Server Build Program at Free Geek

The Program

Server Build evaluates and builds, well, servers. Servers are computers that tend to have higher quality parts, hot-swappable power supplies, hot swappable hard drives, or fit into server racks.

Class Times

Wednesdays 10AM - 1:45PM

Steps

The Server Build program requires a great deal of PC hardware experience, so it is expected that all students have gone through the Build program before moving into the Server Build program.

Server Evaluation: Determine basic specs such as processor(s) type and speed, hard drive bays, RAM type, etc.

Server Build: Build out systems that meet criteria for use in infrastructure, hardware grants or the thrift store.

Server Quality Control: Ensure that systems already built can read CDs, USB ports work, boot fine, etc.

In addition, there are some tasks that can be done throughout your time in the project:

RAM Sorting
Shelf Organizing

Server Evaluation

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Boot Without Keyboard: Just make sure it attempts to boot; no need to install a hard drive during Eval.

Auto-Reboot After Power-Loss: Will the system reboot all by itself after a power-loss when the system was running before the power-loss (required)? Will the system stay off after a power-loss when the system was not running before the power-loss (optional)?

Server Build Checklist

Preliminaries

Check for blown caps - Examine all of the capacitors
Check battery - Confirm that the CMOS battery is at least 3 volts
Boot Process - Ensure that the server boots properly in the following ways:

Boots from CD - use an Ubuntu Live CD, leave Ubuntu running for next step
Boots automatically after power loss - while still in Ubuntu from the previous step, unplug all power cords (and the keyboard for the next step) from the server to simulate a sudden power loss. It should reboot automatically - if not, check BIOS settings.
Boots without keyboard - the server may report a "Keyboard failure" error - this is okay as long it boots successfully without human intervention, such as "press key X to continue..."

RAID & LVM Setup (Build ONLY)

Install Debian Wheezy - Boot to network and install Debian Wheezy to local disks, choose hostname, leave domain name as “fglan”

Setup Software RAID

Partition Disks:

Create small partition (400-500M) on each device
- primary partition at the beginning of the drive
- use as “physical volume for RAID”
- set as bootable
Create large partition (all remaining space) on each device
- primary, not bootable

Setup RAID for small partitions: RAID1 (bootable) with the number of devices equal to number of disks
Setup RAID for large partitions:

For 2-3 disks:Setup RAID1, with number of devices equal to number of disks
For 4+ disks:Setup RAID6, with number of devices equal to number of disks

Configure LVM - configure larger RAID1 or RAID6 array as LVM volume

Create Logical Volume Group with same name as hostname
Select Large RAID array as LVM Volume
- create volume (4G) named root (mounted at /, ext4 filesystem)
- create volume (1G) named swap (use as swap)
- create volume (remaining) named srv (mounted at /srv, ext4 filesystem)
Debian Wiki Guide to Software RAIDs: http://wiki.debian.org/DebianInstaller/SoftwareRaidRoot
Wikipedia RAID article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID

Diagnostics & Databases

Boot from local disk(s)
Test USB ports (front and back),
Test video ports (front and back),
Test network ports - at terminal: ifconfig eth0 up, ifconfig eth1 up, then tail -f /var/log/syslog, and when you plug and unplug the ethernet cable, you should see reasonable printouts. Ctrl-C to stop the tail command.
- QC Only: Remove any SATA/SAS drives and give them to your Instructor

Run printme:

Boot from network
- Select printme from the network boot menu
- Log in as guest
- Open a terminal
- Run printme
- Answer all questions and record anything else noteworthy in the notes section

Fill out the Server Specs sticker based on whether you are doing Build or QC:

For BUILD:
- Put System ID on server specs sticker
- Number of physical processors and number of cores per processor
- Processor speed (GHz)
- Circle processor type (Xeon, Opteron, Core 2, Other)
- Total amount of included RAM
- Total number of RAM slots on board
- Number of included RAM sticks with their speed and size
- Circle type of RAM (DDR, DDR2, DDR3)
- Circle type of DIMM (ECC, FB-DIMM, etc.)
- Number of hard drive bays
- Circle hard drive bay type (IDE, SCSI, SATA, SAS)
- Number and size of included hard drives
- Record anything notable, like Hardware RAID support, in the notes section
- Do not print! Instead, put your Volunteer ID on a piece of tape on the system
For QC:
- Confirm the accuracy of information already on the Server Specs sticker
- Number and size of included hard drives
- Circle whether an OS is installed (none if hard drives removed!)
- Write the System ID# on a Server Tag sticker (small labels marked S1, S2, etc.) and stick it to the front of the chassis.
- Print the printme - Write the number from the Server Tag in the upper right-hand corner of the printme, and give it to your instructor.

Move the system to the Server Build KVM and run Memtest, if it hasn't already been done.
Consult your Instructor for a new project!

Documentation

Labels we use in the build and QC process:

Info

Here are the HOW-TOs and information we need to accomplish our tasks.

Links

These are mostly pages full of links to other place:

ToDo:

syllabus, repair howto(s) & triage charts, wiki, RAID howto,

Server Build