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Deploying Dell PowerEdge Servers Using Microsoft Automated Deployment Services Enterprise Product Group (EPG) Dell White Paper By Syama Poluri September 2003 Contents Executive Summary ...............................................................................3 Introduction ............................................................................................4 Supported Systems and BIOS Versions............................................5 Preparing the Server To Be In the ADS Environment....................6 Enabling PXE Support and Noting the MAC Address .....6 Changing the BOOT Sequence ..............................................7 Adding the System to ADS Database ...................................7 Capturing the Image .............................................................................9 Installing the Administration Agent ....................................9 Setting up Sysprep ...................................................................9 Capturing the Utility Partition...............................................9 Capturing the OS Partition ...................................................10 Deploying an Image ............................................................................11 Creating the Utility Partition ...............................................11 Creating the OS Partition ......................................................11 Deploying the Utility Partition Image ...............................12 Deploying the OS Partition Image......................................12 Supplementing the Deployment Agent Drivers Repository ......13 Troubleshooting ..................................................................................14 Table 1: Supported Systems and BIOS versions ...................................................................................... 5 Revision Date: 4/29/2017 Page 2 Dell Enterprise Product Group Section 1 Executive Summary When you purchase computer hardware systems, the value of those systems to your business does not begin until they are deployed and operational. New servers sitting idle instead of operational in data centers are a waste of precious resources. The administrator needs an effective way to deploy not only the operating system, but also system management agents and applications to the servers. Depending upon the current business requirements, the process, and the network setup, he can either deploy the software to each server locally or to a group of servers remotely over the network. Microsoft Automated Deployment Services (ADS) is a deployment framework to remotely and automatically deploy operating systems in the Microsoft® Windows® 2000 Server and Microsoft Windows Server 2003 families, as well as to configure, maintain, and manage servers. This paper provides information on how to remotely deploy Dell TM PowerEdgeTM servers using Microsoft Automated Deployment services. Revision Date: 4/29/2017 Page 3 Dell Enterprise Product Group Section 2 Introduction The purpose of this document is to provide general guidelines on how to deploy Dell PowerEdge servers using Microsoft Automated Deployment Services (ADS). ADS is a deployment framework from Microsoft to remotely and automatically deploy operating systems in the Microsoft Windows 2000 Server and Microsoft Windows Server 2003 families, as well as to configure, maintain, and manage servers. By using ADS, you can help reduce administration costs of your data center. For more information about ADS, see http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/techinfo/overview/ads.mspx. ADS provides a remote deployment infrastructure that consists of tools and technologies that can install an operating system on a bare metal server or re-provision an existing server with a different operating system image. The following are high level tasks that ADS can perform: Preparing the server to be in the ADS environment Capturing an image of the operating system from the existing system Deploying the image to a target system A detailed explanation of how to perform these tasks on Dell PowerEdge systems is described in subsequent sections. This paper assumes the reader is familiar with key aspects of server deployment and Microsoft ADS from an operational standpoint. Revision Date: 4/29/2017 Page 4 Dell Enterprise Product Group Section 3 Supported Systems and BIOS Versions Table 1 is a list of supported servers and BIOS versions that have been tested with Microsoft ADS. The Windows 2003 CD has all the driver files required by the Microsoft ADS Deployment Agent Builder service for all the supported systems listed in the Table with the exception of the PowerEdge 1750. The PowerEdge 1750 requires additional NIC driver files to build the deployment agent. Please refer to the “Supplementing Deployment Agent Drivers Repository” section of this document for more