Install Debian/testing (Etch) on a Sun X4100

The X4100 is a fantastic piece of equipment. Sun supports on it Solaris 10, Red Hat Enterprise Server and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 9. Hey, if it runs RHES and SLES, it runs Debian right? Right. You will find a number of guides on the net that describe how to remaster the installation CDs to support the machine. Well here is how I did it using yesterday’s (2006/08/16) i386 debian installer¹:

First of all, you will save yourself a considerable amound of time if you spent some time with ILOM, especially the web interface, not the serial nor the ssh one. The web interface has a Java Web Start terminal application that works very well with the the debian text-based installer.

In my case the X4100 has two SAS disks which I configured to a (hardware) RAID-1. I followed the steps of the debian installer and proceeded to reboot the machine. Here come the tricks needed for the machine to run Debian:

The debian installer thinks that the (RAID-1) disk is sdi. However it installs a 486 kernel which thinks that the disk is sda. So on reboot you have to modify GRUB to boot from sda and on single user mode. After you give the root password issue the following commands:

# mount -o rw,remount /dev/sda1 /
# cd /etc
# mv fstab fstab.sdi
# sed -e 's/sdi/sda/' fstab.sdi > fstab.sda
# cp fstab.sda fstab
# cd /boot/grub
# mv menu.lst menu.lst.sdi
# sed -e 's/sdi/sda/' menu.lst.sdi > menu.lst.sda
# cp menu.lst.sda menu.lst

And reboot (I choose to “reset” from the ILOM power control). Now you are OK, with the minor difference that you are running a 486 kernel instead of an SMP one. So:

# apt-get install linux-image-686-smp

and you are all set, or maybe not… The Debian 686-smp kernel loads as modules what is needed for MPT Fusion and LSI stuff. For some weid reason this has the result that 50% of the time on boot the kernel recognises the (RAID-1) disk as sdi and the other 50% as sda (yes, here we go again). But have no fear! If instead of modules you compile the support for MPT Fusion and LSI into the kernel you are OK (the disk is recognised as sda all the time). Grab the linux sources from Debian:

# apt-get install linux-source-2.6.16

and use make-kpkg to build it. The diff between my config and debian’s stock kernel is bellow:

# diff config-2.6.16-yiorgos config-2.6.16-2-686-smp
3,4c3,4
< # Linux kernel version: 2.6.16-yiorgos
< # Wed Aug 16 15:42:35 2006
---
> # Linux kernel version: 2.6.16
> # Sun Jul 16 03:04:43 2006
1149c1149
< CONFIG_SCSI=y
---
> CONFIG_SCSI=m
1155c1155
< CONFIG_BLK_DEV_SD=y
---
> CONFIG_BLK_DEV_SD=m
1174c1174
< CONFIG_SCSI_FC_ATTRS=y
---
> CONFIG_SCSI_FC_ATTRS=m
1176c1176
< CONFIG_SCSI_SAS_ATTRS=y
---
> CONFIG_SCSI_SAS_ATTRS=m
1206,1209c1206,1209
< CONFIG_MEGARAID_MM=y
< CONFIG_MEGARAID_MAILBOX=y
< CONFIG_MEGARAID_LEGACY=y
< CONFIG_MEGARAID_SAS=y
---
> CONFIG_MEGARAID_MM=m
> CONFIG_MEGARAID_MAILBOX=m
> CONFIG_MEGARAID_LEGACY=m
> CONFIG_MEGARAID_SAS=m
1322,1324c1322,1324
< CONFIG_FUSION_SPI=y
< CONFIG_FUSION_FC=y
< CONFIG_FUSION_SAS=y
---
> CONFIG_FUSION_SPI=m
> CONFIG_FUSION_FC=m
> CONFIG_FUSION_SAS=m
1326,1327c1326,1327
< CONFIG_FUSION_CTL=y
< CONFIG_FUSION_LAN=y
---
> CONFIG_FUSION_CTL=m
> CONFIG_FUSION_LAN=m

Now your X4100 is ready for use.

[1] Yes I know that I am running a 32bit OS on a 64bit machine.