Re: OpenBSD on Sun Netra X1
Hi, thanks for the hint, however, I'm in fact a bit more confused now:-) Couldn't I use such a thing: http://cgi.ebay.de/SERIAL-RS232-DB9-9-PIN-FEMALE-TO-RJ45-FEMALE-ADAPTOR_W0QQitemZ390041017767QQcmdZViewItemQQptZUK_Computing_Networking_SM?hash=item390041017767_trksid=p3286.m63.l1177 In addition, I would then only need a RJ45 serial cable. Or an ordinary telephone cable with 4 wires, right? Thanks, Chris On Tue, Apr 28, 2009 at 3:42 AM, Jussi Peltola pe...@pelzi.net wrote: Many (probably 50%) of RJ11 4-wire telephone cables were crimped wrong by the factory and are in fact roll over cables (RJ11 fits in RJ45, but you need 4 wires, 2 won't work). Saved me some from hair loss one sunday far away from everything. -- Jussi Peltola
Re: OpenBSD on Sun Netra X1
Depends on the db9-rj45 adaptor, some need a rollover cable, some a straight one. Try it.
Re: OpenBSD on Sun Netra X1
Christopher Intemann wrote: Hi, thanks for the hint, however, I'm in fact a bit more confused now:-) Couldn't I use such a thing: http://cgi.ebay.de/SERIAL-RS232-DB9-9-PIN-FEMALE-TO-RJ45-FEMALE-ADAPTOR_W0QQitemZ390041017767QQcmdZViewItemQQptZUK_Computing_Networking_SM?hash=item390041017767_trksid=p3286.m63.l1177 Yes In addition, I would then only need a RJ45 serial cable. Or an ordinary telephone cable with 4 wires, right? Yes Let me put it this way. din 9 pin to your laptop, or what ever. RJ45 plug at the other end. Plus what ever you want in between to plug the two together. (;
Re: OpenBSD on Sun Netra X1
Jussi Peltola wrote: Depends on the db9-rj45 adaptor, some need a rollover cable, some a straight one. Try it. http://www.ossmann.com/5-in-1.html
Re: OpenBSD on Sun Netra X1
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Christopher Intemann wrote: Hi, thanks for the hint, however, I'm in fact a bit more confused now:-) Couldn't I use such a thing: http://cgi.ebay.de/SERIAL-RS232-DB9-9-PIN-FEMALE-TO-RJ45-FEMALE-ADAPTOR_W0QQitemZ390041017767QQcmdZViewItemQQptZUK_Computing_Networking_SM?hash=item390041017767_trksid=p3286.m63.l1177 In addition, I would then only need a RJ45 serial cable. Or an ordinary telephone cable with 4 wires, right? In case you're curious, a telco guy would often call such a cable quad, it usually had pair colors red/green and yellow/black, with yellow/black being used for receive, versus red/green for send, black and green were the tip conductors, red/yellow were the ring conductors. This wasn't really specified as far as I know, it was just common convention. RJ45 is far from being the only Registered Jack that could terminate a quad circuit (using 4 out or 8 total conductors. There was even a way to wire the ordinarily 2 wire RJ11, called RJ14, so that 4 out of the 6 conductors were used (center 2 for circuit 1, outer 2 for circuit 2). RJ45 is a pretty popular way to refer to that 8 place connector, though. All of these things are regularly violated, so you just have to take your chances. Thanks, Chris On Tue, Apr 28, 2009 at 3:42 AM, Jussi Peltola pe...@pelzi.net wrote: Many (probably 50%) of RJ11 4-wire telephone cables were crimped wrong by the factory and are in fact roll over cables (RJ11 fits in RJ45, but you need 4 wires, 2 won't work). Saved me some from hair loss one sunday far away from everything. -- Jussi Peltola Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iEYEARECAAYFAkn3WnoACgkQz62J6PPcoOlNawCgi4y+IdnJe45RJFfvDSOnvEtr XgUAn2QjgQbVtS/MyrLXy0MgY1mSGuvH =ugmu -END PGP SIGNATURE-
Re: OpenBSD on Sun Netra X1
On 2009-04-28, Christopher Intemann intem...@gmail.com wrote: Hi, thanks for the hint, however, I'm in fact a bit more confused now:-) Couldn't I use such a thing: http://cgi.ebay.de/SERIAL-RS232-DB9-9-PIN-FEMALE-TO-RJ45-FEMALE-ADAPTOR_W0QQitemZ390041017767QQcmdZViewItemQQptZUK_Computing_Networking_SM?hash=item390041017767_trksid=p3286.m63.l1177 In addition, I would then only need a RJ45 serial cable. Or an ordinary telephone cable with 4 wires, right? depends how you plug the pins in when you get the adapter. if you do it this way, assuming the usual colour code for these, you can just use a normal ethernet cable. 2 black 3 yellow 4 brown 5 red+grn (ground; you /should/ join these together) 6 orange 7 white 8 blue
Re: OpenBSD on Sun Netra X1
