NethServer 6.6 RC1 scratch installation problems

Support
1

Hello, I wanted to share an installation problem I had last night while installing NethServer 6.6 RC1 from scratch. I already had the system installed, originally from the NethServer 6.6 beta1 ISO and then upgraded to RC1 using the update tool. I decided to re-install the system as an exercise, and try and fix a problem with host visibility in the Gateway configuration. I will share more on that later. First, many thanks to Giacomo Sanchietti for improving the interface configuration page of the installer to include MAC address. Very helpful.

After I answered all the initial configuration questions, the system gave the following error:

This is strange because its probably a fault in the CentOS installer script, or with my hardware. I then used gparted to look at the hard disk.

I used gparted to delete everything on the disk, but still had the same problem.

I then used “other installation options” from the NethServer 6.6 RC1 ISO. I think it was called “unattended”.
That worked, but the interface configurations were incorrect. I then had to manually configure the interfaces in

/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth2 (in my case) for an internet connection,

DEVICE=eth2
TYPE=“Ethernet”
ONBOOT=“yes”
USERCTL=“no”
BOOTPROTO=“dhcp”
PEERDNS=“yes”

and ifcfg-eth0 for the LAN (green).

Fortunately, the web configuration page came up and I was able to proceed with package selection and software updates. However, I was not able to select network interface roles until I installed the web proxy package. This is probably normal… :confused:
Maybe the cause of all this is a bad ISO image. I burned it twice but the result was the same. I looked around here in the forum and did not see any similar experiences, but maybe no one else has performed a scratch install.

1 Like
2

I’ve seen the “Error partitioning” dialog once in 6.5 on a system using an hardware raid controller (don’t remember the model).
Are you using a similar system? Could you share your hw config (lspci -nn)?
I solved the problem changing the boot partition size in the iinstaller (it’s a kickstart, I copied it from the cd and used it for a pxe network install - feel free to ask me for details on network install).

/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth* files shouldn’t be modified directly (apart in emergencies like yours). The NethServer way is to go through the network db:
db networks setprop eth2 bootproto dhcp role red
then
signal-event interface-update
to apply config.
The Network menu should be fully working even if the web proxy is not installed.

3

Filippo, here is the hardware configuration for your review:

[root@lan ~]#
lspci -nn

00:00.0 Host
bridge [0600]: Intel Corporation 5520/5500/X58 I/O Hub to ESI Port [8086:3405]
(rev 13)

00:01.0 PCI
bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation 5520/5500/X58 I/O Hub PCI Express Root Port 1
[8086:3408] (rev 13)

00:03.0 PCI
bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation 5520/5500/X58 I/O Hub PCI Express Root Port 3
[8086:340a] (rev 13)

00:07.0 PCI
bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation 5520/5500/X58 I/O Hub PCI Express Root Port 7
[8086:340e] (rev 13)

00:10.0 PIC
[0800]: Intel Corporation 7500/5520/5500/X58 Physical and Link Layer Registers
Port 0 [8086:3425] (rev 13)

00:10.1 PIC
[0800]: Intel Corporation 7500/5520/5500/X58 Routing and Protocol Layer
Registers Port 0 [8086:3426] (rev 13)

00:11.0 PIC
[0800]: Intel Corporation 7500/5520/5500 Physical and Link Layer Registers Port
1 [8086:3427] (rev 13)

00:11.1 PIC
[0800]: Intel Corporation 7500/5520/5500 Routing & Protocol Layer Register
Port 1 [8086:3428] (rev 13)

00:14.0 PIC
[0800]: Intel Corporation 7500/5520/5500/X58 I/O Hub System Management
Registers [8086:342e] (rev 13)

00:14.1 PIC
[0800]: Intel Corporation 7500/5520/5500/X58 I/O Hub GPIO and Scratch Pad
Registers [8086:3422] (rev 13)

00:14.2 PIC
[0800]: Intel Corporation 7500/5520/5500/X58 I/O Hub Control Status and RAS
Registers [8086:3423] (rev 13)

00:15.0 PIC
[0800]: Intel Corporation 7500/5520/5500/X58 Trusted Execution Technology
Registers [8086:342f] (rev 13)

00:1a.0 USB
controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) USB UHCI Controller
#4 [8086:3a37]

00:1a.1 USB
controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) USB UHCI Controller
#5 [8086:3a38]

00:1a.2 USB
controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) USB UHCI Controller
#6 [8086:3a39]

00:1a.7 USB
controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) USB2 EHCI
Controller #2 [8086:3a3c]

00:1b.0 Audio
device [0403]: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) HD Audio Controller
[8086:3a3e]

00:1c.0 PCI
bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) PCI Express Root Port 1
[8086:3a40]

00:1c.5 PCI
bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) PCI Express Root Port 6
[8086:3a4a]

00:1d.0 USB
controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) USB UHCI Controller
#1 [8086:3a34]

00:1d.1 USB
controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) USB UHCI Controller
#2 [8086:3a35]

00:1d.2 USB
controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) USB UHCI Controller
#3 [8086:3a36]

00:1d.7 USB
controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) USB2 EHCI
Controller #1 [8086:3a3a]