information. Dell anticipates supporting more server models in the future. Even though BIOS versions are listed here, Dell recommends using the latest BIOS version. Table 1: Supported PowerEdge Systems and BIOS versions System Bios Version Drivers for Deployment Agent 1550 A07 2003 CD 2550 A08 2003 CD 1650 A05 2003 CD 2650 A08 2003 CD 1655 MC A00 2003 CD 2600 A09 2003 CD 6600 A12 2003 CD 6650 A12 2003 CD 1750 A05 Need to Supplement NIC Drivers* 650 A03 2003 CD * Please refer to the “Supplementing Deployment Agent Drivers Repository” section of this paper for more information. Revision Date: 4/29/2017 Page 5 Dell Enterprise Product Group Section 4 Preparing the Server to Be in the ADS Environment Enabling the PXE Support and Noting the MAC Address The PXE on the NIC that is connected to the ADS server should be enabled so that the deployment agent can be loaded from the network. During the system boot up process, press <F2> to run the system setup program. When the system setup program runs, the main program screen appears (see Figure 1). Some of the options vary from system to system. Select <Integrated Devices> and press <Enter>. Look for fields that say “Primary Embedded NIC” or “Secondary Embedded NIC” or NIC1 PXE or NIC2 PXE. Change the value of the fields to either on, on with PXE, enabled, or enable with PXE to enable PXE. PXE should now be enabled on the NIC that is connected to the ADS server. The system should be rebooted in order for the PXE-enabled NIC to show up in the BIOS boot sequence. The MAC address of the embedded NICs is also displayed here. Please note the MAC address as this MAC address is needed to add the system to the ADS device database. Figure 1: System Setup Screen Revision Date: 4/29/2017 Page 6 Dell Enterprise Product Group Changing the BOOT Sequence The target device should try to boot from the Network (PXE) before it tries to boot from the hard disk in order for ADS to push the deployment agent to the target device. The standard boot sequence should be set as follows: 1. A: 2. CD-ROM 3. Network 4. Hard Drive During the System boot up process, press <F2> to run the system setup program. When the System Setup program runs, the main program screen appears (see Figure 1). Some of the Options vary from system to system. To change the boot sequence, select <Boot Sequence> and press <Enter>. Press the SPACE bar to enable or disable the boot option or press - , + to move up and down or refer to Table 1.1 for system setup navigation keys. Note: The NIC for which PXE is not enabled cannot be seen in the boot sequence menu. Please look at the instructions in the section entitled “Enabling the PXE support and noting the MAC address” to enable PXE support. Table 1.1 System Setup Navigation Keys Keys Action Down arrow or <Tab> Moves to the next field. Up arrow or <Shift><Tab> Moves to the previous field. Left and right arrows or Spacebar Cycles through the settings in a field. In many fields, you can also type the appropriate value. <Esc> Exits the System Setup program and restarts the system if any changes were made. Adding the System to the ADS Database The device can be added to the ADS database using its MAC address or SMBIOS UUID. Default device identification is done using the MAC address. The ADS controller service property “Device identifier” should be set to SMBIOS GUID in order to use the SMBIOS UUID as the key for device identification . SMBIOS GUID can be represented in two different formats; one is UUID order ( i.e., a formatted string that includes “-“) and the other is raw format. PowerEdge servers display SMBIOS GUID in UUID order during the PXE boot. Press the “Pause/Break” key if you note SMBIOS GUID during the PXE boot process. Remove the dashes (“-“) from the SMBIOS GUID noted from the PXE boot process and use this value to add the device to the ADS database. For example, if the SMBIOS GUID Revision Date: 4/29/2017 Page 7 Dell Enterprise Product Group displayed during the PXE boot process is “01234567-abcd-efbc-890a-ba9876543210,” then use “01234567abcdefbc890aba9876543210” to add the device to the ADS database. When the GUID value is entered in this unformatted string, ADS assumes it to be in raw format and it will appear differently when displayed. The value is always stored as formatted using dashes to separate the characters into blocks as: 8-4-4-4-12, where each number represents the number of characters to include in each block. When the raw, unformatted SMBIOS GUID is converted, the order is changed within the first three blocks. For example, a raw value entered as “01234567abcdefbc890aba9876543210” will appear as “67452301-cdab-bcef-890a-ba9876543210.” Revision Date: 4/29/2017 Page 8 Dell Enterprise Product Group Section 5 Capturing the Image Installing the Administration Agent For the target device to communicate with the ADS controller, ADS administration should be installed on the target device. Please