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The pinout which worked for me to create a serial console connection between my laptop utilizing a Sabrent USB-to-serial db9 adapter ($9 on Amazon, or $30 goddamn bucks at your local tiny-town computer store), a straight-through RJ45 patch-cable, and two configurable connectors.
Godspeed.
The pinout which worked for me to create a serial console connection between my laptop utilizing a Sabrent USB-to-serial db9 adapter ($9 on Amazon, or $30 goddamn bucks at your local tiny-town computer store), a straight-through RJ45 patch-cable, and two configurable connectors.
Godspeed.
Remember how I used to bitch, say, a decade ago because Oracle was dismantling, for their own feeble attempts at profit-grabbing, everything Sun Microsystems related? Apparently http://sunfreeware.com is no longer, well, free. And they killed Blastwave, but it came back as OpenCSW!
Sun10/Sun11:
pkgadd -d http://get.opencsw.org/now
/opt/csw/bin/pkgutil -U
/opt/csw/bin/pkgutil -a vim
/opt/csw/bin/pkgutil -y -i vim
/opt/csw/bin/vim
echo "export PATH=/usr/bin:/usr/sbin:/opt/csw/bin" >> /etc/profile
pkgutil -a
Note to self: Solaris 11.3 utilizes pkg update now to...well, update its packages.
I found myself messing around with an x86 VM I have on one of my computers (probably installed for some work test I don't even remember) and was surprised I didn't even require an Oracle support contract (because Oracle) to patch the system.
This guy never could get the SPARCstation-20 operational - perhaps due to a failing PROM from the console messages - so I brought him a loaner, quark my old AXi box. He was pretty excited, until it wouldn't init a display, or even boot after spinning up the drives.
We cracked it open and he started hardware troublshooting it, but after about an hour, the excitement waned. I was pretty dissapointed too. I was going to bring him the Netra t1125, but forgot that one is console only - the reason I went to his shop in the first place - looking for an RS232 null-modem adapter. After enough time had passed I remembered the old L1-N keyboard trick and wondered if it would work? Utilizing STOP-N after the keyboard lights flashed, and holding them, I got the server to (presumbly) boot and load (there was much drive thrashing) but still no display. Enter a lights-out STOP-A and blindly sending commands to the ok prompt:
ok> setenv input-device keyboard
ok> setenv output-device screen
ok> reset-all
One more STOP-N boot-up and the monitor finally lit up as Solaris initialized. I was downright jubilant. Also surprised that this wasn't quark. This was serenity, a Solaris 10 box! I had no recollection of building this out as a 10 box (and with a non-standard root password on top of that), but sure enough Blastwave was on there and everything was done except mirroring of the drives. When I got home I found this entry dated July 2007 discussing my intent.
We've had lots of good times together.
There was an immediate need to experiment on a non-production HPVM (Hewlett Packard's name for their now-depreciated Itanium Virtual Machine nomenclature) in order to have questions answered for Sunday Maintenance, so I got started right away by adding an HP2120 SCSI-attached disk tray in which to house them - which completely masked the boot drives, no matter the setting. Referring back to The Great HP Virtual Machine MC/ServiceGuard Cluster Experiment of 2010, I noticed I'd used a Sun 711 12-pack (as clustering takes lots and lots of disks). So why wouldn't the 2120 work? Just in case, I installed an old Apdaptec 29160 which has drivers for every known operating system on the planet - except HP/UX (of course). Further investigation (and an enlightening conversation with the UNIX MAN BEAST ERNEST) revealed:
•SCSI ID:
• May not use SCSI ID 2 when a drive is installed in internal bay 2
• May use SCSI ID 2 for the external port if there is no drive in bay 2
I decided to remove all but a single boot drive, so first had to reduce the logical volume, the volume group, and ultimately, the physical volume to pull the drives.
[/] root@belanna# vgdisplay -v vg00
--- Physical volumes ---
PV Name /dev/disk/disk6_p2
PV Status available
Total PE 4319
Free PE 0
Autoswitch On
Proactive Polling On
PV Name /dev/disk/disk4
PV Status available
Total PE 4375
Free PE 4375
Autoswitch On
Proactive Polling On
PV Name /dev/disk/disk5
PV Status available
Total PE 4375
Free PE 4375
Autoswitch On
Proactive Polling On
[/] root@belanna# vgreduce /dev/vg00 /dev/disk/disk5
Volume group "/dev/vg00" has been successfully reduced.
Volume Group configuration for /dev/vg00 has been saved in /etc/lvmconf/vg00.conf
[/] root@belanna# vgreduce /dev/vg00 /dev/disk/disk4
Volume group "/dev/vg00" has been successfully reduced.
Volume Group configuration for /dev/vg00 has been saved in /etc/lvmconf/vg00.conf
[/] root@belanna# pvcreate -f /dev/rdisk/disk5
Physical volume "/dev/rdisk/disk5" has been successfully created.
[/] root@belanna# pvcreate -f /dev/rdisk/disk4
Physical volume "/dev/rdisk/disk4" has been successfully created.
[/] root@belanna# rmsf -a /dev/rdisk/disk5
[/] root@belanna# rmsf -a /dev/rdisk/disk4
I then removed a drive and shuffled the boot drive to a different slot:
root@belanna# setboot -p /dev/disk/disk6_p2
Primary boot path set to 0/1/1/0.0.0 (/dev/disk/disk6_p2)
Despite this, I still couldn't get the disk tray to be seen! I first swapped cables, then swapped the HP2120 for a Sun StorEdge S1. When neither of those substitutions worked, I delved into SCSI, as it has been many, many years since hands-on hardware. Turns out, if you use LVD drives, the S1 self-terminates. Sure enough, as soon as I pulled the terminator, the EFI picked them right up (Note to self, the S1 requires a reboot if changing Base SCSI ID, and an EFI `reset` command will re-read the devices).