00:1e.0 PCI
bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation 82801 PCI Bridge [8086:244e] (rev 90)

00:1f.0 ISA
bridge [0601]: Intel Corporation 82801JIR (ICH10R) LPC Interface Controller
[8086:3a16]

00:1f.2 RAID
bus controller [0104]: Intel Corporation 82801 SATA Controller [RAID mode]
[8086:2822]

01:00.0
Ethernet controller [0200]: Broadcom Corporation NetXtreme BCM5764M Gigabit
Ethernet PCIe [14e4:1684] (rev 10)

03:00.0
Ethernet controller [0200]: Intel Corporation 82571EB Gigabit Ethernet
Controller [8086:105e] (rev 06)

03:00.1
Ethernet controller [0200]: Intel Corporation 82571EB Gigabit Ethernet
Controller [8086:105e] (rev 06)

0f:00.0 VGA
compatible controller [0300]: NVIDIA Corporation G96GL [Quadro FX 580]
[10de:0659] (rev a1)

3f:00.0 Host
bridge [0600]: Intel Corporation Xeon 5500/Core i7 QuickPath Architecture
Generic Non-Core Registers [8086:2c41] (rev 05)

3f:00.1 Host
bridge [0600]: Intel Corporation Xeon 5500/Core i7 QuickPath Architecture
System Address Decoder [8086:2c01] (rev 05)

3f:02.0 Host
bridge [0600]: Intel Corporation Xeon 5500/Core i7 QPI Link 0 [8086:2c10] (rev
05)

3f:02.1 Host
bridge [0600]: Intel Corporation Xeon 5500/Core i7 QPI Physical 0 [8086:2c11]
(rev 05)

3f:03.0 Host
bridge [0600]: Intel Corporation Xeon 5500/Core i7 Integrated Memory Controller
[8086:2c18] (rev 05)

3f:03.1 Host
bridge [0600]: Intel Corporation Xeon 5500/Core i7 Integrated Memory Controller
Target Address Decoder [8086:2c19] (rev 05)

3f:03.4 Host
bridge [0600]: Intel Corporation Xeon 5500/Core i7 Integrated Memory Controller
Test Registers [8086:2c1c] (rev 05)

3f:04.0 Host
bridge [0600]: Intel Corporation Xeon 5500/Core i7 Integrated Memory Controller
Channel 0 Control Registers [8086:2c20] (rev 05)

3f:04.1 Host
bridge [0600]: Intel Corporation Xeon 5500/Core i7 Integrated Memory Controller
Channel 0 Address Registers [8086:2c21] (rev 05)

3f:04.2 Host
bridge [0600]: Intel Corporation Xeon 5500/Core i7 Integrated Memory Controller
Channel 0 Rank Registers [8086:2c22] (rev 05)

3f:04.3 Host
bridge [0600]: Intel Corporation Xeon 5500/Core i7 Integrated Memory Controller
Channel 0 Thermal Control Registers [8086:2c23] (rev 05)

3f:05.0 Host
bridge [0600]: Intel Corporation Xeon 5500/Core i7 Integrated Memory Controller
Channel 1 Control Registers [8086:2c28] (rev 05)

3f:05.1 Host
bridge [0600]: Intel Corporation Xeon 5500/Core i7 Integrated Memory Controller
Channel 1 Address Registers [8086:2c29] (rev 05)

3f:05.2 Host
bridge [0600]: Intel Corporation Xeon 5500/Core i7 Integrated Memory Controller
Channel 1 Rank Registers [8086:2c2a] (rev 05)

3f:05.3 Host
bridge [0600]: Intel Corporation Xeon 5500/Core i7 Integrated Memory Controller
Channel 1 Thermal Control Registers [8086:2c2b] (rev 05)

3f:06.0 Host
bridge [0600]: Intel Corporation Xeon 5500/Core i7 Integrated Memory Controller
Channel 2 Control Registers [8086:2c30] (rev 05)

3f:06.1 Host
bridge [0600]: Intel Corporation Xeon 5500/Core i7 Integrated Memory Controller
Channel 2 Address Registers [8086:2c31] (rev 05)

3f:06.2 Host
bridge [0600]: Intel Corporation Xeon 5500/Core i7 Integrated Memory Controller
Channel 2 Rank Registers [8086:2c32] (rev 05)

3f:06.3 Host
bridge [0600]: Intel Corporation Xeon 5500/Core i7 Integrated Memory Controller
Channel 2 Thermal Control Registers [8086:2c33] (rev 05)

[root@lan ~]#

I find this strange as I did not have this problem with beta1. Hard to believe that the CentOS installer changed since beta1. My hardware configuration has remained constant. The installer asked a question about a software RAID. I tried it both ways but had the same result. Also, I wonder why the unassisted installation method succeeded?

4

Additional Details:
Computer = HPZ400
4X Intel Xeon
2.67GHz CPUs
8GB RAM
160GB Hard
Disk = WDC WD1600AVVS-6
Graphics Card= NVIDIA Quadro FX 580
1 Broadcom NetXtreme BCM5764M Gigabit Ethernet
2 Intel 82571EB Gigabit Ethernet NIC