refer to the ADS documentation for information on how to install Administration agent. Setting up Sysprep Capturing Windows operating system images so that they can be deployed to other systems through ADS relies on Windows sysprep technology. Before you capture the image for deployment on target systems, it is recommended that you capture the image without running sysprep so that you can restore the image target system its original state if necessary. If you have installed any applications on the target system, such as services, ensure that they do not have any dependency with the target system's hostname, IP addresses, users, or groups, other than built-in Windows users and groups. Sysprep is a tool designed for corporate system administrators and other personnel who need to deploy Windows 2000 or Windows Server 2003 on multiple systems. Sysprep assigns a unique SID to each target system the first time the system is rebooted. Sysprep also creates a miniature setup wizard, which runs the first time the target system reboots. It is very important to set up the sysprep framework correctly so that the same image can be deployed to systems with dissimilar RAID controllers and different network cards. Capturing the Utility Partition The utility partition is a bootable partition on the hard drive that contains system configuration and diagnostic utilities. When the utility partition is not booted, it is designated as a non–MS-DOS® partition. Contents of this partition are different for different system models. This partition is hidden from the operating system; i.e., contents of this partition are not visible from the Windows operating system. As content of this partitions are different for different systems, the user should have different ADS images for different systems. The utility partition is always the first partition on the first hard disk for all factory installed systems or any system on which an OS is installed using the Dell Server Assistant CD. Following are the simple tasks to capture the utility partition: <task description="Capture Utility Partition" doesReboot="false"> Revision Date: 4/29/2017 Page 9 Dell Enterprise Product Group <command>/IMAGING/imgbmdeploy.exe</command> <parameters> <parameter>$device.user.UPIMAGE$</parameter> <parameter>\device\harddisk0\partition1</parameter> <parameter>"This Image is UP captured from $device.user.SYSNAME$ "</parameter> <parameter>/c</parameter> <parameter>/client</parameter> <parameter>/q</parameter> </parameters> </task> Note: UPIMAGE and SYSNAME are the user variables for the tasks described above. Capturing the OS Partition Capturing the OS partition is no different from capturing the utility partition except for small changes in partition information. The following are the simple tasks for capturing the OS partition assuming the OS is installed on a second partition. <task description="Capture OS image" doesReboot="false"> <command>/IMAGING/imgbmdeploy.exe</command> <parameters> <parameter>$device.user.OSIMAGE$</parameter> <parameter>\device\harddisk0\partition2</parameter> <parameter>"This 2003 Image from $device.user.SYSNAME$ "</parameter> <parameter>-c</parameter> <parameter>-client</parameter> </parameters> </task> Note: UPIMAGE and SYSNAME are the user variables for the tasks described above. Revision Date: 4/29/2017 Page 10 Dell Enterprise Product Group Section 6 Deploying an Image Creating the Utility Partition The Dell utility partition is a bootable partition on the hard drive that contains system configuration and diagnostic utilities. When the utility partition is not booted, it is designated as a non–MS-DOS partition. Contents of this partition are different for different system models. This partition is hidden from the operating system; i.e., contents of this partition are not visible from a Windows operating system. Following are the simple tasks for creating a Dell utility partition: <task description="Create Dell Utility Partition the disk"> <command>/bmonitor/bmpart.exe</command> <parameters> <parameter>\device\harddisk0</parameter> <parameter>/init</parameter> <parameter>/t:0xDE</parameter> <parameter>/c:32</parameter> </parameters> </task> Note: The Dell utility partition is of type 0xDE. Creating the OS Partition Creating the OS partition is similar to creating the utility partition but there is no need to specify the init and partition type parameters. However, the user has to specify a new option /a so that the OS partition can be marked active. If you are not deploying the utility partition then you may have to initialize the disk using the init option. Following are the simple tasks for creating a 5000 MB OS partition: <task description="create Partition the disk"> <command>/bmonitor/bmpart.exe</command> <parameters> <parameter>\device\harddisk0</parameter> <parameter>/C:5000</parameter> <parameter>/a</parameter> </parameters> </task> Revision Date: 4/29/2017 Page 