Creating the driver diskette for Linux installs on the IXS and IXA

 

This topic discusses how to create a driver diskette that is required for Linux installation on the IXS and IXA. The driver diskette is required during installation so that the integration software needed to provide virtual devices for the IXS & IXA can be installed in Linux. To create the diskette...

  1. Locate the diskette images in the QIBM directory of the integrated file system.

  2. From an i5/OS® command line type the command WRKLNK OBJ('/QIBM/ProdData/IntegratedOS/Linux/x86/Install/*’)

  3. Look for an IMG file for either Red Hat Enterprise Linux® or for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, depending on what Linux distribution you have selected to use.

    Whatever versions of the distributions are supported when you perform your installation, there will be an IMG file for each one in the integrated file system directory /QIBM/ProdData/IntegratedOS/Linux/x86/Install.

  4. On a PC running either Windows® or Linux, make a directory on the local hard drive to store the diskette image:

    • For example, in Windows: MD C:\Redhat

      You can use any drive and directory name you wish.

    • For example, in Linux: mkdir /home/redhat

      You can use any drive and directory name you wish.

  5. Transfer the image file from the integrated file system directory /QIBM/ProdData/IntegratedOS/Linux/x86/Install to the directory you created in the previous step using one of the following methods:

    • FTP the image file to the PC directory as a binary file.

    • File sharing

      Access the integrated file system directory using iSeries™ NetServer™ from Windows, or from Linux using Samba. Then copy the image file to the PC directory.

      The /QIBM integrated file system directory is shared by default using iSeries NetServer. You should be able to access this directory and then drill down to /QIBM/ProdData/IntegratedOS/Linux/x86/Install without any setup.

      If you have a problem accessing the /QIBM shared integrated file system directory you might need to review the setup of iSeries NetServer. In this case, go to the iSeries NetServer topic.

      You can connect to the /QIBM integrated file system directory as follows:

      Windows

      1. Using Windows, click Start > Run and enter the IP address of the i5/OS partition; for example, \\161.50.4.3

      2. Click OK. Drill down to the directory /QIBM/ProdData/IntegratedOS/Linux/x86/Install and copy the file to your PC.

      Linux

      1. Using Linux, to access the integrated file system directory using Samba, you need to use the SMBMOUNT command to mount the /QIBM integrated file system directory in the Linux file system. The format of the command is: smbmount //host-name/qibm /mnt/mydata -o username=user-name,password=password

        • host-name is the iSeries TCP/IP host name or IP address.

        • user-name is a valid i5/OS profile name.

        • password is the password for user-name.

    For more information on using the smbmount command to access an iSeries NetServer shared directory refer to the document at the following Web site:

    http://www.ibm.com/servers/eserver/iseries/netserver/pdf/LinuxNetServ_Usage.pdf

  6. If you copied the diskette image to a Linux PC, create the diskette as follows:

    1. Insert a formatted, blank diskette into the diskette drive.

    2. Change the directory to the directory in which the image is stored.

    3. Use the dd command to transfer the diskette image to the physical diskette. In the example below, the dd command is being issued from inside the src directory.

      dd if=rhel3ixs.img of=/dev/fd0

      The input file (if) is the image that was downloaded to the src directory. The output file (of) is the diskette drive.

    4. To verify that the operation was successful you can mount the floppy device and list the files using the ls -l command.

  7. If you copied the diskette image to a Windows PC, create the diskette as follows:

    1. Insert a formatted, blank diskette into the PC’s diskette drive.

    2. For RHEL 3, SLES 8 or SLES 9, insert one of the following CD-ROMs into the PC’s CD-ROM drive:

      • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 ES or AS: disc 1

      • SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 8: United Linux 1.0 disc 1

      • SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 9: disc 1

    3. Use Windows Explorer to navigate to the \dosutils\rawritewin directory (RHEL 3) or \dosutils\rawwritewin directory (SUSE 8 or 9) on the optical drive and open the folder.

    4. For RHEL 4, the installation media does not contain any utilities for creating a driver diskette on Windows. However you can obtain the rawwritewin.exe utility from the above media or download versions 0.4 or above from the web site.

      http://uranus.it.swin.edu.au/~jn/linux/rawwrite.htm

      IBM does not endorse or accept any responsibility for the content, or the use, of this Web site. It is up to you to take precautions to ensure that whatever you select for your use is free of such items as viruses, worms, trojan horses and other items of a destructive nature.

    5. Double click rawwritewin.exe.

    6. Enter the path and name of the diskette image in the Image file text box.

    7. Click the Write button to write the image to diskette. When the diskette has been created, remove it and click Exit.

    8. You cannot read the diskette you have created from Windows. To verify the contents of the diskette you would need to use a Linux PC.

 

Parent topic:

Completing the preinstallation tasks