PowerEdge: How to Install and Manage Linux on Dell Servers

Table of Contents

1. Installing Linux
2. Understanding Linux Drivers
3. Installing Management Tools
4. Generating a sosreport
5. Checking the version installed
6. Viewing Storage in Linux

Installing Linux using the LCC

• The Life-Cycle Controller (LCC) can be used to deploy a Linux OS, provided it is a supported version of Linux that has driver packs available. The supported Linux Operating Systems are RHEL and SLES. Any other Linux OS must be installing manually.
• Load the install media and then select which Linux OS the media matches either specific version of RHEL or SLES.
• Next it continues to boot the media and proceed with installation like normal.

Installing Linux using Bootable Media

• The process here is the same as that of any other OS, you boot the media either using USB, DVD, or mapping an ISO to the virtual media in iDRAC.
• Boot the install media and do some basic configuration before starting the install.
• Choose the disk to install to, what type of software to install, an admin user, and you can configure network settings if wanted, though not required.

RHEL Installer:

• The RHEL installer uses an interactive user interface.
• Follow the guided steps to start the install. The required items must be completed before the option to begin installation shows.

• Required Options: Root Password, Installation Destination, Installation Source
• Optional Options: User Creation, Network, Red Hat Subscription, Security Policy

SUSE Installer:

• The SUSE installer also uses a graphical installer.
• Follow the guided steps to choose which components or packages to install.

Ubuntu Server Installer:

• The Ubuntu Server installer uses a text-based installer.
• Follow the guided steps to choose what components to install.

Understanding Linux and Drivers

• With Linux Operating Systems, the Linux Kernel provides the drivers. So you must verify that the OS has the drivers required for the server hardware.

• The Linux support matrix’s are a great resource to check for supported OS for various servers:
  • https://linux.dell.com/files/supportmatrix/
• You can also view the Hardware Compatibility List (HCL) for RHEL or Ubuntu to view additional support info:
  • RHEL: https://catalog.redhat.com/hardware 
  • Ubuntu: https://ubuntu.com/certified/servers
  • SLES: https://www.suse.com/yesCertified/home

Installing Management Tools

With supported versions of Linux, you can install OpenManage Server Administrator (OMSA), RACADM, iDRAC Service Module (ISM), or Dell System Update (DSU) to manage the Server.

• RACADM:

  • Download and view the install instructions from the Dell Support Site for the specific server model and OS version.

• • Go to the location where the file was downloaded and extract tar file:

# tar xvzf Dell-iDRACTools-Web-LX-11.1.0.0-5294_A00.tar.gz

• • Once extracted go into the folder that it created and then the racadm folder and run the install_racadm.sh script.

# cd iDRACTools/racadm/
# ./install_racadm.sh 

• OMSA (Also installs RACADM):

  • Download the OMSA file for the Linux OS from the support site.

• • Go to the location where the file was downloaded and extract tar file using the tar command:

# tar xvzf OM-SrvAdmin-Dell-Web-LX-11.1.0.0-5747.RHEL8.x86_64_A00.tar.gz

• • Once it is extracted, you must run the setup.sh file that should be in the location where you ran the tar extraction:

# ./setup.sh

• • Once the install script starts, you follow the guided steps to either choose to install all components or select the services required and then proceed with install.

• ISM:

  • Download the tar file for the Linux version installed and extract using the tar command following the same process as the previous tools.
  • Be sure to download the correct ISM installer, one of them is for the installer in the iDRAC, and other is used to install in the OS shown below.

• • Once extracted you run the setup.sh script

# ./setup.sh 

• DSU:

  • DSU can be installed using downloaded DUP package or using a repository.

• • Download the .bin file from the support site and mark the file as executable by running the command:

# chmod +x ./Systems-Management_Application_RPW7K_LN64_2.0.2.3_A00.BIN

• • Then run the file either by specifying the full path or using ./ to specify the local folder path.

# ./Systems-Management_Application_RPW7K_LN64_2.0.2.3_A00.BIN

• • Once the setup is started, it shows the DUP info screen and give you an option to press 'q' to continue or read the remaining lines of info. So to continue press 'q'

• • For the repository method of install, you can see the below links for info on setting up the repository.
  • RHEL/SLES - https://linux.dell.com/repo/hardware/dsu/
  • Ubuntu - https://linux.dell.com/repo/community/openmanage/

Generating a sosreport

RHEL/SUSE:

• If not already installed simply install it using OS repositories by running the command:

  yum install sos 

• Run the report by running the command:

  sos report --batch

  Note: The "--batch" is optional, it skips the questions that RHEL support would use that we do not need
• Once the report is done generating, you see a prompt for the location of the created sosreport file.

Checking the version of Linux installed (RHEL/Ubuntu)

• For RHEL or RHEL comparable Operating Systems such as CentOS, Rocky Linux, Alma Linux the following command can be used to view the current version:

  # cat /etc/redhat-release 
  Red Hat Enterprise Linux release 8.10 (Ootpa) 

• In Ubuntu or SUSE the command lsb_release -a can show the current version installed.

  # lsb_release -a
  No LSB modules are available.
  Distributor ID: Ubuntu
  Description:    Ubuntu 22.04.4 LTS
  Release:        22.04
  Codename:       jammy

Viewing Storage in Linux

• SAS/SATA/USB drives or Virtual Disks (VDs) are assigned an ID based on their detection such as sda, sdb, sdc, and so on depending on how many drives are detected.

• The order in which the drives are seen can change as they are not hard set, the OS maps the drives based on their UUID
• The command lsblk is a quick way to list all the drives and partitions seen on a system.

  # lsblk 
  NAME          MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
  sda             8:0    0  21.8T  0 disk
  └─sda1          8:1    0  21.8T  0 part /mnt/Data
  sdb             8:16   0 222.6G  0 disk
  ├─sdb1          8:17   0     1G  0 part /boot
  └─sdb2          8:18   0 221.6G  0 part
    ├─rhel-root 253:0    0   112G  0 lvm  /
    └─rhel-swap 253:1    0  11.2G  0 lvm  [SWAP]
  sdc             8:32   0  43.7T  0 disk
  └─sdc1          8:33   0  43.7T  0 part /mnt/Backups

• The command lsscsi is another useful command to view the disks and determine if they are hard drives or a RAID Virtual Disk.

  # lsscsi 
  [0:2:0:0]    disk    DELL     PERC H730P Mini  4.30  /dev/sda
  [16:0:0:0]   cd/dvd  Linux    Virtual CD/DVD   0001  /dev/sr0
  [16:0:0:1]   disk    Linux    Virtual Floppy   0001  /dev/sdb

Step-by-Step Installation Guides:

PowerEdge: How to Install Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.x on PowerEdge Server

PowerEdge: How to install SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES)

PowerEdge: How to install Ubuntu Server on Dell Servers