Difference between revisions of "+ Installation Guide Overview"

Revision as of 09:53, 14 September 2010

System Requirements

• Intel or AMD 64bit server (or virtual server)
• 1GB RAM
• 2 or more hard disks (SATA/SAS or virtual)
  • 1 drive is needed for use as a dedicated system disk and must be 4GB or larger in size.
  • Additional drives can be used to create storage pools.
• QuantaStor ISO Installation Media

Upgrading from a stock Ubuntu Server installation

If you are looking to upgrade an existing Ubuntu Server 10.04 system you can do so using the instructions in the Ubuntu Server 10.04 to QuantaStor Upgrade Guide. Now that Ubuntu Server 10.10 is in beta, we have create instructions for that in a new guide here: Ubuntu Server 10.10 to QuantaStor Upgrade Guide The rest of this wiki page covers installing from our custom ISO media.

Installation

Before booting to the QuantaStor installation media you'll first want to configure your system's BIOS to boot from CD/DVD so that the ISO install media loads first at boot time. Additionally, you'll want to configure the system disk, that is, the disk the system will boot to after installation has completed, to be the selected hard disk and second in the BIOS boot order after your CD/DVD drive.

Now that you have the BIOS configured, simply place the QuantaStor Install CD into the drive and boot your server. You will see the QuantaStor screen appear and it will automatically select 'English' as the default language and begin the installation process.

The first question you will be asked as part of the installation process is what do you want to name the host. By default the name 'quantastor' is given, but you can give the system any valid host name.

The next question you will be asked is with regard to network configuration. If you have a DHCP server running, then it won't ask you to configure the network at this time but rather will just use a dynamically assigned IP address from your DHCP server. You will then need to assign a static IP address to the system later when you login to the QuantaStor Manager web interface.

Finally, it will ask you which partitioning scheme to use. 'Guided installation', 'Guided installation w/LVM', and 'Guided installation w/Encrypted LVM'. If you are planning to mirror your boot drives for additional fault tolerance then choose the option w/LVM, otherwise choose the basic Guided installation. The next screen will ask you which disk you want to use as the system boot disk.

WARNING, this disk will be reformatted as part of the installation process so be 
careful to choose a disk that does not have data on it you end.

That's all the questions you will be asked as part of the installation process. After the installation completes the system will reboot and will start-up the QuantaStor system. At this point you can login using the 'qadmin' user account and 'qadmin' password so that you can get the IP address of the system. To get the IP address just type 'ifconfig' at the command prompt after you have logged in. You'll see an entry for 'eth0' with an IP address assigned to it. Enter that IP address into your web browser to connect to your QuantaStor storage system so that you can start to configure the system.

A video of the installation process is available on the main web site in the Videos section.

Troubleshooting the installation

Problem: It won't boot to the Installation CD

• • This is typically a BIOS configuration problem. You'll need to check the BIOS boot order to make sure that your CD or DVD drive is the first drive in the BIOS boot ordering. After that be sure to save your new BIOS configuration before rebooting.
  • This could also be caused by a bad CD. Try burning a new CD from the QuantaStor ISO file and check the surface of the disk to make sure there are no scratches.

Problem: It asks me to insert a CD-ROM driver

• • You can skip that step and just continue on selecting the defaults ('none') and it will typically find the CD-ROM. This condition can occur when the system has multiple CD-ROM drives (or a virtual CD-ROM emulated by the BIOS). In some cases you may only have one CD-ROM drive but the BIOS is emulating a second drive hence the confusion to the installer.

Problem: It won't boot up after the installation completes

• • Check your BIOS boot order to make sure that the hard disk you installed the system to is now the first item in the BIOS boot order.
  • If that doesn't work check in the BIOS for the part that says 'Plug n' Play OS Support', and make sure that is set to 'No' or 'Disabled', then reboot.
  • If that doesn't work it may be due to an on-board SATA RAID contoller. Some motherboards have on-board SATA RAID (ASUS, others), sometimes referred to as 'fake RAID' and some of these can cause problems while others work better when that SATA RAID firmware is turned on. Go into your BIOS and look under the 'IDE Configuration' page. In there you will typically have three choices, 'AHCI', 'IDE' and 'RAID'. Generally speaking, QuantaStor works best when you have it set to 'IDE'. That said, we've seen some systems that work better when set to 'RAID' mode, but be sure to not create any RAID sets with that hardware BIOS. If you have that turned on but have no RAID sets created through BIOS then the devices will just pass-thru to QuantaStor. There is a related problem with on-board RAID controllers that can occur when trying to create storage pools that you will want to check here.

Problem: My system disk doesn't show up in the list of disks to install the QuantaStor system onto.

• • This could be a cabling problem. Some motherboards have multiple SATA/SAS controllers on-board. Try connecting your SATA/SAS boot drive to another SATA/SAS port and/or separate controller.

If all else fails, try installing just plain old Ubuntu Server 10.04 on the system. If Ubuntu doesn't install and run then there's a problem that's not specific to the QuantaStor installer. That typically points to a BIOS configuration or a cabling problem.