an automount > for their home-disks. > > As I'm about to give a Sysadmin course, this seems like a dream come true. > I won't even have to teach a System Installation section!

I'd be vary carefull about leaving this section out. When I first read about this I too though "At last, easy installations", but there was a catch. We have 386is at this site. Before a 386i will boot (even a diskfull one) it needs to contact the pnpd server. The pnpd is a 386i special and further more it will only run on a 386i that is the YP master. In order to make use of Suns new auto-configure stuff for SPARCstations your YP master must be running the latest version of SunOS (4.1.X). 386is (including the one that must be the YP master for the 386is to boot) do not & can not run SunOS 4.1.X, they are stuck back in the days of 4.0.2. This mean

> > Any thoughts?

This was one. Some people out there NEED to know how to configure disks, for this and other reasons.

> > Bede

======================================================================= = John Baird ACSnet: john@toshiba.tic.OZ.AU = = Toshiba International Corporation Phone: 02-428-2077 = = Sydney Fax: 02-418-7791 = =======================================================================



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