Amahi Forums

Couple of Issues w/Installation (no static IP & UEFI bios)

Hi all. I am really happy to be here, but a total noob with linux and amahi. I'm coming over from WHS v1. The issues I'm having are with not getting a static IP address and installing on a UEFI bios motherboard. Here is my setup and the details:

Ubuntu 12.04 LTS server x64
Gigabyte GA-Z77X-D3H motherboard
Intel i5
16 GB ram
intel gigabit NIC card in pcie x1 slot (the motherboard NIC is disabled)
wintv-hvr-2250 (for mythtv)
500 GB hard drive (for the system and the landing zone area)
(I'll be converting over more hard drives from WHS once I get amahi up and running)

Before building this system, I played with amahi in virtualbox for a few months to get comfortable with it, and didn't have any of the problems that I'm experiencing now.

I don't have an optical drive in this system so I started of booting via a USB drive that I created. However I ran into a problem with it "reading from the CD drive" so I just said to "heck" with it, and pulled out a usb optical drive and created a boot CD.

So problem number 1:

When I go to the motherboard boot menu, I have the option of booting from:
- ubuntu
- UEFI: USB USB CD/DVD Drive
- SlimtypeDVD A DS8A8SH KAA3 (model of the dvd drive)

If I select "ubuntu" or "UEFI: USB USB CD/DVD Drive" it wants to create a EFIboot partition when I get to the partition area. However, if I choose the "SlimtypeDVD..." it doesn't want to creat an EFIboot.

So, which one should I go with? Right now I went with the "SlimtypeDVD and do not have an EFIboot partition.

Problem number 2: (and much more concerning to me…I think)

After I get ubuntu server installed and install amahi (it asks for my install code and password like it should), when I reboot it does not change the ip address of the hda to the static one I picked during the setup on the website, and I know I picked the correct ip addresses for my gateway and for my HDA.

When I setup the system on the website I went with the following settings:
Network 192.168.5.*
HDA IP Address 192.168.5.10
Network Gateway 192.168.5.1

However, when I reboot it still has the DHCP address that it was given by my router (192.168.5.62) when I installed ubuntu. Also, on the website, the status still would show as “waiting to install”.

I went and found instructions on how to manually change the ip address of my hda to a static ip address (by modifying the /etc/network/interfaces file), which I did. As soon as I restarted the networking (/etc/init.d/networking restart), the status on the website changed to running.

My concern though, is if the install didn’t change my hda’s ip address to static, what else did it fail to do?
I can get into the had’s website via a browser (http://hda/) just fine and make changes if I need to.

I know a lot of times people want to see the install logs, but I’ll be truthful, I have no idea how to get those from my server to my laptop to include them in the post (remember, I’m a noob at linux…but willing to learn!). If needed, could someone either tell me how to do it, or give me a link to a tutorial? I’ve looked and I didn’t find much.

I do have a question, as opposed to a problem though. When Amahi is installed, is it supposed to change the hostname of Ubuntu? I installed Ubuntu with the hostname of “server” (original, right!). After I installed Amahi it did not change the hostname, but the computer shows up on my network as hda. Is this right?

I’ve searched the amahi forum and the internet looking for solutions to these two problems, but I haven’t found any.

As I think you can see, while I’m a noob, I don’t mind doing research and learning.

Also, if required, I don’t mind doing a complete wipe and reinstall - I haven’t really started configuring anything yet. If I’ve uncovered a bug, or we can learn from this, I’m all for helping out and contributing to the group.

Thanks in advance for all your help, and I look forward to being an active member of the amahi family!

John

See this thread.

viewtopic.php?f=42&t=4600

It appears there may be a problem with the Server version. Desktop works fine, but recent changes to how Amahi handles networking may have broken Server edition.

Are you willing to try Desktop and see if the issue persists?

Thanks for the reply. I read through the post you um...posted... and it seems I'm having the same problem.