Voilà, super-fast boot drives, and a half terabyte of storage for hosting the HPVMs!
Then I mirrored the boot drives and created a 2-disk (distributed) volume for the vm's to call home. The only thing I couldn't quite figure out why some commands wouldn't allow you to run them on the agile-view devices, or which ones required it. That part was a bit of a kluge!
[/] root@belanna# pvcreate /dev/rdisk/disk10 /dev/rdisk/disk11
[/] root@belanna# mkdir /dev/vgHPVM
[/] root@belanna# vgcreate -s 8 -g DISTRIB /dev/vgHPVM /dev/disk/disk10
[/] root@belanna# vgextend -g DISTRIB /dev/vgHPVM /dev/disk/disk11
[/] root@belanna# lvcreate -D y -s g -L 51200 -n lvvmtest /dev/vgHPVM
[/] root@belanna# mkfs /dev/vgHPVM/lvvmtest
I did lose an entire bank of memory if anyone out there has four, 1GB sticks of PC2100-R. She's currently running at 8GB down from 12. Although some versions of the rx2600 can use 2GB sticks for a max of 24GB, I'm not sure on this one.
[/iso] root@belanna# hpvmmodify -P vmlinux -a dvd:scsi::file:/iso/SLES-11-SP3-DVD-ia64-GM-DVD1.iso
Walked into a local Mac repair shop and general all around x86 junk store looking for a console DB25-to-USB adapter, but got to talking shop. And between the stacks of old Dell workstations, classic Macintosh and yes, even an Apple IIe, we dug out an old SPARCstation-20. It was surprisingly clean on the inside and the proprietor - unfamiliar but interested - wanted to teach himself Solaris, so we got started right away!
I drove home and brought back a matched pair of 36GB 10k Sun drives (to replace the 2.1GB Barracuda), and a new 40x SCSI Sun DVD-ROM. We stayed up until 2100 (and it was brain-wracking trying to remember simple commands like format to write a sun label to the hard drives) but finally got the install running. It has been something like 10 years since I had to install Solaris 8!
Made me wish I'd kept at least my SPARCstation-5.
kes
We all fully expect to be prompted to install something asinine like the Yahoo! Toolbar when we trial freeware or what not. And while Java is "free" to the consumer (3 billion devices they advertise like a petulant Jay Leno to Dave Letterman; "We're #1!"), it comes across as cheap and sneaky when a software giant like Oracle wants to "by-default" install MacAfee during Flash upgrades and whatnot.
Then again Microsoft has been doing that for years.
Wherefore art thou pride, oh Oracle?
I'm quite thankful I'm no longer a Solaris administrator.
◾ Tags:
I hate that Oracle bought Sun. I despise Oracle and all that they're doing to the accesses I could easily and readily utilize.
And speaking of ass things to do, when HP turned down their weatlth-of-information ITRC knowledgebase forum, they made all fifty billion links unusable, and pointed everything to a uselessly flaccid Portal page.
Is there no honor anymore?
And speaking of ass things to do, when HP turned down their weatlth-of-information ITRC knowledgebase forum, they made all fifty billion links unusable, and pointed everything to a uselessly flaccid Portal page.
Is there no honor anymore?
Worked two weeks to modify an existing push script to break up machines according to operating systems (HP/UX & SUN) and versions (11i, 11iv2 & 11iv3, 5.8 & 5.9) to allow the proper packages to get installed and equalize my password across all boxes which were under the maintenance window this weekend.
Keeping in mind that the -n option for pkgadd directs Sun's package installer to do to so without prompting for interaction, (-n Installation occurs in non-interactive mode.) I found the following caveat frustrating:
Two weeks worth of work so I could fire off the script and just sit back and watch my installations take place was in jeopardy, which would require me instead to log into each and every box and run these commands by hand.
That's when I discovered -a my saving grace!
Simply put, I copied the default /var/sadm/install/admin/default file to one named noask and changed the following lines from 'ask' to 'nocheck'
Since the file noask was created in the default path, all I had to do was follow the pkgadd command with '-a noask'
From that point, I just kicked off the script, put my feet up, and watched the magic happen.
Keeping in mind that the -n option for pkgadd directs Sun's package installer to do to so without prompting for interaction, (-n Installation occurs in non-interactive mode.) I found the following caveat frustrating:
The -n option causes the installation to halt if any interaction is needed to complete it.
Two weeks worth of work so I could fire off the script and just sit back and watch my installations take place was in jeopardy, which would require me instead to log into each and every box and run these commands by hand.
That's when I discovered -a my saving grace!
Simply put, I copied the default /var/sadm/install/admin/default file to one named noask and changed the following lines from 'ask' to 'nocheck'
#ident "@(#)default 1.4 92/12/23 SMI" /* SVr4.0 1.5.2.1 */
mail=
instance=unique
partial=ask
runlevel=ask
idepend=ask
rdepend=nocheck
space=ask
setuid=nocheck
conflict=nocheck
action=nocheck
basedir=default
Since the file noask was created in the default path, all I had to do was follow the pkgadd command with '-a noask'
pkgadd -a noask -d [/path_to/pkg]
From that point, I just kicked off the script, put my feet up, and watched the magic happen.
