Koozali.org: home of the SME Server
Obsolete Releases => SME Server 8.x => Topic started by: rans0000 on November 29, 2012, 11:10:03 PM
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The motherboard has just died in my sme8 server, I would like to replace it but don't know what current motherboards would suit. There are around 40 users, but not a lot of traffic, only used as domain controller and file server. The box & power supply is only about 2 months old.
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rans0000
Check the m/b specs for Linux CentOS 5.x compatibility, Intel anything is usually a good choice, but there are many others.
Look at OS software HCL's (hardware compatibility lists).
Ask your m/b seller for advice on which boards are Linux CentOS compatible (really more of an issue with chipsets & processors).
Check first before you buy.
Look at the smolt statistics, I'm not sure if the sme smolt servers are currently functioning, so search the forums.
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Mary,
Thanks for your reply, I will follow up on your suggestions. I just though that someone may have just upgraded or installed a new motherboard and would be able to give me their option.
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Look at the smolt statistics, I'm not sure if the sme smolt servers are currently functioning, so search the forums.
Smolt has been down for a while now.
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Has anyone got any suggestions?
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Has anyone got any suggestions?
Mary gave you excellent suggestions, just follow them. I know it is not easy when you just start in this game... Your best bet if you cannot manage checking hardware list for Centos 5 is to find a good computer shop and ask for a motherboard suitable for Linux - and take your chances. Intel should be fine, same for Gygabyte. I also have been using MSI for a long time now, OK. The only problem may be the internal network interface, it may not be supported, ensure that the motherbaord has at least two PCI or PCI express slots, in this way you can add supported network interface - not a drama, they are relatively cheap...
Good luck.
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If you need to spin something up FAST, you could just create a VM until you get the hardware sorted out.
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Knyte,
Thanks for your reply; I have tried to find compatible boards by using Google search, without much luck. I just thought that someone may have recently purchased a current board that works fine and I could then buy the same make/model. At the moment I am using a HP DC7800 with 4GB ram and that is working well, but I want to upgrade the “dead” machine with a board that will run either i3 or i5.
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rans0000
It depends whether you want server spec or workstation spec motherboards.
Look at the Red Hat Certified Hardware list (CentOS is based of RHEL)
https://hardware.redhat.com/
Also for Intel m/b's look at
http://www.intel.com/support/motherboards/desktop/sb/cs-008326.htm
but I see nothing listed there for Linux in current boards ???
that leads to
http://www.intel.com/support/motherboards/desktop/sb/CS-028648.htm
I'm sure other motherboard manufacturers provide lists
Just hone in on a motherboard and then read the specs carefully to see if it is OK with sme8/CentOS5.8/RHEL
Ask here again for user feedback re specific models
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rans0000
next time, before buying hw, think about warranty and support..
if you use your server for business, if your time is valuable, next time buy a certified hw (i.e. branded server) with 1 or more year NBD support.. if your mb die, you will have your server up and running in a day or two..
I would never install a "server" for more than 1 user on a unsupported/unbranded hw..
All IMVHO
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Stefano,
The Motherboard that died was 6 years old and an AMD -Gigabyte.
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then it's time to buy a new server, isn't it? :-)
a small HP microserver with 4GB of ram and 2/3/4 hds and you're done.. ;-)
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D945GCLF2
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SME8.0 installed fine on an Intel DQ67, i3, 4Gb RAM, 2 X 2 Tb SATA but ends up in kernel panic with a DQ77MK, i5, 8Gb RAM, 2 X 1Tb SATA. The DQ67 is certified for RHL Enterprise 6.2 and the DQ77 is Certified for RHL Enterprise 6.3.
It gets to mount: could not find filesystem '\dev\root' on a clean install and then kernel panics. BIOS setup is identical. Any ideas?
What late model hardware are people using now?
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are both mb certified on Centos5?
are you using any kind of "HW" raid?
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The Intel RAID has been disabled using AHCI, letting SME take care of the RAID..
The DQ67 is certified for RHLEnt 6.2, the DQ77 is certified for RHLEnt 6.3. Which may be the issue.
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that SME8 is centos5 based, and so its kernel is unable to work correctly on your hw.. this is the issue
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Thank you for your prompt reply, Stefano, this is what I suspected.
Any recommendations for hardware?
Appreciate your help. Thank you.
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use certified hw, better if branded..
http://h18004.www1.hp.com/products/servers/linux/hplinuxcert.html
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I always say to buy two computers and shelve one for problems.
You can usually pull the memory and hard disk out of the shelved unit and place those in the working computer.
If you have 40 users, then spend good money for quality equipment.
Also make sure that you are using commercial grade hard drives.
If you can, purchase even a third one for longer use of the same equipment.
This is why I do not always purchase the most expensive in our small offices.
