How to install IRIX on an Indy R5000 workstation.


SCSI ID configuration

IRIX is kinda funny about SCSI ID's.
ID 0 is not recognized by the operating system.
ID 1 is the first valid SCSI ID and must be asssigned to the boot hard drive.
ID 4 should be assigned to the CDROM drive.

Partitioning the hard drive.

  • Power on the workstation.
  • Click on the Stop for Maintenance button.
  • Click on Enter Command Mode.
  • Insert the Irix 6.4.x Overlay 1 of 2 CD.

    This will boot a temporary kernel into memory and allows the user to issue IRIX system commands.
  • type boot -f dks(0,4,8)/sashARCS

    Now start the partion tool, fx.
  • type boot -f dks(0,4,7)/stand/fx.ARCS The tool should come up in expert mode. If not, specify the -x flag.

    Select [r]epartition, [e]xpert and define the following values in fx. 
    ----- partitions-----
part  type        blocks            Megabytes   (base+size)
  0: xfs      397312 + 102400       194 + 50   
  1: raw        4096 + 393216         2 + 192  
  6: xfs      499712 + 8388608      244 + 4096 
  8: volhdr        0 + 4096           0 + 2    
 10: volume        0 + 8888924        0 + 4340
    After the drive has been partitioned, select [l]abel. [s]ync and [se]t the sgiinfo and bootinfo variables.

    Now install the operating system by inserting the first disk and choosing Install software from the boot menu.
    The installer will ask which stream you want to install. Choose the maintainance stream.

    When the installer asks if you want to install more software, insert the next disk from the installation collection.
    Do this for all of the disks. On some disk, errors may be reported that there is a newer version of software installed.
    This is most likely to occur on the 'NFS/ONC' disk. You need to change the installation directory to /CDROM/irix6.5/dist or something similar.

    Setup and Configuration
    Once the operating system is installed, the machine will reboot and automatically start a graphical setup.

    Securing
    Using chkconfig service off turn off all but the following services:
    autoconfig_ipaddress, desktop, esp, network, nfs, nsd, rwhod, savecore, soundsheme, verbose, windowsystem, xdm, yp


    Installing Kerberos

    Configuring XDM for kerberos authentication

    Cloning
    Cloning might be the most useful procedure for installing large bases of Irix machines. Once you have a fully configured machine, turn it off and connect the drive to clone to. In the example below, the destintation drive is set to ID4. Reboot the machine as you normally would. Log in as root, unmount all NFS filesystems and take the machine into single usermode by issuing init 1. Do not attempt to cold boot the machine into single user mode. Some of the required environmental variables will not be set making the cloning process more difficult.

  • The destination disk must be partitioned identically as the source disk. If it is not, use fx to create the proper partitions, set the boot label and sgiinfo.
  • The following script will copy the volume header, / and /usr partitions.
    Notes: I am using separate partitions for / and /usr. The directions for dvhtool specify that the sash & ide are in /stand. This is incorrect for a clean install like we have done. 
    #!/bin/sh

/usr/sbin/prtvtoc
/usr/sbin/prtvtoc /dev/rdsk/dks0d4vh
echo "Do the volume headers match?"
read ans

if [ "$ans" = "n" ]; then
exit
fi

#Make a file system on / and /usr
mkfs_xfs /dev/rdsk/dks0d4s0
mkfs_xfs /dev/rdsk/dks0d4s6

#Copy the volume header information
dvhtool -v get sash /stand/sash
dvhtool -v get ide /stand/ide
dvhtool -v create /stand/sash sash /dev/rdsk/dks0d4vh
dvhtool -v create /stand/ide ide /dev/rdsk/dks0d4vh
dvhtool -v list /dev/rdsk/dks0d4vh

mkdir /clone /clone2

#Copy /
mount /dev/dsk/dks0d4s0 /clone
xfsdump - / | xfsrestore - /clone
umount /clone

#Copy /usr
mount /dev/dsk/dks0d4s6 /clone2
xfsdump - /usr | xfsrestore - /clone2
umount /clone2
    And that's it. When you reinstall the cloned drive remember to set it's ID back to 1. Reconfigure the network IP and create a Kerberos Key/Entry for it since it thinks it's identical to the clonee machine.