Hi, On Tue, Apr 28, 2009 at 10:21 PM, Stuart Henderson s...@spacehopper.orgwrote: depends how you plug the pins in when you get the adapter. if you do it this way, assuming the usual colour code for these, you can just use a normal ethernet cable. 2 black 3 yellow 4 brown 5 red+grn (ground; you /should/ join these together) 6 orange 7 white 8 blue Great, thanks for this hint! This will help me a lot. I've just learned that there obviously is no single standard for rs232-to-rj45 adapters, and I was wondering how to figure out which would fit for this box. Thanks a lot! Chris
Re: OpenBSD on Sun Netra X1
Thank you very much, your guide will be very helpful to me. Maybe you should blog it somewhere? I'm just only getting a bit confused about the serial ports of the Netra box. Where do i get the appropriat cables to either connect this port to an ordinary RS/232 port, or to another netra x1? By the way, I just learned from the OBSD 4.5 changelog that the 4.5 release will be able to scale down the CPU frequency of UltraSPARC IIe CPUs to save power, thats great! Regards, Chris On Mon, Apr 27, 2009 at 4:15 AM, Daniel Ouellet dan...@presscom.net wrote: OK, Here I put a little bit of details on how to setup that box from scratch. I guess I spend a little bit of time putting it together because I also I remember my first one, years ago, where I did plenty of Google before I could set one up. It wasn't a 5 minutes process then, but it is sure not hard either. So, to save you time and may be for the next guys as well to make life easier for them here it is. First question you may have is.. Where do I plug my keyboard, or monitor. Or if you are an MCSE, where do I plug my mouse. (; OK, just a joke, but surprisingly many can't do much without GUI. Anyway, joke aside. You do everything from a console access on these boxes. T1-105, AC200, X1, V100, V120, etc, etc. There isn't monitor port, or keyboard, or mouse ports there. (; Nor there is a need for it either. On the back you have the serial A that is also use for LOM. That's what you need to use to have console access to that box. Use any software you want, doesn't matter as long as you set it up VT100 emulation and use 9600-8-N-1 for the setting communications. Plain old serial cable, like any Cisco console cable do just fine, or what ever you have available as long as the connector is RJ-45 to go to the Sun box. Now, one command that is very useful and that I had to dig on Google is how to switch to LOM and the console from that terminal. Well, it's very simple, but I had to dig it up. To access the LOM: enter#. To go back to the console: consoleenter To get of of the console: ~.enter Simple command, but when you don't know them, well, you can search a long time. (; Next, to stop the booting process as who know the stage in witch you will get the box. It may try to boot from the network all the time, or what not. So, when the box is plug in the AC, but actually off. The console will give you the LOM access by default. The following steps may or may not be needed, depending on what stage the box was ship to you, but as a rule of thumb, I like to reset everything to defaults, just to know where I am, so: From there, make sure the box will not try to boot, but give you the # prompt so that you can access the box hardware. So, first is to stop the auto boot: lombootmode help Usage: bootmode [[-u] forth|reset_nvram|diag|skipdiag|normal] So, just do bootmode forth This will simply stop the normal boot process and when the box goes to the usual hardware check, it will then give you the OK prompt. And a side note, in case you haven't seen that before, or use Sun before, you can turn on/off the box from the console, reset it and all, witch can be useful at time specially if you have two of these boxes connected together via a simply flat cable between the console port and the serial port of the other box, but will get back to that later. So, turn on the box: lompoweron Then when you get the # prompt may be one minute later or so. init 0 ok setenv auto-boot? false (This is so that it doesn't try to reboot all the time yet) #depending on which Hardware and OBP Version you are running it is either or ( I do both in order to be sure on my SunFire) ok reset ok reset-all Each step above, like the reset and the reset-all will, well like it said reset the box. Then, when