[GUIDE] Install Snow Leopard Server on HP Proliant m110 G5

[splonk]

This is the second part of the guide I knocked together for getting OSX Server up and running on the HP Proliant m110 G5. If you have a different model, this is not guaranteed to work.

If you want Leopard/Leopard Server, then head over to the 10.5 forum where I have uploaded the first part of the guide.

 

This guide assumes some basic knowledge of both OSX and OSX86, so won't go into details about installing Chameleon or creating Boot-132 disks. There are ample guides on this forum for that.

 

Tech specs:

HP M110 G5 with Dual-Core Xeon 3065 (2.33GHz) ICH9 motherboard based on Intel 3200 reference (I think)

Onboard Matrox G200e VGA out

2GB EEC DDR Ram

Broadcom NetXtreme Gigabit Network port (BCM5722)

3 free PCIe x8 slots and 1 PCI 3.3v slot

 

Additional Hardware added:

Gainward GeForce 8400GS low profile PCIe passively cooled.

PCIe x16 to x8 adapter riser card

2GB EEC DDR2 Ram

Marvel Yukon 8053 Gigabit Ethernet PCIe

 

 

Required:

Boot -132 disk. Generic will do. Add updated AppleIntelPIIXATA.kext to Extensions for faster install.

Leopard Server Retail Disk (10.5.4 used)

Leopard Client Retail Disk (10.5.6 used)

Internet connection through ethernet needed to complete server setup.

 

The HP M110 G5 is an oddity in that it has 3 PCIe x8 slots and one 3.3V PCI slot, so you have to make some compromises in selecting hardware if you also want to use this as a workstation. The onboard graphics is a Matrox G200e which is useless (even under Windows) so a graphics card is a must. The onboard ethernet is not supported in OS X and nobody has succeeded in making it work so far. It appears to use different RAM addresses from BCM5721, which does work, so none of the quick fixes is enough to get this work. Source code for the Linux driver is available and I have compiled it to work under Ubuntu back in the day. If you fancy your chances as an OSX driver developer, be my guest.

 

The problem with the x8 slots is that they are not open ended so your choice of graphics card is further limited. I had an old PCI FX5200. This works but is an ageing card and needs a hack to work (the full NVkush package). It does not prevent graphical glitches, such as dark areas in System Preferences, but might do if you only want to use this as a server. Note that Apple has removed support for FX5xxx cards in Snow Leopard, so you will have to upgrade it sooner or later

 

I invested about £10 in a PCIe x16 to x8 adapter riser card

This lifts the card a tad, so you need to look for a suitable low-profile card. I found the Gainward GeForce 8400GS,

which had the added bonus of being passively cooled, thus keeping noise levels down. Eventually, I tired of the instability of the wobbly card and drilled a notch in the card

so it would slot into the motherboard directly. Note that the server bios will automatically clock all PCIe graphics cards detected to x1 speed regardless. It is a server. If you want to use it primarily for gpu intensive workstation tasks (e.g. games), you need to look at other hardware.

 

PART TWO: Snow Leopard Client/Server

 

After experimenting with various boot cds and usb pen setups, this is the only method that has worked for me. The main difference from Leopard seems to be that the Server will no longer install properly over the Client. Installation will work, but the Server will not set up correctly and trying to administer it results in the spinning beachball of death. You will need to install Server manually from a working client install (Leopard or Snow Leopard) to ensure that the server adapted base OS is installed. Here's how.

 

Required:

Leopard Client/Server installed as above on a spare partition or Snow Leopard Client Disk

Snow Leopard Server Disk.

8GB usb stick or external hard drive.

Internet connection.

 

Installation Client:

 

We need to install the client first to install Server from. If you have Leopard Client, follow the guide here then head back here to Installation Server. If you have Snow Leopard Client, read on.

 

Format the stick with a single GUID partition formatted HFS+ and restore the Client install disk to it with Disk Utility. Grab a copy of myHack Installer and install it onto the stick with these options ticked.

