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Hi! Ich wollte dazu ja ein eigenes Blog aufmachen. Kam aber nie dazu. Wenigstens gehen die Informationen hier nicht verloren. Mein Bericht: 3.3.06 I decided to give the SUN Niagara System a try. Especially since Jonathan seems to try to make it a "no strings attached" offer. From his blog I found my way to the page of the offer: https://www.sun.com/emrkt/trycoolthreads/index.html I checked the specifications: It is able to run on 230 VAC with 50Hz with an maximum operation power of 400W. Ok, I should be able to get that thing powered somehow from a simple power socket. Perhaps they also ship the cord? The reason I looked is because I like to avoid being in such a situation like the guys from 23 (the movie, yes I know these guys are/were real, I have a transscription from their court hearing here) were in. Perhaps I should also check I will be able to transport that thing in the trunk of my car if needed: 9cm x 44cm x 62cm and 17 kg. That's a go. Also interesting: Operating/Idling Acoustic Noise 62 dB. That should be a little about the level of background music. More like the "noise" of a conversation or in a noisy office. I'll have to check if my coworkers will accept that thing running inside the office. If not I'll only be able to test it in the evening when everybody is gone. (http://www.soundinstitute.com/article_detail.cfm/ID/95) I entered my data. I wonder if I can specify a separate delivery address. Oh, in step 2 they also ask for the country to deliver the proper power cord. Excellent. Finished entering all the data. I could specify a separate address for delivery, very good. That thing should arive in 5 business days, let's see 10.3.06 [not releavnt here] 10.3.06 Later today I tried to call the toll free number SUN gave me along with my application reference number. I tried to call from my cell phone but some automated voice told me that this number if not reachable from the area I am calling?! Hello? Isn't SUN the company that talks so much about mobile phones being the majority of end points in the net of the future? Given such (https://www.base.de) offers it isn't even unlikly that companies stop using desktop phones at all. So I have to "abuse" the desktop phone my current customer provides me with. At least it's a toll free number. "First" try: Guess what, nobody is picking up the phone. I wonder if I ever will be able to return that T2000 if I don't like it. "Second" try: I waited for more than 15 minutes in one of those "queues" we all learned to love so much. I gave up. That thing costed me so much time, money and nerves already I am seriously thinking about canceling the whole deal. But then again, I would need to call someone to tell them NOT to send me the server. What was the cost of a clusterable PC I could buy around the corner again? 13.3.06 [not relevant here] ?.3.06 Now I received a official "welcome" email. The server should be shipped in the next 10 business days or so. Also a SUN representative called and asked what I was doing at one of their (former?) customers. I told him that the customer is just the shipping address since I am there at day time. After talking to someone from the customer I can understand why the SUN guy was a bit nervous. But that's s story that should be told elsewhere and could be called "Cobalt .. no to be continued.". 21.3.06 Wow! Today I the server arrived. One big box, 1 meter long, 30cm high an half a meter wide. Also one small box. I will unpack that stuff in the next pause. What made me a bit wonder is that the delivery firm just dropped the boxes in the hallway and noticed someone from my customer. I just accidentally walked across the boxes, was a bit nosy and looked at the address label. 24.4.06 Oh what a month. There was so much stuff to do, and that at a time in which I would have loved to play more with the T2000 and put it to the test. So let me summarize what I learned so far: - The T2000 transport box is huge. When I needed to move it around I found it easier to just wrap it in some blanket and put it in the trunk of my car for example. You probably can lift the server alone, but better be careful. Forget about operating it inside an office, it's too noisy for that. - The T2000 has no VGA and PS/2 connectors. That was a bit of a blocker at first because we would have had all the equipment to access the server via VGA in place. You NEED to go through the process of configuring the sevrer via a directly connected serial link at the first startup. - That caused us a lot of trouble as well. As one SUN guy told me later the T2000 was one of the first they shipped in this program and they only included 2 ethernet cables but not the