Using CentOS 5.4 with HP Insight Control for Linux

Introduction

CentOS, which stands for Community ENTerprise Operating System, is a free Linux distribution based

on the Enterprise distribution from a prominent North American Enterprise Linux vendor (PNAELV). The

CentOS project seeks to maintain 100% binary compatibility with the upstream product. Additional

software archives hold later versions of some packages and other free and open source software

RPMs.

Support is only provided by the CentOS community, but there is an HP

Linux Forum where you can give

and receive help, tips, and opinions.

Using CentOS with Insight Control for Linux

HP Insight Control for Linux is a management solution for HP ProLiant servers. The Insight Control for

Linux management solution works on the wide variety of ProLiant servers -- including blade, rack, tower,

and scalable servers (that is, BL-, DL-, ML-, and SL- series, respectively).

This white paper discusses how to set up HP Insight Control for Linux to install a CentOS 5.4

distribution; it describes the steps needed to prepare Insight Control for Linux so that it can install,

capture, and deploy the CentOS 5.4 operating system. It has been demonstrated that CentOS is

similar enough to the Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 5.4 operating system to be satisfactory. While

HP believes this to be true, CentOS is not an officially supported operating system under Insight Control

for Linux, and HP has not fully tested it. Furthermore, HP does not guarantee that all aspects of CentOS

function correctly with Insight Control for Linux.

IMPORTANT: Officially, CentOS is “community-supported” on HP Insight Control for Linux. HP does

provide a ProLiant Support Pack (PSP) for CentOS on some servers; the procedure for

downloading the PSP is described in “Step 6: Download the RHEL5.4 PSP and add it to

Repository” of this white paper.

If you want options for full HP support of CentOS on Insight Control for Linux,

please contact your local HP sales representative.

You can also install Insight Control for Linux on a Central Management Server (CMS) installed with

CentOS. This white paper does not discuss how to set up a CMS using CentOS. The HP Insight

Control for Linux Installation Guide contains the instructions for setting up the CMS. Follow the

instructions and RPM dependencies for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.4.

Note: HP does not support Insight Control for Linux on a CMS running the CentOS operating system.

This white paper uses the example of a DVD distribution of CentOS 5.4 x86_64 in the following six

steps.

Step 1: Download the CentOS Distribution Software

You can download the CentOS distribution from many web sites. The CentOS web site,

http://centos.org

, is the best place to look for a mirror site from which to download the CentOS

distribution.