Just to confirm dforbes, I am using Ubuntu 12.04.2 LTS as well. Not sure is dforbes is using 32 or 64 bit, but I'm using 64bit.

Also to confirm cpg, I manually configured my ip address to static and amahi.org recognized right away my hda as being configured and running. If it helps, I used this video as a go by (what can I say, I'm a visual learner )
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4s76lcQEbVg

If it'll help you guys, I don't mind installing the desktop version at all. What I would like to do, if you agree with this testing methodology, is pull my system drive and input another system drive and install fresh onto that one.

One question though, do I have to create a new hda configuration set on amahi.org or can I use the same same configuration that I used for my original install?

bigfoot65,

Ok, this evening I went ahead and installed amahi on Ubuntu Desktop 12.04.2 x64 and this is what I found.

Yes, the network issue seems to only be with the server edition. As soon as amahi finished installing on the desktop version, my IP address changed to the one I setup in my profile. I also successfully logged into my dashboard (from the server and remotely) and installed three apps successfully (Monitorix, eXtplorer and Amahi Web-Apps Proxy)

Now, I noticed a few things with regards to networking after the install that hopefully will help you narrow down and fix the problem.

When I installed the desktop the last message before the congratulations message was "Configuring your network (eth0)." (all quotation marks are mine)

However, when I installed the server, there was a message after the "Configuring your network (eth0)." and there was NO congratulations message. It read:
"Cannot open /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0 for reading: No such file or directory - /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0"

I also found out the only difference between 12.04.1 and 12.04.2 (supposedly) was Ubuntu added "Quantal hardware enablement stack" (found in 12.10) [whatever that means - noob here!] You can read more about it here: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Kernel/LTSEnablementStack

Maybe these things can help the developers find the problem.

In the mean time, is it recommended to install Ubuntu 12.04.1 instead of 12.04.2? I saw the post here
viewtopic.php?f=9&t=4568&start=10
but it's about 14 days old.

The install instructions say to download 12.04.1, but points to 12.04.2. Until the issue is resolved you could change instructions to point to the link here http://old-releases.ubuntu.com/releases/12.04.1/ where you can download 12.04.1

What are you guys seeing as you develop and help out on the forums? Is it best to go with 12.04.1 for now?

Oh, if anyone is interested regarding my 1st question (booting choices - UEFI or not) I found out for Ubuntu, it doesn't matter unless you are dual booting. You can install via UEFI bios or legacy bios and for all intents and purposes there really is no difference.

You can read more about it here:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UEFI

Quick update. I wiped my hard drive using Gparted and started fresh using Ubuntu 12.04.1 server x64 edition and got the exact same networking error that I got with 12.04.2 server edition:

"Cannot open /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0 for reading: No such file or directory - /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0"

I wiped my hard drive again with Gparted and am trying Ubuntu 12.04 server x64 edition. If this works, then one of the updates that is included with 12.04.1 (and subsequently 12.04.2) is breaking amahi. Given the only differences between 12.04, 12.04.1 and 12.04.2 are updates that are included with each new update and it is recommended to install amahi without doing updates, it makes sense that this is what's breaking amahi.

I'll post once I finish installing 12.04 with amahi to see if I got the same or different error or if it installed correctly this time.

Thanks for the update. We know that Server install is broken and have updated the Amahi install instructions to NOT use it.

http://docs.amai.org

Once we get it fixed, we will notify users. No estimate on when it will be corrected, but we will do out best to get it done in the next several days.

For now, please consider using Ubuntu Desktop until this is resolved.

Thanks for the update. We know that Server install is broken and have updated the Amahi install instructions to NOT use it.

http://docs.amai.org

Once we get it fixed, we will notify users. No estimate on when it will be corrected, but we will do out best to get it done in the next several days.

For now, please consider using Ubuntu Desktop until this is resolved.

Thanks for letting me know. Just to followup, I tried with Ubuntu 12.04 server x64 and got the same error. Hope it helps. I'll kick over to Desktop.

Thanks for the update. We will try to get it sorted out soon.