How do I configure or install my CG2100 without a CD/DVD-ROM drive?

This document contains instructions for transferring OS images (Windows 2008, Redhat, and SLES) and the Kontron Deployment Assistant CD image to a USB key or SD storage device. This may be necessary since the CG2100 does not contain an internal CD or DVD-ROM device. The OS images and Deployment Assistant can also be burned to DVDs/CDs and accessed with an external USB CD or DVD-ROM drive. Below are the instructions for transferring these images to a USB key or SD-Media device. All file transfers should be done to a USB device. There are many USB adapters that support SD plugin cards. This method should be used to transfer the images to a SD-Media card which can be plugged into a CG2100. All the examples below, describe the general USB key transfer.

Kontron Deployment Assistant

The KDA (Kontron Deployment Assistant) CD ISO image can be downloaded from:  CG2100 Kontron Deployment Assistant CD

The UNetbootin utility should be used to transfer the KDA to a USB key.

Click here for the Windows version of UNetbootin.

Click here for the Linux version of UNetbootin.

The following screen shot is an example of the UNetbootin execution. The "Diskimage" and "ISO" options should be selected. Your downloaded image can be selected with the browser. For the "Type", select "USB Drive" and then select the USB device you want as the target. Press "OK" to start the write process.

KDA Example

The latest versions of UNetbootin can be downloaded from: http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/


Windows 2008
  1. Get a USB key or USB flash drive that is, at least, 4GB in size.
  2. Format the USB flash drive from within Windows 2008, Windows Vista, or Windows 7 (These newer releases of Windows are required for the following procedure. Windows XP cannot be used.)
  3. Open a command prompt and execute the following commands:
    • Diskpart
    • list disk (This displays a list of disks and information about them)
    • select disk 1 (assuming the USB key is detected as disk 1 from the list generated by “list disk” command. This setting must be correct or else you may accidentally wipe out the hard disk instead.
    • clean (removes any and all partition or volume formatting from the disk)
    • create partition primary
    • select partition 1 (the only primary partition created by command above)
    • active
    • format fs=fat32 (use FAT32 file system)
    • assign (assigns a drive letter or mount point to the volume with focus)
    • exit
  4. Insert the Windows 2008 Installation DVD into the system’s DVD drive. In a file browser, select and copy all the files on the Windows 2008 DVD. Paste these files to the newly formatted/partitioned USB key or USB flash drive.
  5. The USB flash device is now bootable and can be used to install Windows 2008 on your Kontron server. Make sure the USB device is selected as the boot device when booting the system to start the install.

Redhat

The iso2usb utility should be used to transfer a Redhat Installation DVD or ISO to a USB key.

Click here for the Windows version of iso2usb. There is not a prebuilt Linux version of iso2usb but the source code and newer versions of the Windows binary can be downloaded from the main iso2usb project page at: http://sourceforge.net/projects/iso2usb/

The following screen shot is an example of the iso2usb execution. This program is based on the UNetbootin project so the screens look similar. iso2usb does  provide support for DVD disks if an ISO file is not available. The "Diskimage" and "ISO" options should be selected (or "CD Disk"). Your downloaded image can be selected with the browser. For the "Type", select "USB Drive" and then select the USB device you want as the target. Press "OK" to start the write process. The selection of "Hard Disk Name" and "USB Device Name" refers to the SCSI device names that Redhat will see during the install. It is not critical that you get this correct in iso2usb. The Redhat installation will display all available SCSI devices and you can make the hard disk and USB device name selection during the Redhat install.

Redhat Example


SLES

The iso2usb utility does not currently support SLES. The following procedure can be used to create and populate a bootable USB key with the SLES Installation DVD. You must perform this procedure on a Linux system.

Preparation

Open a root xterm or terminal;

Plug in the USB drive. The drive should mount automatically - if you use KDE, you can find out which device name is used for the USB drive, by reading it from the window that opens automatically. The partition has a name such as "dev/sdb1". The disk is the device without the trailing digit, e.g., /dev/sdb.

You can also use

 lsscsi

and look for a device that matches your USB drive.

Check the partition as root type via:

fdisk -l

or, if you know the disk

fdisk -l /dev/<disk>

The output should have line like

/dev/sdb1  * 1  3924     1004528    c  W95 FAT32 (LBA)

Here "FAT32" indicates the filesystem. It could also be "FAT16" (or something else). If you see a star (as in the example above), then this means that the bootable flag is set.

 If the bootable flag is not set (no star), it needs to be set as follows:

fdisk /dev/<disk>

(<disk> is the disk name, e.g. "sdb". It's not the partition name as "sdb1"). Then press "a", and enter the partition number (e.g. 1, if the partition is sdb1). Save the changes with "w". If the automount prevents the changes from being saved, you can temporarily disable automount using "rcdbus stop" as root.

If the filesystem is not FAT32, it needs to be changed:

fdisk /dev/<disk>

Then press "t" (to change the partition type) and "c" (for FAT32). Save the changes with "w".

Create the filesystem (beware, this erases all data on the USB drive). To do so you must first unmount the drive:

umount /dev/<partition>

mkfs.vfat -F 32 /dev/<partition>

(Here <partition> is the partition, for example "sdb1").

Make sure that the USB drive is FAT32 formatted:

fsck.vfat /dev/<partition>

If this fails, fix the filesystem with

fsck.vfat -a /dev/<partition>


Copy files to the USB drive

Choose a suitable mount point for the dvd (for example /mnt/dvd) and a mount point for the USB drive (for example /mnt/usb). Create the mount points with

mkdir /mnt/dvd

mkdir /mnt/usb

Mount the downloaded CD/DVD image (make sure you have loop-device support in your Linux - in SLES this is available by default):

mount dvd.iso /mnt/dvd -o loop

Also mount the USB drive:

mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt/usb

Copy the downloaded CD/DVD data to the USB drive at the root of the drive

cp -R -L /mnt/dvd/* /mnt/usb/

Unmount the USB drive (if not, the command mksusebootdisk will fail)

umount /mnt/usb

Make the USB drive bootable

Place the mksusebootdisk script on your Linux system. Click here to get this script.

Make sure the script is executable:

chmod +x mksusebootdisk

Run the script with arch set to 32 for i386, or 64 for x86_64. This should work for any architecture e.g. ppc, IA64.

./mksusebootdisk --arch --partition /dev/<partition> /mnt/dvd

This command works reasonably fast. It will fail if you forgot to unmount (using umount) the USB disk. It will also fail (and give a "not a FAT file system" error if you press crtl-c) if the drive has errors. To fix the errors, use

 fsck.vfat -w -r /dev/<partition>


Installation

Boot

Make sure your USB-device is plugged in. Boot the system. If everything goes well the SuSE SLES boot menu will appear. Choose install.


Setup

During setup, the install media will not be automatically found. The setup will fall back to text-mode setup where you can choose the install media location. Pick Hard Disk as the installation media and then  enter "/"  as the Source Directory. After this screen, the install will continue  in the normal fashion.  AT the end of the installation, remove the USB device before  rebooting. After the boot, the SLES installation will complete and you may be prompted to reinsert the  USB key at that time.