HP Insight Control for Linux 6.0 Installation Guide

• Remote installation of Linux OSs to managed systems Insight Control for Linux enables
you to launch the following types of remote network installations to install a Linux OS on
one or more managed systems:
— Interactive or unattended installations of RHEL. Unattended installations of RHEL are
run with user-customized Kickstart configuration files that have been registered in the
repository.
— Interactive or unattended installations of SLES. Unattended installations of SLES are
run with user-customized AutoYaST configuration files that have been registered in
the repository.
— Interactive and unattended installations of other variants of (unsupported) Linux OSs.
— Interactive installations of virtualization software, such as VMware ESX and VMware
ESXi, and unattended installation of VMware ESX.
Using Insight Control for Linux tools to remotely install a Linux OS on managed systems
is documented in the HP Insight Control for Linux User Guide.
• Automatic firmware updates Insight Control for Linux enables you to automatically upgrade
the firmware on a server on demand at any time or during a bare metal discovery process.
To use this feature, you must load the appropriate firmware files and tools from the HP
Firmware Maintenance CD into the Insight Control for Linux repository on the CMS.
Automatic firmware updates are documented in the HP Insight Control for Linux User Guide.
• Capture and deploy Linux images Insight Control for Linux enables you to capture a Linux
image from a managed system and save it to the Insight Control for Linux repository. You
can then deploy that captured Linux image to one or more managed systems.
Insight Control for Linux capture and deployment tools are documented in the HP Insight
Control for Linux User Guide.
• Capture and deployment scripts You can create and run Linux scripts before and after
Linux OS capture and deployment tasks to sanitize sensitive security information when you
capture or deploy a Linux image.
If you create a script, register it in the repository, and copy it to the /opt/repository/
script directory on the CMS, you can select the script to run before or after a capture or
deployment of an OS.
HP provides script templates in the /opt/repository/script directory for you to review
for suggested uses. The directories and scripts are named: postdeploy_example.sh,
predeploy_example.sh, postcapture_example.sh, and precapture_example.sh.
You are free to use your own script names.
• New parallelized (Avalanche) deployment for scaling productivity in large environments
Large scale deployment solves the problem of bandwidth contention by transferring a Linux
image to a single server in each switch or enclosure. The single server transfers the image
to the rest of the servers that are connected to the same switch or enclosure. The large scale
deployment feature enables you to deploy a Linux image to a large number of server in a
fraction of the time it would take with a standard image deployment.
• Booting managed systems through virtual media Virtual media allows a server to remotely
access a CD or DVD drive, a floppy diskette, a USB drive, or an ISO image on a remote hard
drive as if it were a physical drive directly attached to that server. Using virtual media to
boot a managed system during a bare metal discovery is an alternative to using PXE and
DHCP.
The CMS securely logs into the Integrated Lights Out (iLO) management processor and
configures the virtual media feature so that the server boots securely from an ISO image
located on the CMS. That ISO image contains the network information for that server so
that DHCP is never required. Using virtual media with Insight Control for Linux requires
1.2 Insight Control for Linux tools and features 9