Installing SCO through SmartStart on a Compaq Server
Updated September 16, 2002
Created March 20, 2000

For the assisted installation of SCO 5 on a Compaq Server, the cdrom must be configured as the Master device on the Primary IDE channel. By default the cdrom comes set as cable select and should be on the "drive 0" connector of the IDE cable.

You must have at least 64MB of memory installed in the server in order to install SCO 5. If you have less than 64MB of memory installed, then you can perform the install by adding nbuf=100 to your defbootstr.

The SPD (Server Profile Diskette) is very important to the SmartStart Assisted Installation of any operating system. The SPD holds all of the answers you have previously keyed in. When the server does its reboots, please do not remove any media from the server unless prompted to do so. The SmartStart Installation program will make sure that the server knows not to boot to the SPD diskette. If you pull out the SPD diskette prematurely, SCO will ask you the exact same questions all over again - which is the equivalence of a Manual Installation.

Some network cards may or may not be picked up during the SmartStart Assisted install. Either way, I would "defer" installation of the Compaq network cards until after SCO is installed.

The reason for deferring installation of the network cards is because current versions of SCO require patches and suppliments. During the process of applying the patches and suppliments, the Compaq network cards will become unconfigured and you will have to reconfigure them. See the section marked "SCO Patches and Suppliments" for more details.

The purpose of the "Compaq Back End Manager" is to install the Compaq EFS and Insight Agents once SCO is installed. The Compaq Back End Manager is not needed after this point and can safely be removed.

When you finish installing your SCO system, you will have SCO, Compaq EFS, and Compaq Insight Agents installed in that order. Order on a SCO system is very important. When finished with your SCO box, the order needs to have the following order:

1. SCO 5
2. SCO patches
3. Compaq EFS
4. Compaq Insight Agents

The above order has to always be used when either updating the EFS or adding or maintaining SCO patches. The following sequence describes how to upgrade either the SCO patches or the Compaq EFS now or at any time in the future:

1. Write down your Compaq network card settings (ip address, netmask, broadcast)
2. Reboot to single user maintenance mode

* Perform all of the following steps in Single user Maintenance Mode.

* Perform all of the following steps without rebooting.

3. Run "netconfig" and remove any Compaq NIC's
4. Run "Custom" and remove the Compaq Insight Agents
5. Remove the Compaq EFS - do not reboot
6. Add or Modify SCO Patches and Suppliments as dictated by SCO. See SCO documentation for particular order to apply each patch. Do not reboot during this process.
7. Add the Compaq EFS - You will be prompted to configure any Compaq network cards
8. Add the Compaq Agents

You may now safely reboot. Do not perform the above steps in multiuser mode as you may encounter errors and will have to either contact SCO for a resolution or restore from backup.

Usually when removing and reapplying the EFS, a newer one can be found on the Compaq Web Site. Here are the locations to find SCO patches and Compaq EFS and Agents:

Here is one method of installing the EFS from the cdrom:

1. Log in as root then enter the following commands:

# mkdir /cdrom

# /etc/mount /dev/cd0 /cdrom

# cp /cdrom/SSSUP/OPENSRVR/OPSIMAGE/OPSIMAGE.Z /tmp/opsimage.Z

# cd /tmp

# uncompress opsimage.Z

# chmod -x opsimage

# /etc/marry -a opsimage

# mkdir /tmpmnt

# /etc/mount /dev/marry/tmp/opsimage /tmpmnt

# cd /tmpmnt/cpqEFS

# mkdir /tmp/efs

# cp VOL.00?.00 /tmp/efs

# cd /

# /etc/custom

2. Select "Software/Install New."

3. Select the local host as the source of the software.

4. Select "Media Images" as the software media.

5. Enter "/tmp/efs" as the path to the media images.

6. Select "Install" to install the EFS. If a prompt asks whether to

configure network interfaces at this time, answer as appropriate.