11 Dell Enterprise Product Group Deploying the Utility Partition Image After creating the required partitions, it is now time to deploy the image to the corresponding partitions. Following are the simple tasks for deploying the utility partition image: <task description="Download Utility Partition image"> <command>/imaging/imgbmdeploy.exe</command> <parameters> <parameter>$device.user.UPIMAGE$</parameter> <parameter>\device\harddisk0\partition1</parameter> <parameter>-r</parameter> <parameter>-client</parameter> </parameters> </task> Note: UPIMAGE is a user variable that holds the utility partition image name. Deploying the OS Partition Image Deploying the OS image is similar to deploying the utility partition image. Following are the simple tasks for deploying the OS image: <task description="Download OS Partition image"> <command>/imaging/imgbmdeploy.exe</command> <parameters> <parameter>$device.user.OSIMAGE$</parameter> <parameter>\device\harddisk0\partition2</parameter> <parameter>-r</parameter> <parameter>-client</parameter> </parameters> </task> Note: OSIMAGE is a user variable that holds the utility partition image name. Revision Date: 4/29/2017 Page 12 Dell Enterprise Product Group Section 7 Supplementing the Deployment Agent Drivers Repository The Deployment Agent is a memory-resident, minimal operating system that is dynamically created for a device by the Deployment Agent Builder service. The Deployment Agent Builder service does a scan on the target device for hardware device information and then builds the RAMDISK image using the appropriate drivers. Current versions drivers present in the Windows 2003 Enterprise CD are sufficient to build the deployment agent for all the systems present in Table 1 except the PowerEdge 1750. Supplementing the drivers repository is required for the PowerEdge 1750. Following are the general instructions on how to supplement the drivers repository. 1. Download the latest Windows 2003 drivers for NIC and RAID controllers from http://support.dell.com 2. Extract the driver files to a temporary directory 3. Stop the Deployment Agent Builder service 4. Copy the driver files to % systemdrive%\programfiles\Microsoft ADS\nbs\ repository\user\postsystem or %systemdrive%\ programfiles\Microsoft ADS\nbs\repository\user\presystem directory. 5. Start the Device and Deployment Agent Builder service Note: You only need to supplement NIC drivers for the PowerEdge 1750. Please modify the driver inf files to account for the issue described in the Microsoft Knowledge Base article 824891. Revision Date: 4/29/2017 Page 13 Dell Enterprise Product Group Section 8 Troubleshooting Issue: Target system is not loading the deployment agent. Symptom: System is added to the ADS database but never communicates to the ADS server. Diagnostics/Solution: i) If Spanning Tree is enabled on a switch port that PXE is attempting to use, the inherent delay before the port starts forwarding packets can cause DHCP to time out. You must either disable Spanning Tree on that switch or turn on a feature that allows the port to begin forwarding packets immediately. An example of such a feature is "port fast learning" on Cisco switches. ii) The ADS server is down. iii) The target device is not connected to the management network. iv) The target device does not have PXE support. v) The target system is not set to boot to PXE first. See “Changing the BOOT Sequence” section. Issue: Error while loading the deployment agent. Symptom: Target system starts downloading RAMDISK image but the process stops with an error message “Windows could not start because an error in RAMDISK image.” Diagnostics/Solution: i. Make sure you have latest system BIOS. ii. If the drivers for the NIC or Mass Storage Controller are not available in the Windows 2003 CD, please follow the instruction in “Supplementing the Deployment Agent Drivers Repository.” iii. Modify the inf file to fix the issue relating to the inf file parsing. Please refer to Microsoft Knowledge Base article 824891 for more information. Revision Date: 4/29/2017 Page 14 Dell Enterprise Product Group THIS WHITE PAPER IS FOR INFORMATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY, AND MAY CONTAIN TYPOGRAPHICAL ERRORS AND TECHNICAL INACCURACIES. THE CONTENT IS PROVIDED AS IS, WITHOUT EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND. Dell and PowerEdge are trademarks of Dell Inc. Other trademarks and trade names may be used in this document to refer to either the entities claiming the marks or the names or their products. Dell disclaims proprietary interest in the marks and names of others. ©Copyright 2003 Dell Inc. .All rights reserved. Reproduction in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of Dell Inc. is strictly forbidden. For more information, contact Dell. Information in this document is subject to change without notice. Revision Date: 4/29/2017 Page 15 Dell Enterprise Product Group