In the Dell PowerEdge SC1435 servers delivered July 2008, there are several BIOS settings that need to be frobbed on setup. in the setup screen at F2: - CPU -> Virtualization Technology: on - Boot Sequence: disable NIC - Integrated Devices -> Embedded Gb NIC: turn off PXE - Serial Communication: - Serial Communication: On with Console Redirection via COM2 - External Serial Connector: COM1 - Failsafe Baud Rate: 57600 - Remote Terminal Type: VT100/VT220 - Redirection After Boot: Disabled in the setup screen for remote management, at Ctrl-E: - Turn on IPMI over LAN - IP is (main IP) =~ s/18.181.0/10.5.128/ e.g. 10.5.128.221 for citadel-station == 18.181.0.221 - netmask is 255.255.0.0 - Set the password to the XVM root All of these settings are reflected on all 4 servers in the production cluster. In the debian installer: - 500M for /boot in raid1 of sda1, sdb1 - rest for LVM in raid1 of sda2, sdb2 - 50G / - 25G swap - install a vanilla kernel, not xen; will install xen hypervisor from backports in our later custom install.