Build a new server

Details on all the steps necessary to take a new (or old repurposed) piece of hardware and turn it into a happy functional server

Before you begin

• find the machine's MAC address (racadm getsysinfo)
• decide on private / public IP address, and if it will need to exist in some special range
• decide how the disks should be arranged (raid, partitioning, etc.)

Initial hardware setup

• Get the hardware racked and cabled (RobH)
• Get an IP and name (RobH)

• follow DNS How-To section to add the name/ip to DNS
• set up $name.mgmt.$loc.wmnet as well to access the management interface
• set up $assettag.mgmt.$loc.wmnet in addition to the server name mgmt dns.

• Set up DHCP with the MAC address / name info
  • log into brewster and edit /etc/dhcp3/*, run /etc/init.d/dhcpd3-server restart
• Get the switch set up to pass traffic to the host (Mark)

PXE boot and the initial OS

• set up netboot to partition the disk
  • log into the install server (presently brewster), edit /srv/autoinstall/netboot.cfg
  • it's a bash case statement. Add a new stanza for your hosts' name
  • If you don't know what partitioning scheme to use and your host has two disks, use raid1-lvm.cfg.
• ssh to root@$servername.mgmt.$loc.wmnet, force a restart and pxe boot
  • get the password from someone in ops if you don't have it
  • powercycle the host: racadm serveraction powercycle
  • connect to the cosole: console com2
  • during boot, force netboot: F12
    • when connecting from OSX via the Terminal, escape-shift-2 sends F12
  • you can leave this running to watch it complete
    • Note: if you see it ask you for disk partitioning information, you did the partitioning step above wrong
  • when you're done, ctrl-\ will disconnect you from the console

Get puppet running

Warning: if you are rebuilding a pre-existing server (rather than a brand new name), on sockpuppet, run puppetca --clean $fqdn to clear out the old certificate before beginning this process.

• get a shell on both $server and the puppet master (sockpuppet)
  • Only one key has access to new installs.
  • from sockpuppet, ssh -i ~/.ssh/new_install root@$servername.wikimedia.org to log into $server
• on $server, run puppetd --test It will fail.
• on sockpuppet, run puppetca -s $server-fqdn
• on $server, run puppetd --test It should now succeed.

Set up puppet

• add $server to site.pp, either by hostname or within a regex if it's part of a class (eg srv\d\d*)
• do whatever puppet goodies you want to get the server to do what you want it to.

Related pages

• DNS
• An older version of the preseeding docs: Automated installation
• More detail around working with the console: Remote_management