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Prepare for netboot

Contributors netapp-pcarriga
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After you physically rack node3 and node4 later in the procedure, you might need to netboot them. The term "netboot" means you are booting from an ONTAP image stored on a remote server. When preparing for netboot, you put a copy of the ONTAP 9 boot image onto a web server that the system can access.

You can also use the USB boot option to perform a netboot. See the Knowledge Base article How to use the boot_recovery LOADER command for installing ONTAP for initial setup of a system.

Before you begin

  • Verify that you can access a HTTP server with the system.

  • Refer to References to link to the NetApp Support Site and download the necessary system files for your platform and the correct version of ONTAP.

About this task

You must netboot the new controllers if they do not have the same version of ONTAP 9 installed on them that is installed on the original controllers. After you install each new controller, you boot the system from the ONTAP 9 image stored on the web server. You can then download the correct files to the boot media device for subsequent system boots.

Steps

  1. Access the NetApp Support Site to download the files used for performing the netboot of the system.

  2. Download the appropriate ONTAP software from the software download section of the NetApp Support Site and store the <ontap_version>_image.tgz file on a web-accessible directory.

  3. Change to the web-accessible directory and verify that the files you need are available.

    Your directory listing should contain the following file:
    <ontap_version>_image.tgz

    Note You do not need to extract the contents of the <ontap_version>_image.tgz file.

    You will use the information in the directories in Stage 3.