the OBP is back you can run eg ok probe-scsi-all (for the SCSI type server, T1, AC200, V120, etc) or ok probe-ide-all for the IDE servers type, like the V100, X1, etc. I do both anyway on all boxes, it doesn't create any problem and even on system without and SCSI drives, the probe-scsi-all will actually find the drives oppose to the probe-ide-all one. (; It may be related with the LOM version, I can't say really and I am sure better mind then me would know. I never find a way to upgrade the LOM anyway without having Solaris running on these boxes. I would love to know how, or even if possible, but really, I haven't got a clue on that! If anyone actually know how, I would really, really love to know how! Anyway, lets move one. It detect the hardware you have in case hardware was changed between the real last run and what was ship to you. (; Not always needed, but good practice anyway. In some cases it will save you lots of time specially wen you get the processor miss align errors I can't recall exactly the error message right this moment, but when you see it if you do, you will know right
Re: OpenBSD on Sun Netra X1
On 4/27/09, Christopher Intemann intem...@gmail.com wrote: Thank you very much, your guide will be very helpful to me. Maybe you should blog it somewhere? snipped That's what mailing list archives are for: http://marc.info/?l=openbsd-miscw=2r=1s=Netra+X1q=b hth Fred
Re: OpenBSD on Sun Netra X1
Christopher Intemann wrote: Thank you very much, your guide will be very helpful to me. Your welcome. Maybe you should blog it somewhere? Archive is there for that, plus to be decently blog, I believe it should be written in better English! (; So, I think it will stay where it is. Unless you make it nicer, update it better when you do the final setup, then may be I might put it at openbsdsupport.org, may be. I'm just only getting a bit confused about the serial ports of the Netra box. Where do i get the appropriat cables to either connect this port to an ordinary RS/232 port, or to another netra x1? Get a plug converter form 9 pins to RJ-45. If you don't have one, you must have a friend that may well have plenty of Cisco adapter, or cable laying around not use. Or just make one. Example for one: http://www.diablocable.com/cisco-compatible-console-cable-db9-female-to-rj45-male-baby-blue-6-ft-72-3383-01-p29944.html But really, don't even buy one. I am sure you can make one or that you already have all you need around and you may not know it. As for connecting two Sun together, it's called a roll over cable, also very simple. See here for an example of what it looks like: http://www.alliancedatacom.com/manufacturers/cisco-systems/connector_cables/cable_pinouts.asp Look for Figure C-1: Identifying a Roll-Over Cable. Couldn't be simpler could it? (; Really, cables are the lease of your problems. (; Best, Daniel
Re: OpenBSD on Sun Netra X1
Many (probably 50%) of RJ11 4-wire telephone cables were crimped wrong by the factory and are in fact roll over cables (RJ11 fits in RJ45, but you need 4 wires, 2 won't work). Saved me some from hair loss one sunday far away from everything. -- Jussi Peltola
Re: OpenBSD on Sun Netra X1
On Sun, Apr 26, 2009 at 01:34:50AM +0200, Christopher Intemann wrote: However could not find any information if I could boot from discs connected via a PCI-IDE controller. Read up on these EEPROM commands: probe-ide-all show-disks They should help. -- Best Regards Edd Barrett (Freelance software developer / technical writer / open-source developer) http://students.dec.bmth.ac.uk/ebarrett
Re: OpenBSD on Sun Netra X1
Hi, On Sun, Apr 26, 2009 at 01:34:50AM +0200, Christopher Intemann wrote: Hi, does anyone here have experience with OpenBSD on a Sun Netra X1 server? My backup server is one of these. I read somewhere that it does only support hard drives up to 137GB of size. Is there any way to avoid this restriction? This explains why my 500GB disk did not work. Thanks -- Best Regards Edd Barrett (Freelance software developer / technical writer / open-source developer) http://students.dec.bmth.ac.uk/ebarrett
Re: OpenBSD on Sun Netra X1
