DCO installation on Dell R440

[DCIM_Support]

We have recently purchased one Dell EMC PowerEdge R440 server.

We are having trouble getting DCO v 8.2.12 installed on it.

We cannot proceed with installation as server does not detect hard drives.

When we boot clearly the bios can see the drives but centos cannot see.

The dell raid controller is ‘PERC H740P adaptor ’

Looks like this is a known issue with Centos.

any work arounds?

https://serverfault.com/questions/890341/issue-in-installing-centos7-in-dell-poweredge-r640

Regards

Chaitanya Thaduri

(CID:137731568)

[DCIM_Support]

Do you the raid controller model which is installed in your dell r440?

Regards

Greg Sterling

(CID:137731845)

[DCIM_Support]

Hi Greg,

I have put that in the above post.

The dell raid controller is ‘PERC H740P adaptor ’

Regards

Chaitanya

(CID:137732024)

[DCIM_Support]

HI Greg,

I am guessing that the driver issue is the cause for this.

In DELL EMC Life cycle controller I could see that 

RHEL 6.1 x64 and RHEL 7.5 x64 are supported.

I am not sure what exact version of centos is on DCO 8.2

Any workarounds please let me know as soon as possible.

Regards

Chaitanya

(CID:137732164)

[DCIM_Support]

You may be correct in that this may be driver related. Doing a few google searches returns other users who experience problems installing centos 7.x on Dell platforms with similar controllers.

This link may be helpful, https://serverfault.com/questions/890341/issue-in-installing-centos7-in-dell-poweredge-r640

The above link references the dell r640 but it tied back to the same type of problem and controller you have. In the above case they download the most recent driver, interrupt centos boot so they can add the driver for the installer.

Regards

Greg Sterling

(CID:137732541)

[DCIM_Support]

HI Greg,

I need any work arounds as soon as possible can you please contact DCO developer team.

The link you have posted is exactly the one that I have posted in my first message to show you what is the issue.

Please let me know what the work around is.

Regards

Chaitanya

(CID:137732733)

[DCIM_Support]

Hi Chaitanya,

The latest release version of DCO (8.2.12) is shipped with CentOS 7.5.

I had a quick look at the data description for this raid controller:

https://i.dell.com/sites/doccontent/shared-content/data-sheets/en/Documents/Dell-PowerEdge-RAID-Cont...

it appears its supported Operating systems are:

eg. CentOS is not included in the list. 

However, it seems Red Hat Enterprise 7 is supported, so you might want to go for this OS and then install the DCO on top of that. 

Installation requirements are available here: Installing DCO on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7

Another possible option may be installing the usual DCO on VM (such as VMWare 6.5)

Kind regards

(CID:137732922)

[DCIM_Support]

HI Jeff,

Thanks for coming back to me.

Appreciate that.

On Dell server during OS installation there is a wizard called "Life Cycle Controller"

This "Life cycle controller " only supports 6.1 and 7.5.

Please find picture attached.

I will try to download redhat 7.5 from redhat site and see how the intsallation goes.

But please answer following question

Question:- As Redhat offers only an evaluation version. would this cause any issues with DCO after successful installation past evaluation date?

I will also try installing pure centos 7.5 and 6.1 and see how it goes.

Please find picture attached 

(CID:137733124)

[DCIM_Support]

Hi Jeff,

I have another update.

I just tried to install centos 7.5 and the disk can be seen.

I have tried to replicate the same as I did to centos but I cannot see disk during DCO installation 

Pictures attached below

From the above pictures I can see that live CD of Centos7.5 contains drivers.

The ISO image I managed to get was CentOS-7-x86_64-LiveKDE-1804.

Regards

Chaitanya

(CID:137733164)

[DCIM_Support]

Hi Chaitanya,

Concerning the Red Hat question,  in general access to RHEL packages may require an active subscription!

It seems the DCO installation on this hardware may be challenging/unsupported. So perhaps it might make sense to go for another hardware or do the DCO installation on VM.

Kind regards

(CID:137733507)

[DCIM_Support]

Hi Jef,

Its disappointing to hear that but at-least I have an answer.

I have proposition below to circumvent the problem please let me know if it works. 

What if we actually install Centos 7.5 instead of RedHat 7.5 because both are almost same and clearly centos is based on Redhat.

If this is alright then I need following information.

-->What exact packages do  I need to install on Centos  7.5. During graphical install there are developer,workstation,server etc packages and also you can select between those packages.

-->So I need those packages which will help me install DCO on top of CENTOS.

If the above proposed is not valid one please let me know.

Regarding second proposal on installing on VM I will have discussion wit our local team. 

Regards

Chaitanya

(CID:138381173)

[DCIM_Support]

Hello Chaitanya, if your CentOS server as access to the internet you can install the minimum version of CentOS .. the installer should pull what it needs for other modules during installation.

The DCO installation on redhat has a section you can use to initiate the installation of DCO once the OS is running

Installing DCO on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7

specifically this section:

1. Download the installation file (StruxureWareDataCenterOperation-.iso ) from a location provided by the support team. To locate the telephone number for your region, visit Contact Us.
   
   Note:  The below commands should be run with root credentials.
    
2. Upload the installation file to: /tmp/
3. Create ISO mount point /tmp/iso
4. Mount the installer by running the command: mount -o loop /tmp/StruxureWareDataCenterOperation-.iso /tmp/iso
   (where you replace  with the 8.x.x version number)
5. Execute the install script:  bash /tmp/iso/dco-install/install.sh
6. Un-mount ISO: umount /tmp/iso/

(CID:138381187)

[DCIM_Support]

HI Greg,

Thanks for confirming.

I will check couple of things and get back to you 

Regards

Chaitanya

(CID:138381196)

[DCIM_Support]

Hi Greg/Jeff,

Can you please confirm following

OPTION-1 : when I am installing OS and application as different what would be the implications of such an install in future? what I mean is what complications will arise when its time to upgrade OS and application.Also what kind of stability can be expected of such a system.

OPTION-2: I have managed to download the PERC driver from Dell website. Can you please add the rpm package to the ISO or provide me a procedure how it needs to be done so that disks are detected.

I can see that they are done using manjaro tools and some 'ISO' commands on linux.

I have centos installed as VM on my system.If additional recompilation is required I can do it.

Regards

Chaitanya

(CID:138807420)

[DCIM_Support]

Dear Team,

Can you please update me on the above comments.

Regards

Chaitanya

(CID:139691966)

[DCIM_Support]

Dear Team,

Any progress on the above issue.

Regards

Chaitanya

(CID:139694494)

[DCIM_Support]

Hi Chaitanya,

As Greg suggested a custom installation (either on CentOS or Redhat) could be an option to try out, eg. install the OS first and then DCO (as application) on top of it. The installation file (for DCO as application) is the same iso file which is usually being used for DCO installation (for DCO 8.2.12 it is called: StruxureWareDataCenterOperation8.2.12.iso).

And concerning your question in "Option-1", in general when/if DCO should be shipped with upgraded OS, then clean installation and restoring the latest back file may be needed. 

Kind regards

(CID:140216345)

[DCIM_Support]

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