adaptor you need to connect that serial port on the server (RJ-45) to a serial port (DB-9). It took us a while to find the proper adaptor. The SUN guy told me they include that adaptor now by default. Good decision. Although you need to make sure you are absolutly sure your serial setup works. Everything needs to be setup on the serial side BEFORE you even connect the power cables to the server. You better RTFM. - Make sure you use GOOD serial cables. Especially if you are in an environment where a lot of other high frequency stuff is around (like the test room the server is in now). Otherwise you will end up trying different connection speeds and setups for your serial stuff because you receive nothing at all or most of your keyboard input is not recognized. I don't know how many hours we spent until we found out that the longer cable was not good enough and we should have stuck to the shorter one which worked. - Once you have the ALOM (Advanced Lights Out Management) setup and can access it via the management port via the the network everything gets alot easier. Booting OpenSolaris leads to a setup script that walks you through some of the basic configuration, e.g. for the network connector (which is after the serial management port and the network management port the third "data" connector you need to use). Summary: - Make sure your serial stuff works and is setup to 9600/8/n/1 - First connect the serial stuff to the server and after that the power cables. - Better RTFM (In short you need to: login, change the admin "password" from blank, configure the network based management port, reset the ALOM, relogin, "poweron") - The ALOM capabilities are amazing. I don't know what HP or others provide, but this thing has extensive diagnosis functions and monitors temperatures, fan speeds, CPU voltages, total power consumption etc. You even can configure automated email alerts if given safety ranges are left or something brakes. Seeing all this made me think the first time "Ok, this is enterprise computing, not just a PC". - Maybe you want to set sc_powerstatememory to true in ALOM. This is helpful if the server is located in a normally unaccessible location and you want the server to reboot automatically after a power failure. Use: "setsc sc_powerstatememory true" - "console" gets you to the console without needing to use the network port. "#." get you back to ALOM. You can login as root on the console. (Ausgaben von showfaults, showfru, showsc, shownetwork, showenvironment) After the configuration of OpenSolaris: - Login for root over SSH is not allowed by default. You can login as root if you go over the ALOM and use "console". - For remote logins you need to add a user first. 25.4.06 Just some quick notes on how to add a new user: bash helps root@unknown # groupadd users root@unknown # useradd -m -g users service UX: useradd: ERROR: Unable to create the home directory: Operation not applicable. root@unknown # automountd is running and blocking the home dir. root@unknown # ps -ef | grep auto root 298 1 0 Apr 20 ? 0:02 /usr/lib/autofs/automountd root 1898 1813 0 18:42:13 console 0:00 grep auto root@unknown # vi /etc/auto_master comment out (prepend "#"): /home auto_home -nobrowse How to "see" the automounter root@unknown # svcs | grep auto legacy_run Apr_20 lrc:/etc/rc2_d/S72autoinstall online Apr_20 svc:/system/filesystem/autofs:default root@unknown # root@unknown # svcs -l autofs fmri svc:/system/filesystem/autofs:default name automounter enabled true state online next_state none state_time Thu Apr 20 11:21:25 2006 logfile /var/svc/log/system-filesystem-autofs:default.log restarter svc:/system/svc/restarter:default contract_id 44 dependency require_all/none svc:/system/filesystem/local (online) dependency require_all/restart svc:/milestone/name-services (online) dependency optional_all/none svc:/network/nfs/client (online) root@unknown # root@unknown # svcadm restart autofs root@unknown # svcs -l autofs fmri svc:/system/filesystem/autofs:default name automounter enabled true state online next_state none state_time Tue Apr 25 18:50:02 2006 logfile /var/svc/log/system-filesystem-autofs:default.log restarter svc:/system/svc/restarter:default contract_id 118 dependency require_all/none svc:/system/filesystem/local (online) dependency require_all/restart svc:/milestone/name-services (online) dependency optional_all/none svc:/network/nfs/client (online) root@unknown # useradd -m -g users service 64 blocks root@unknown # SUCCESS! Now a remote login with user "service" is possible and you can use "su -" to become root.

Ist schon zurückgeschickt (als die Spedition es dann begriffen hatte). Leider hat mir das Projekt nicht ausreichend Zeit zum Testen gelassen.