Things are going to break.
I only buy the computers with Intel
Processors.
You get one computer running and test that machine before purchasing any backup machines.
Get a machine that has good power supplies built in them and put money also into providing clean good electricity to you computers. This cost may actually be equal to the cost of your computer.
Before viruses, poor electricity was the biggest known computer problem
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Puzzled by the DQ67 board being OK and the DQ77 board ending in kernel panic, I had a look at the installation notes for the DQ67.
I successfully installed SME8.0 to the i3, DQ67 box using only 2Gb RAM, then restored the backup, completed all of the updates and only then upgraded to 4Gb RAM two days later when the extra RAM arrived, and installed the PAE kernel. It has been fast and stable ever since. So I shutdown and disconnected the existing HDD replacing them with a spare pair of blank SATA Drives. Installing with the PAE kernel causes kernel panic on reboot, the same result as the DQ77, yet the standard kernel seems to load up and boot OK.
Any ideas? Can anyone help with an install command to stop the PAE kernel installing, please?
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geoff
Can anyone help with an install command to stop the PAE kernel installing, please?
Just select the older kernel by quickly pressing the up/down cursor key when you see the splash screen with the list of kernels.
This selection should be permanent, but if it is not for you, then edit /boot/grub/grub.conf
These changes to the file will be retained.
ie
default=0
or 1 or 2 depending which kernel you want to boot to.
The numerical order is the list order of kernels shown in grub.conf (where 0=first)
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Thank you, Mary. Unfortunately as a fresh install there is only the default kernel on offer which is PAE with 4Gb RAM
I just found this on the Centos5 forum:
The hd controller on the new motherboard is not supported by the drivers in the initrd. Boot the installation DVD in rescue mode.
Follow the onscreen instructions to chroot to the root filesystem on the HD.
Run mkinitrd for the kernel installed in the /boot partition.
Which is a bit beyond my meagre Linux talents.
It might be easier to just reload and configure it with 2Gb RAM, then upgrade as I did before.
Thank you for your help, Mary. You're always there and your input is appreciated.
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This is helpful from the Centos forum.
https://www.centos.org/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=40557&forum=39#threadtop
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I went through the same problem as here in mid 2011 when my home server was on its last legs, I couldn't afford a HP or Dell type server and I couldn't find a list of certified motherboards on the Red Hat site.
In the end I settled on a Gigabyte GA880GM-USB3 motherboard, AMD CPU, 4GB RAM and 2 x 500GB drives. SME7 would install ok but the clock kept gaining about 40 minutes every hour, I tried numerous kernel options found on Google searches to no avail. In the end I loaded SME8 beta and it worked well so I ran with it and it is still happily running now obviously on full SME8.
I am going through the same pain again now with a new desktop PC looking at compatibility because I multiboot Win XP, Win 7, Ubuntu and Centos. I finally settled on an Asus P8Z77-V-PRO motherboard, i5 3.4G CPU and 16GB RAM which finished up way over budget but everything seems to be working, I am just having a small battle with Ubuntu recognising the Centos LVM volumes but I think I have one that one as well as having to slipstream the SATA drivers into my XP CD because the new motherboard doesn't have floppy support.
I spent a lot of time looking in the Centos forums before my purchase and Mary is right, the general consensus there was also "If it is Intel it will probably work".
One of the problems with SME as well as Centos have is they are both behind a lot of the flavours of Linux and that is not a criticism. The current Centos 6.3 kernal is roughly at the same level as Ubuntu was two years ago but that is why I like Centos, because it is fully tested and very stable. The only reason I still use Ubuntu is because I do a lot of video processing and all the tools I need are in the Ubuntu repositories but I am slowly moving things across to Centos.
The point I am getting at is that all of this makes chosing a motherboard difficult because you can normally only get the latest models with the latest chipsets which may not be supported by the older levels of OS and sometimes may never be supported.
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geoff
Your question seems to be "floating".
Unfortunately as a fresh install there is only the default kernel on offer which is PAE with 4Gb RAM
Maybe you can boot into Rescue mode & then manually force the install of a different kernel.
Then edit grub.conf while you are there to boot up to the new kernel
The hd controller on the new motherboard is not supported by the drivers in the initrd. Boot the installation DVD in rescue mode.
If that's an issue, perhaps it only needs the motherboard RAID functionality to be disabled in BIOS.
Let sme server software RAID take over then.
.........It might be easier to just reload and configure it with 2Gb RAM, then upgrade as I did before.
Well, yes !
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Thank you for your suggestions, Mary.
The BIOS RAID has been disabled.
I reconfigured the DQ77 with 2Gb RAM and it still installed the PAE kernel, and I do not have the knowledge and/or experience to boot into Rescue mode & then manually force the install of a different kernel or edit grub.conf to boot up to the new kernel, so it looks like I am in trouble.
