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Workaround for Installing Solaris 10 5/09 OS on the IBM HS22 Type 7870 Blade Server

by Jonathan O'Brien and Lee Damico

Description

The IBM HS22 Type 7870 Blade Server uses the Matrox G200eV graphics core. On this system, attempting to use the GUI during boot or installation of the Solaris 10 5/09 release will result in a blank or garbled display even though Xorg and dtlogin may be running. The system functions properly in text mode. This problem is documented in:

CR 6826364 Xorg dtlogin doesn't display on IBM HS22 blade with MGA G220eV

Version 1.4.10 of the mga driver resolves the problem. This updated driver is planned to be included in the next version of the Solaris 10 update release and is available now via Patch ID 125270-32. After applying the patch, the system must be rebooted and possibly power-cycled in order for the display to function properly. Details and possible other problems related to this are documented in the sections that follow.

Workaround

Though the system is still accessible via text mode, there is no workaround for the lack of GUI functionality. If GUI functionality is required, Patch ID 125270-32 or later must be installed.

Installing the IBM HS22 Type 7870 Blade Server

In order to install Solaris 10 5/09 on this system, it is necessary to do a text mode install. At the Solaris installation menu, select option 4:

   4. Solaris Interactive Text (Console session)

Proceed with the installation and when given the option of doing an auto reboot or a manual reboot, choose the manual reboot option. This will make it easier to install the patch directly after the installation. After installation completes, you will be instructed to press "!" to exit to the shell.

Means of applying the patch during installation or directly after are discussed in the next section.

Applying the Patch

1) Download the patch

Download Patch ID 125270-32 (or later) from the Sunsolve web site.

2) Copy the patch to the target system

If you are booting over the network and have write access to the netinstall image, you may copy the patch to the netinstall image and it will be accessible on the system being installed under /cdrom.

Other methods to make the patch available include mounting a USB thumb drive, or transferring the patch via ftp(1) or scp(1) assuming there is network access.

3) Unzip the patch

   # unzip <path_to_patch>/125720-32.zip

If you have downloaded the signed patch, you can verify the signatures using these instructions.

To unzip the signed version of the patch:

   # unzip <path_to_patch>/125720-32.jar

4) Apply the patch

The patch must be applied to the installation target mounted under /a.

   # patchadd -R /a <path_to_patch>/125270-32

5) Reboot the system

   # reboot

If the system is rebooted before installing the patch, it will be necessary to either install the patch remotely or disable the GUI before you can install the patch. The above steps for applying the patch will still apply except for step 4, which should be modified to no longer specify /a as the mount point. Disabling the GUI is documented under Troubleshooting.

Troubleshooting

If you are unable to apply patch ID 125270-32 or want to apply patch ID 125270-32 from the console, you need to force the system to stay in text mode by disabling the cde-login service.

Disabling the GUI

Three scenarios for disabling the cde-login service are documented here. These include making updates at boot time, via JumpStart, and after a system is installed and booted.

1) Disabling the GUI at Boot

Upon reboot, you can prevent the GUI from launching by booting into single user and then disabling the cde-login service. You will do this by editing the GNU GRUB menu. As the system boots the Solaris 10 5/09 release, the following GNU GRUB menu is displayed with Solaris highlighted as the default OS:

   GNU GRUB version 0.95 (616K lower / 4127168K upper memory)
   +-------------------------------------------------------------------+
   |Solaris 10 5/09 s10x_u7wos_08 X86                                  |
   |Solaris  failsafe                                                  |
   |                                                                   |
   +-------------------------------------------------------------------+
   Use the ^ and v keys to select which entry is highlighted. Press
   enter to boot the selected OS, 'e' to edit the commands before
   booting, or 'c' for a command-line.

• Press 'e' to edit
• Highlight the kernel line and Press 'e' to edit the line
• Append <SPACE> -s to the end of the line and then press <RETURN>
• Press 'b' to boot

Once the system has booted in single-user mode, log in as root and using the svcadm(1M) command, disable the default GUI login screen:

   # svcadm disable cde-login

2) Disabling the GUI via JumpStart

If you are performing a JumpStart installation, you can disable the cde-login service in the JumpStart finish script by creating a file named site.xml in /a/var/svc/profile that contains:

   <?xml version='1.0'?>
   <!DOCTYPE service_bundle SYSTEM '/usr/share/lib/xml/dtd/service_bundle.dtd.1'>
   <service_bundle type='profile' name='site'>
     <service name='application/graphical-login/cde-login' type='service' version='0'>
      <instance name='default' enabled='false'/>
     </service>
   </service_bundle>

3) Disabling the GUI on an Already Installed and Running System

If the system is installed with Solaris 10 5/09 and has already booted to the GUI login screen, you will need to log in remotely via ssh and then use svcadm to disable the default GUI login screen:

   # svcadm disable cde-login

You then need to reboot and possibly power-cycle the system for the changes to take effect.

Re-enabling the GUI

Once you have applied patch 125720-32 (or greater), you may re-enable the GUI using the svcadm command:

   # svcadm enable cde-login

If you have disabled the GUI via a site.xml SMF profile, as documented in the JumpStart step above, you will also need to update the profile to remove the cde-login entry.