On Sun, Apr 26, 2009 at 12:14 PM, vex...@gmail.com wrote: On Sun, Apr 26, 2009 at 01:34:50AM +0200, Christopher Intemann wrote: However could not find any information if I could boot from discs connected via a PCI-IDE controller. Read up on these EEPROM commands: probe-ide-all show-disks Yes, thanks, sure. But I just won an ebay auction on a Netra X1 (for 30b, :-)), and I'm now desperately waiting for the box do ship. However, as it comes without hard-drives, I was wondering if i would have to buy a drive 137GB or if I could give a 500Gig drive and a PCI-IDE Card a try. It has 1Gig of Ram, should be enough for file serving and routing, I guess. By the way, what is that configuration-card(-slot) good for? Looks like an ordinary PC/SC slot? Can I do anything with it (like access control or something?) Thanks, Chris
Re: OpenBSD on Sun Netra X1
On Sun, Apr 26, 2009 at 8:59 AM, Christopher Intemann intem...@gmail.com wrote: On Sun, Apr 26, 2009 at 12:14 PM, vex...@gmail.com wrote: On Sun, Apr 26, 2009 at 01:34:50AM +0200, Christopher Intemann wrote: However could not find any information if I could boot from discs connected via a PCI-IDE controller. Read up on these EEPROM commands: probe-ide-all show-disks Yes, thanks, sure. But I just won an ebay auction on a Netra X1 (for 30b , :-)), and I'm now desperately waiting for the box do ship. However, as it comes without hard-drives, I was wondering if i would have to buy a drive 137GB or if I could give a 500Gig drive and a PCI-IDE Card a try. The Netra X1 has no PCI slots. http://sunsolve.sun.com/handbook_pub/validateUser.do?target=Systems/Netra_X1/spec The Netra X1 is a fun little box to play with, and as you already know, available quite cheaply, but it's also very limited. For a huge step up in capability, while staying in the same price range, I'd suggest any of the Netra T1 boxes (model 105, AC200, etc). Paul. -- -- Paul D. Ouderkirk Senior UNIX System Administrator p...@ouderkirk.ca -- laughing, in the mechanism -- William Gibson
Re: OpenBSD on Sun Netra X1
On Sun, Apr 26, 2009 at 5:56 PM, Paul Ouderkirk pouderk...@gmail.comwrote: However, as it comes without hard-drives, I was wondering if i would have to buy a drive 137GB or if I could give a 500Gig drive and a PCI-IDE Card a try. The Netra X1 has no PCI slots. http://sunsolve.sun.com/handbook_pub/validateUser.do?target=Systems/Netra_X1/spec The Netra X1 is a fun little box to play with, and as you already know, available quite cheaply, but it's also very limited. For a huge step up in capability, while staying in the same price range, I'd suggest any of the Netra T1 boxes (model 105, AC200, etc). Uh, thanks for the hints. I guess I somehow mixed the specs of T1 and X1. Strange, I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that it HAS a pci/e slot. Well, anyways, I will know it for sure once the box arrives. I guess I will go for 120gig drives then... Thxregards, Chris
Re: OpenBSD on Sun Netra X1
Christopher Intemann wrote: On Sun, Apr 26, 2009 at 12:14 PM, vex...@gmail.com wrote: On Sun, Apr 26, 2009 at 01:34:50AM +0200, Christopher Intemann wrote: However could not find any information if I could boot from discs connected via a PCI-IDE controller. Read up on these EEPROM commands: probe-ide-all show-disks Yes, thanks, sure. But I just won an ebay auction on a Netra X1 (for 30b, :-)), and I'm now desperately waiting for the box do ship. Anticipation is good! (; However, as it comes without hard-drives, I was wondering if i would have to buy a drive 137GB or if I could give a 500Gig drive and a PCI-IDE Card a try. Can you use and install a drive smaller or bigger then 137GB in that box, yes you can. Can you USE all the 137GB in the box, NO you CAN'T. Can you use a different controller to get 137GB in that box. I can't answer that knowingly, but my got feeling tells me no. However the appeal of this box is it's low power and low foot print, etc. Little noisy if you don't replace the FAN, but that's no big deal. I dont think I would put a different controller there, and that's because I really don't think it would work anyway, but I sure could be wrong and if that's possible, I am sure someone else will say so. It has 1Gig of Ram, should be enough for file serving and routing, I guess. It is plenty really! More then you need. By the way, what is that configuration-card(-slot) good for? Looks like an ordinary PC/SC slot? Can I do anything with it (like access control or something?) That's really what identify the box MAC