This assumes you have a compatible nVidia or ATI card installed, otherwise uncheck GraphicsEnabler. Boot up with the stick and once the installer menu appears select Disk Utility and create two GUID HFS+ partitions on your destination drive. The second needs only to be as big as to hold a minimum installation so 8GB or so and can be blitzed when you have set up server. I am not normally in favour of autoinstallers, but this speeds things up a tad. For the record it is basically Chameleon 2 RC3 with pc efi 10.3 in place of the boot file, so you do not need to generate a dsdt.file. Note that this boots a 32bit kernel and contains a 32 bit RTC kext in case of CMOS reset errors. If you want full 64bit goodness, you will have to roll your own dsdt file first.

 

Uncheck all of the options in the customise menu and install SL Client onto the smaller of the two partitions. Once installed reboot again off the usb stick and select the partition to boot up. Set up your account as per normal. Your screen resolution will probably not be optimal at this point, but note that with Graphics Enabler enabled that QE/CI is working already (translucent menu).

 

Installation Server:

 

Next, mount your Server Install Disk Now to install the server packages. Mount your Server Install DVD and then Cmd+Shift+G in Finder. Type /Volumes/Mac OS X Server Install Disc/System/Installation/Packages to navigate to the individual packages. Install in this order onto your intended partition.

 

Install 5 packages, this time, in this order:

 

a) OSInstall.pkg

ServerEssentials.pkg

c) ServerAdminTools.pkg

d) ServerSetup.pkg

e) QuicktimeStreamingServer.pkg (if you need it)

 

WARNING: Do not waste your time with the default installer OSInstall.mpkg as it will fail to install and may screw up your Snow Leopard installation.

 

Make sure you have a working internet connection via ethernet before proceeding to install. On reboot via usb stick, set your server up as per normal.

 

Note that ServerAdminTools.pkg is also a free download from Apple directly if you want to administer your server remotely from any Apple client.

 

For Snow Leopard Server Admin Tools 10.6

 

 

Finally, six points to note.

 

i) I have a 1680x1050 resolution screen and both client and server defaulted to 1400x900. On switching to the correct resolution, I was met with a blue screen. A cold reboot later and the correct resolution was up. Just make sure you have ejected all external drives and no tasks are running before you play with screen sizes.

ii) EFI Studio/OSX86Tools return bogus string information under Snow Leopard. No idea why. Just make sure you extract your string info under Leopard if required and if you have used Leopard Client to install SL Server. Otherwise tick GraphicsEnabler in Chameleon.

iii) If you want to dispense with the usb pen to boot from, you can transfer the data to the EFI partition. Remember to use Chameleon 2 RC3 with pci-efi 10.3 from netkas. Remember to format the EFI partition with newfs_hfs -v EFI /dev/rdiskXsX and not diskutil eraseVolume "HFS+" "EFI" /dev/diskXsX as used under Leopard otherwise your EFI partition will automount onto Finder on boot.

iv) You can install myHackInstaller over Snow Leopard Server restored onto a usb stick and it will boot into the installer. However after selecting your disk to install to and selecting go to install it will complain that it cannot find the base Essentials packages to install from. Someone with more time than me might be able to fix this, so that the install procedure can be streamlined somewhat.

v) Not crucial, but don't forget to insert your drive's UUID into PlatformUUID.kext to get rid of the error 35 messages in Console.

vi) Use an updated AppleIntelPIIXATA.kext in order for SATA ports 5 & 6 to be recognised if you want to use the optical drive.

Some or all of the above niggles should be obviated when you get onto sorting out your dsdt file.

[splonk]

Now have updated my installation with a DSDT file. This is for my above configuration, but should work equally well with the same basic server hardware. This allows me to dispense with pc efi 10.3 and go with a default Chameleon 2 RC3 setup.

 

The system will now boot with a 64 bit kernel and 64 bit extensions enabled and does this quite quickly.

