Introduction

Before starting to mess up your root server the way described here, please read and understand the following notes:

• These pages are not about running more than one operating system on the root server at the same time. VMware is used to get the UNIX installed onto the real hard disk but finally the system will be a multiboot server running both a rescue Linux and either OpenBSD or Solaris on the physical hardware directly.

• The following procedure requires some experience with Linux, VMware and the corresponding UNIX you try to install. You should know what a serial console is and how to use GRUB. For the Solaris installation it is helpfull to be familiar with the Solaris device naming scheme.

• You need to install VMware Worstation or VMware Server to get installed the system besides Linux.

• These instructions are made for Debian GNU/Linux 5.0 as the helper OS (the one running VMware during installation) and either OpenBSD 4.6 or Solaris 10 (10/09). It might work for other UNIX systems too and you probably will be able to use any other Linux destribution instead but you might need different approaches.

• Backup your data. If you do the things described below the very first time you problably will do something the wrong way and need a retry or even a fall back.

• This has been written for my Strato Root Server. No VServer, no Shared Server, this is all about bare metal. It might be usefull information for other root servers too. But at least you need a serial console attached to your system.