address and all. The idea behind it is that if you have software for example that needs to check the hardware, MAC, etc. By moving that card to a different box, then it become and assume the identity of the old one. If you have any issue installing or configuring your box when it comes in, just holler and I would be more then happy to give you a hand on it. That part I sure can help you lots on it. (; Kind of old fashion if oyu want, but that box, with it's low profile, low power and plenty of power for what it's use for, really become my favorite box for PF, and even routers at time! Just great box for this and cheap as well! Best, Daniel
Re: OpenBSD on Sun Netra X1
Paul Ouderkirk wrote: On Sun, Apr 26, 2009 at 8:59 AM, Christopher Intemann intem...@gmail.com wrote: On Sun, Apr 26, 2009 at 12:14 PM, vex...@gmail.com wrote: On Sun, Apr 26, 2009 at 01:34:50AM +0200, Christopher Intemann wrote: However could not find any information if I could boot from discs connected via a PCI-IDE controller. Read up on these EEPROM commands: probe-ide-all show-disks Yes, thanks, sure. But I just won an ebay auction on a Netra X1 (for 30b , :-)), and I'm now desperately waiting for the box do ship. However, as it comes without hard-drives, I was wondering if i would have to buy a drive 137GB or if I could give a 500Gig drive and a PCI-IDE Card a try. The Netra X1 has no PCI slots. http://sunsolve.sun.com/handbook_pub/validateUser.do?target=Systems/Netra_X1/spec The Netra X1 is a fun little box to play with, and as you already know, available quite cheaply, but it's also very limited. For a huge step up in capability, while staying in the same price range, I'd suggest any of the Netra T1 boxes (model 105, AC200, etc). Not bad box and I have a few of these as well, but the SCSI drives on them are still pretty expensive I must admit and the box is, well, twice the size and a few times it's weight. Just the shipping of one of these box cost you the same as the price of one X1 alone. Don't get me wrong, it's not bad at all, but but as friendly as th X1 and power wise, it's not as low for sure. Unless you absolutely needs that box, then I wouldn't use it, plus it is limited to 73 Gb SCSI in them, so if you are after hard drive space, then you get less in this box. Again, not a bad box, so don't take it as such, not my first choice however for many reasons. Best, Daniel
Re: OpenBSD on Sun Netra X1
OK, Here I put a little bit of details on how to setup that box from scratch. I guess I spend a little bit of time putting it together because I also I remember my first one, years ago, where I did plenty of Google before I could set one up. It wasn't a 5 minutes process then, but it is sure not hard either. So, to save you time and may be for the next guys as well to make life easier for them here it is. First question you may have is.. Where do I plug my keyboard, or monitor. Or if you are an MCSE, where do I plug my mouse. (; OK, just a joke, but surprisingly many can't do much without GUI. Anyway, joke aside. You do everything from a console access on these boxes. T1-105, AC200, X1, V100, V120, etc, etc. There isn't monitor port, or keyboard, or mouse ports there. (; Nor there is a need for it either. On the back you have the serial A that is also use for LOM. That's what you need to use to have console access to that box. Use any software you want, doesn't matter as long as you set it up VT100 emulation and use 9600-8-N-1 for the setting communications. Plain old serial cable, like any Cisco console cable do just fine, or what ever you have available as long as the connector is RJ-45 to go to the Sun box. Now, one command that is very useful and that I had to dig on Google is how to switch to LOM and the console from that terminal. Well, it's very simple, but I had to dig it up. To access the LOM: enter#. To go back to the console: consoleenter To get of of the console: ~.enter Simple command, but when you don't know them, well, you can search a long time. (; Next, to stop the booting process as who know the stage in witch you will get the box. It may try to boot from the network all the time, or what not. So, when the box is plug in the AC, but actually off. The console will give you the LOM access by default. The following steps may or may not be needed, depending