I haven’t used linux in a long time, and have to install OpenSUSE 11.3 on ten of our servers.
What I plan to do is install OpenSUSE and all our required software on one of the servers, and then clone that drive to all the other server drives (the servers are hot swappable). My question is:
What do I need to worry about conflict wise? So far the only conflicts I can see that I will need to address are machine name (hostname) and set unique static IP addresses?
How can I change the machine name (ie. server01, server02 …) and IP address? Is there any other stuff I need to change as well?
We have a 2U file server running windows. All of the servers (1 x Win and 10 x linux) will be connected to a 24 port gigabit switch.
Is there also any special stuff I need to do to allow access to the Windows server (file etc)?
I will also require remote access to the servers, but assume that this will be easy to setup?
As for sleep mode, I assume that’s fairly easy to configure through the interface?
rgbaguy wrote:
> What I plan to do is install OpenSUSE and all our required software on
> one of the servers, and then clone that drive to all the other server
> drives (the servers are hot swappable). My question is:
>
> What do I need to worry about conflict wise? So far the only conflicts
> I can see that I will need to address are machine name (hostname) and
> set unique static IP addresses?
You’ll also need to worry about disk and partition identities. If you
use disk ids, which are opensuse default, they won’t work if you copy to
another physical disk. If you use uuids, which are ubuntu default, or
labels they will work but obviously the UUIDs won’t actually be Unique.
That may or may not matter.
BTW, if you use DHCP instead of static names and addresses, you won’t
need to worry about those.
If you use a tool like clonezilla which restores the partitions as well as their ID strings, then UUIDs will work. They won’t be unique but that probably doesn’t matter to you.
On 2011-05-26 14:06, rgbaguy wrote:
> Thanks for that, so I just need to make sure that when I install I use
> UUIDs instead of disc ids?
>
> That should be some option available in the disc partitioning?
Yes, in expert mode. You can also use Labels, which are easier to read.
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 11.2 x86_64 “Emerald” at Telcontar)
You will probably also find that the ethernet id will be eth1 instead of eth0. This is because of the existing autogenerated udev rule that associates the MAC address with the device in /etc/udev/rules.d/70-persistent-net.rules To avoid this, you could remove the rule from this file before dumping and let each machine regenerate it at first boot.
It will work with UUiDs and labels because it restores an exact copy of the partition table and partitions. But not disk IDs if the disk brand is different obviously. (Sorry, I was thinking of labels, not disk IDs when I wrote both will work.) The cloning program is so exact that you will have problems if the destination disk is smaller than the original, and you will have unused space after the last partition if larger. It’s a cloning program after all.
Ok started the master drive build and did a clone to test, all working now.
In retrospect I should have gone with labels instead of UUIDs as that would have saved me a bit of work. I’ll put the process in which I got this working in case it will help anyone who needs to do the same:
Install master drive, configure networking etc.
Clone disks with clonezilla live DVD
Modify /boot/grub/menu.lst to replace the serial numbers with the cloned one (in this case that was the only change required as all the drives are of identical make)
Modify /etc/fstab to use the correct drives (again serial number was the only change)
Then delete the last two lines in /etc/udev/rules.d/70-persistent-net.rules (in this case two lines as each server has dual ethernet ports). Do a reboot and set your IP etc or whatever you need to do.
Thats it, as you can see labels would be a much simpler way to go.
Thanks for the great help! Will post if I have any further questions. Have yet to setup the fileserver and plug everything into the switch, but should be all good to go.
Have a couple of questions about the default install of OpenSUSE.
I haven’t configured remote desktop, would this be installed by default? VNC?
I have setup static IPS, hostnames etc on each linux server. When I need to connect to the servers via Windows Remote Desktop, would this work by default or do I need to do some configuration on the linux servers?
And the power savings options, does anyone know what the default settings are set to? I assume there is a user friendly GUI I can use to change those settings?
Last question, when I installed the OS, I set the admin password, but the OS boots straight up with no login window. How can I change that?
If you want to automate opensuse installation you should use autoYAST instead. That is a tool designed for just this purpose. The way you are doing it you can’t account for hardware differences between servers.
On 2011-06-01 11:36, rgbaguy wrote:
> Last question, when I installed the OS, I set the admin password, but
> the OS boots straight up with no login window. How can I change that?
Got a problem with remote access, I can’t use VNC, so am using ssh with putty, but the problem is I can only get remote access through a shell, so it’s generally not user friendly to do stuff.
My problem is that I want to optimize the power consumption of the servers, I don’t want to waste unecessary power. How can I do this through the console? What files etc must I edit?
On 2011-06-22 15:36, rgbaguy wrote:
>
> thanks for the help robit_listas
>
> Got a problem with remote access, I can’t use VNC, so am using ssh with
> putty, but the problem is I can only get remote access through a shell,
> so it’s generally not user friendly to do stuff.
You can also use graphical apps via ssh, but you need a local X server - in
windows, as you are using putty. There are a few, some commercial, some open.
> My problem is that I want to optimize the power consumption of the
> servers, I don’t want to waste unecessary power. How can I do this
> through the console? What files etc must I edit?
I don’t understand this question. :-?
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 11.4 x86_64 “Celadon” at Telcontar)
On 2011-06-22 17:06, rgbaguy wrote:
>
> thanks for the reply
>
> i mean i want to put the machine sleep when it’s idle, ie. after 30 min
> idle it must sleep etc?
The server, remotely, via ssh? Consider that it will not awake remotely.
Not easily, at least.
The basic command is s2ram. Actually, “pm-suspend”, as root. Test it
locally first. There is another one that works as user, I think it is
powersave -u
Automatically… dunno. It is normally done by the desktop when you stop
typing. How to do it for a server? Dunno. Never heard of it.
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 11.4 x86_64 “Celadon” at Telcontar)
Could you perhaps give me more information on the disc ids? What would I need to do then?