 

 

One further point with regard to stablility, the system does not particularly like the VGA out on the graphics card. More often than not you will get a blue screen rather than completing the boot towards a desktop. Putting a VGA adapter on the DVI out port solves this problem.

 

dsdt.aml.zip

[dodo]

can i install server on EP45-UD3R motherboard? if so can you guide me? Thanks....

 

 

 

C2D E7200

4GB DDR 800

Nvidia 8500

120GB SATA Drive

[splonk]

Server is updated to 10.6.5 using the combo updater from 10.6.1 with no problems.

 

I invested a few pounds in a dual gigabit network card and got this for a bargain price:

Apple Dual Gb Ethernet Card PCie

 

 

It is a full x16 size card, so I had to cut a notch in it just as in the nVidia card to get it into the x8 slot. As an Apple card, it is recognised out of the box.

[Danger_MouseUK]

I've setup server on a box, installed the packages in the order you listed, however the webserver doesn't seen to be working. Did it work on your install?

[Danger_MouseUK]

I've had better luck.

 

Last time i tried to install the 'OSInstall.mpkg' however it kept crashing, so i did it with Pacifist, ignoring all the checksum errors. It appeared to install, so i did the same with all the pkg's.

 

I did a clean install.

 

and tried it again, and again OSInstall.mpkg crashed, so i tried OSInstall.pkg instead, this installed fine and then i installed all the other pkg's rebooted and it looks to have worked properly this time.

 

Just a heads up for everyone else.

 

Many thanks for your guide, it's the only one i could find anywhere, and was a MASSIVE help.

[splonk]

Sorry about that. I just noticed that I left the warning about OSInstall.mpkg out of the guide for 10.6 in error, although I mentioned it in the guide for 10.5. I have edited the guide above to make sure nobody else wastes his time with the default installer.

[joako]

I appreciate your effort but I read your guide and spent alot of time following it.... The resulting drive was not bootable. Its also not clear if you are installing server components OVER client or you are using client simply so you can install onto another drive... I did the latter.

 

What I discovered is server install is IDENTICAL to client install, plain and simple. Insert [url="http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/279450-why-insanelymac-does-not-support-tonymacx86/"]#####[/url] disc, insert retail pressed DVD, install, run updates, run [url="http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/279450-why-insanelymac-does-not-support-tonymacx86/"]#####[/url], install any needed drivers. Done.

 

One thing that slowed me down is I figured for a server I dont care about graphics so I tried a random cheap old ATI card I had laying around but installer booting would KP, so I just got a less-cheap Nvidia 8400 card for $35 locally.

[splonk]

I appreciate your effort but I read your guide and spent alot of time following it.... The resulting drive was not bootable. Its also not clear if you are installing server components OVER client or you are using client simply so you can install onto another drive... I did the latter.

 

What I discovered is server install is IDENTICAL to client install, plain and simple. Insert [url="http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/279450-why-insanelymac-does-not-support-tonymacx86/"]#####[/url] disc, insert retail pressed DVD, install, run updates, run [url="http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/279450-why-insanelymac-does-not-support-tonymacx86/"]#####[/url], install any needed drivers. Done.

 

One thing that slowed me down is I figured for a server I dont care about graphics so I tried a random cheap old ATI card I had laying around but installer booting would KP, so I just got a less-cheap Nvidia 8400 card for $35 locally.

 

 

Tony's blog and the tools he provides did not exist at the time I wrote my guide, ergo the roundabout way I had to go about installing things.

 

I'll have a go with [url="http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/279450-why-insanelymac-does-not-support-tonymacx86/"]#####[/url] on a spare drive I have for this, although it has not worked with other machines I have tried it on.

[augur]

For a HP Proliant ML150 G6, use :

nawcom modcd => http://blog.nawcom.com/?p=446

... and Snow Leopard Retail

 

Add a Network adaptator Intel 1000 MT and use [url="http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/279450-why-insanelymac-does-not-support-tonymacx86/"]#####[/url] to install the APPLE driver

 

It rocks fine !!

[fpdesigner]

Can you update to 10.6.8?