on what stage the box was ship to you, but as a rule of thumb, I like to reset everything to defaults, just to know where I am, so: From there, make sure the box will not try to boot, but give you the # prompt so that you can access the box hardware. So, first is to stop the auto boot: lombootmode help Usage: bootmode [[-u] forth|reset_nvram|diag|skipdiag|normal] So, just do bootmode forth This will simply stop the normal boot process and when the box goes to the usual hardware check, it will then give you the OK prompt. And a side note, in case you haven't seen that before, or use Sun before, you can turn on/off the box from the console, reset it and all, witch can be useful at time specially if you have two of these boxes connected together via a simply flat cable between the console port and the serial port of the other box, but will get back to that later. So, turn on the box: lompoweron Then when you get the # prompt may be one minute later or so. init 0 ok setenv auto-boot? false (This is so that it doesn't try to reboot all the time yet) #depending on which Hardware and OBP Version you are running it is either or ( I do both in order to be sure on my SunFire) ok reset ok reset-all Each step above, like the reset and the reset-all will, well like it said reset the box. Then, when the OBP is back you can run eg ok probe-scsi-all (for the SCSI type server, T1, AC200, V120, etc) or ok probe-ide-all for the IDE servers type, like the V100, X1, etc. I do both anyway on all boxes, it doesn't create any problem and even on system without and SCSI drives, the probe-scsi-all will actually find the drives oppose to the probe-ide-all one. (; It may be related with the LOM version, I can't say really and I am sure better mind then me would know. I never find a way to upgrade the LOM anyway without having Solaris running on these boxes. I would love to know how, or even if possible, but really, I haven't got a clue on that! If anyone actually know how, I would really, really love to know how! Anyway, lets move one. It detect the hardware you have in case hardware was changed between the real last run and what was ship to you. (; Not always needed, but good practice anyway. In some cases it will save you lots of time specially wen you get the processor miss align errors I can't recall exactly the error message right this moment, but when you see it if you do, you will know right away. (; Then when all is done as you wish, don't forget to make it boot normally again with: setenv auto-boot? true (or your box will stop at the # and you will not know why, or if you reload the OS, it will not come back to life, witch may be a problem if you don't have access to the console and you may not know why (;) Also, at the console prompt, the #, sometime I also reset the nvram to the factory defaults as well, witch is a good thing to do and reset the box once more as requested when you do so. Now it's time to load OpenBSd on the box, the real fun part.
Re: OpenBSD on Sun Netra X1
Christopher Intemann wrote: Hi, does anyone here have experience with OpenBSD on a Sun Netra X1 server? I read somewhere that it does only support hard drives up to 137GB of size. Yes the limit is 137 GB and I said that and it's tested as well. I posted that long ago, but again I guess two or three weeks ago on a bridge question. No there isn't. Is there any way to avoid this restriction? Don't even try it, or your box WILL not boot. I read somewhere (else) that using a PCI-IDE controller could do the trick. Well, not sure about that. Why you say it would do the trick? Unless that PCI have it's own logic and all, witch I would not think it would anyway. That box only support IDE, so you have no choice here. But even a nice new IDE works very well there. I used: ST3160815A from Seagate, a very nice drive, pretty darn fast and nice cache as well on the drive. Or an 80GB ST380215A. It does give a second life to these boxes. However could not find any information if I could boot from discs connected via a PCI-IDE controller. Yes you can, but obviously use an external one. Pretty easy to do, then you removed it after that. Any hints? If you have any issue, I would be more then happy to help you get it going, but do your homework firs,t it couldn't be simpler to do really. Best, Daniel