Thanks to everyone for their support.
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geoff
Please take some time to make yourself familiar with the documentation, especially the FAQ, & the Howtos, there is a wealth of information & tips there, sometimes a little bit hidden, so you need to do a quick read of all the wiki articles to see (learn) what is there. See the links to these at the top of the Forums.
I reconfigured the DQ77 with 2Gb RAM and it still installed the PAE kernel, and I do not have the knowledge and/or experience to boot into Rescue mode
OK, read ALL of this, especially the section titled Rescue Mode Help
http://wiki.contribs.org/Booting
note the need to mount to allow editing
mount -n -o remount /
then manually force the install of a different kernel
It's possible there is a install switch that will allow a different kernel to be installed from the CD during a normal install procedure, but I don't know it.
I'm not sure if the following is a correct procedure, meaning I have not tried & tested it, so see how you go
In rescue mode install the kernel you require
From here
http://distro.ibiblio.org/smeserver/releases/8/smeos/i386/SME/
you see a non PAE kernel
kernel-2.6.18-308.4.1.el5.i686.rpm
Download this to a USB & get (copy) it onto your sme server, then do
rpm -Uvh kernel-2.6.18-308.4.1.el5.i686.rpm
You may need some other dependency rpms also, so you may need to do this a few times to manually get (copy) all the required rpms onto your sme, and then install them all in the one go.
Alternatively you may be able to use the wget command
wget http://distro.ibiblio.org/smeserver/releases/8/smeos/i386/SME/kernel-2.6.18-308.4.1.el5.i686.rpm
Do the same for any other dependency rpms (you may need to change the folder location).
Other non PAE kernels should also be on the install CD (earlier versions) so you could also obtain the rpm files from the CD.
or edit grub.conf to boot up to the new kernel
If you can get the other kernel installed, then you can just select it at boot time, so no need to edit the grub.conf
If needed, to edit it do,
cd /boot/grub
nano -w grub.conf
change the default value to 0 or 1 or 2 depending which kernel you want to select
0 is the first one listed, 1 is the second one listed, 2 is the third one listed & so on.
Ctrl o to save the file
Reboot
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WOW! Thank you for taking the considerable time and trouble to answer, Mary.
I'll let you know how I go.
Thank you!
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I think I am out of luck. The wget command worked perfectly, and despite managing to install the non PAE kernel, it still kernel panicked on the non PAE kernel.
I also did this (from the Centos Forum)
https://www.centos.org/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=40557&forum=39
Even though they have marked it SOLVED I still could not get it to work, getting the error: 'No modules available ......'
Thanks to everyone for their help.
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geoff
https://www.centos.org/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=40557&forum=39
Even though they have marked it SOLVED I still could not get it to work.
I take it you mean you did this
http://wiki.centos.org/TipsAndTricks/CreateNewInitrd
The issues are different.
Your hardware seems to be not supported by the older operating system (kernel & drivers etc).
You could test further by installing CentOS 6.x, which I assume will work OK, and then try installing CentOS 5.8 which I assume will not work (sme8 is based on CentOS 5.8 ).
You always need to assess hardware & software compatibility before buying equipment.
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Hi Mary
Yes. I have nothing to lose, and an expensive test box at the moment. I've made other arrangements to keep things moving.
I've spent a lot of time on this and have to move on, but I've not had issues with Intel mainboards except the DQ965 issue which was solved.
Hopefully all of this might help someone else. Sincere thanks from me for your help.
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I have setup a new SME 8.0 server using Intel BLKDH61WWB3 Main board , 8GB Ram, 2 X 1TB WD HDD. The only problem I had was with the on board NIC, so I replaced it with Intel Pro 100/1000 and that works fine. I received no errors in log fine after install. It has been running since 28th January 13. Main board cost $AU75.00
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rans0000
What processor did you get for the board you have running now?
If you have time and a few extra bucks, you might want to start off with some enterprise hard drives too on any newer system.
I hope you have better luck with WD drives lasting more than a year, than I do problems with WD drives and hate to even think of getting them in anything.
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Purvis,
Processor is Intel i3 2100 - I have used WD Black and Green in PCs that run 24/7 and have a good run for the last 3 years. I have had 1 Seagate and 1 Samsung give me problems. I have a Backup server (XP Pro) that my SME backups up to and am using WD Black ( 3 x 1TB) and they have given me any trouble - "touch wood"
I am currently running up an IBM X3200 server, it came with 2 x 240GB HDD, which are I believe are server quality. To test the first install I just used a WD 80GB drive. The installation went well no log errors and on Board NIC works fine. This server was running Win Server 2008 with hardware raid - I will delete array and use the SME software.