If you wish / need to use the utility to allow you access to the main menu of the SmartStart CD, you can retrieve the utility now:

7. Create a directory to hold the Compaq EISA Configuration Utility.

# mkdir -p /usr/local/compaq/bin

8. Copy the file onto the local file system.

# cp /tmpmnt/cpqUtils/eisaCfg /usr/local/compaq/bin

9. After the installation of the EFS (and Agents if desired) is complete, exit custom and run the following commands as root:

# /etc/umount /tmpmnt

# /etc/marry -d /dev/marry/tmp/opsimage

# /etc/umount /cdrom

10. Remove the SmartStart CD and reboot as follows:

# init 6

11. Allow the system to reboot and log in as root.

12. Run the following commands as root to reset the Environment Variable

that selects the Compaq boot images:

# chmod +x /usr/local/compaq/bin/eisaCfg

# /usr/local/compaq/bin/eisaCfg -w CQTBOOTIN 0

Mount the Compaq Management cd as read only. Then proceed to the following directory: /agents/sco-5/eng/compaq. The run the Compaq Insight Agents Installation Script as follows: sh ./install

mount -r -f HS,lower /dev/cd0 /mnt

If you need to restart the SCO 5 install, here is how to do it. Use the maintenance switch (usually switch #6 on the dipswitch inside the Server, check your Server Side Panel for location of the switch and switch #). To use the maintenance switch, you have the server powered off, turn the maintenance switch to the on position, the power the server on. Have all CD's and Floppies removed from the server, once you reach the F1 prompt, then power off the server (do not power off prior as you may leave the server in an unpredictable state and cause problems). Turn off the Maintenance Switch, then power back up. Now you can access the SmartStart CD's main menu and you can run system erase (Be careful, System Erase IS DATA DESTRUCTIVE) to bring the system back to factory default.

After you finish the SmartStart Assisted Installation of SCO, you will find that every time you boot to the SmartStart CD, you will not be able to access the main menu and the SCO installation program will begin. There is a bit in NVRAM that gets set that causes the CD to start the SCO installation program. To stop this from happening so that you may access the SmartStart main menu, you have two methods to perform this:

1. Run the following command as root: /usr/local/compaq/bin/eisaCfg -w CQTBOOTIN 0
2. Clear NVRAM. The proper way to clear NVRAM on most Compaq Servers is through Advanced mode of SCU (System Configuration Utility). Please refer to the document labeled NVRAM.DOC on the web site as follows http://www.cpqlinux.com.
3. Use the maintenance switch to clear nvram. Please do not use the maintenance switch when you have reason to believe that your nvram is corrupt as the maintenance switch does not properly clear NVRAM. If you have reason to believe that your nvram is corrupt, then the proper method to clear that is by using the advanced mode of SCU to clear out nvram.

The cdrom must be configured as the Master device on the Primary IDE channel. If you get any of the following errors, then you should double check in SCU (System Configuration Utility) whether the cdrom is set up as the Master (unit 1) or Slave (unit 2) device:

Error 1:

Error 2:

The cdrom comes configured by default on all Compaq servers as "Cable Select." This means that Master / Slave depends upon how you cable the cdrom. The cdrom cable is clearly marked as follows: one end is marked "System Board", the middle connector is marked "Drive 0", the other end connector is marked "Drive 1". On all Compaq servers, the cdrom should be cabled to the "Drive 0" connector.

If you get the following errors:

Reading from Install Source: 10 KB/ramFS/extractProd/extractAll

terminated by signal 8

Press <Enter> to continue

** Safe to Power Off **

-or-

** Press Any Key to Reboot **

then you probably have less than 64MB of memory. There are two solutions:

1. Get more memory (best solution)
2. Use the "defbootstr nbuf=100" as your boot string in order to make more of your system's memory available for installation processes.

This error can show up anywhere during the installation, even late during the installation. I had this happen just after formatting the hard drive and just before beginning the file copy.

03-22-2000 Created a troubleshooting section, rearranged documentation, added signal 8 section, added back end manager section, added alternate method to recover being able to access the main menu of the smartstart cd by using eisaCfg. Added a method to install the EFS and Agents from cdrom.

03-20-2000 Document created and released on http://www.cpqlinux.com.