View previous topic :: View next topic |
Author |
Message |
valiant n00b
Joined: 04 Aug 2004 Posts: 5
|
Posted: Wed Aug 04, 2004 2:21 pm Post subject: Good place to start? Headless Server |
|
|
Hi All,
I picked up a used Sun Enterprise 250 2x 400MHz, 512MB 2x9.1GB SCSI with no video card.
Its in a rackmount box and has no OS currently installed (I was told the HDs were wiped).
I was thinking that a Gentoo Live CD should be the way to get me up and going and then I ought to be able to telnet in.
I dont have a null modem cable and havent ever tried connecting that way anyway but if I have to I can pick one up.
Any recommendations? I plan to use it as a server and may leave it headless but it seems like I should probably pick up a vidcard for it anyway.
Any opinions? Good places to get started with Docs, How-tos?
Thanks a lot!! |
|
Back to top |
|
|
HackingM2 Apprentice
Joined: 26 Jul 2004 Posts: 245 Location: Cambridge, England
|
Posted: Wed Aug 04, 2004 3:59 pm Post subject: |
|
|
I am trying a headless install at the moment and it is a nightmare!
If you can get a video card in that box and put a keyboard on it then you should imho.
The main problem you will face is that there is (as far as I know) no way of changing the default ttyS0 speed from 9600bps, which as you can imagine is slow to say the least. I can change it in OpenBOOT but the kernel sets it back when it boots.
If you do persist with a headless install then I seriously recomend doing:
emerge sync >/dev/null
as it takes more than 12 hours otherwise. Only takes the normal time (10 mins) for me when I redirect to null. |
|
Back to top |
|
|
valiant n00b
Joined: 04 Aug 2004 Posts: 5
|
Posted: Mon Aug 09, 2004 3:15 pm Post subject: Update |
|
|
I successfully installed Gentoo this weekend on my E 250. It went pretty well. The biggest pain was finding the right cable to connect my laptop as a serial console. Ended up finding the correct 9Pin Female to 25Pin Male Null Modem cable at a local mom & pop computer shop.
Installing Gentoo went smoothly - except that I did not read the install doc close enough and initially thought I had created a seperate boot partition. Had to reboot the LiveCD and edit the fstab. And everything worked just fine after that.
Once I got that going I used SSH for the rest of my installing.
I am running two instances of Setiathome and it looks like each one completes about 5% per hour. So I can complete about 2.2 - 2.5 work units per day if it holds. |
|
Back to top |
|
|
HackingM2 Apprentice
Joined: 26 Jul 2004 Posts: 245 Location: Cambridge, England
|
Posted: Fri Aug 13, 2004 12:55 am Post subject: Re: Update |
|
|
valiant wrote: | I successfully installed Gentoo this weekend on my E 250. |
Glad it went well.
valiant wrote: | Installing Gentoo went smoothly - except that I did not read the install doc close enough and initially thought I had created a seperate boot partition. Had to reboot the LiveCD and edit the fstab. And everything worked just fine after that.
Once I got that going I used SSH for the rest of my installing. |
Sounds like that box had a CD drive, lucky *%$&%$*, my headless install was also a netboot so no SSH for a while.
Just to warn you - not sure how many SPARCs you have used - do not expect anything marked -sparc to work, it wont!
Also there are some issues with the interface between the 64bit kernel and 32bit userspace - ulogd and snort/snort_inline are both seriously borked, which is a shame as I fancied having a head-less, cd-less, disk-less, 1u machine as my firewall. |
|
Back to top |
|
|
valiant n00b
Joined: 04 Aug 2004 Posts: 5
|
Posted: Fri Aug 13, 2004 6:05 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Quote: | Sounds like that box had a CD drive, lucky *%$&%$*, my headless install was also a netboot so no SSH for a while. |
Ahhh, yes I d0!
Quote: | Just to warn you - not sure how many SPARCs you have used - do not expect anything marked -sparc to work, it wont! |
Thanks I will keep that in mind. Have you tried the JRE? If so how about Tomcat? I am thinking about trying to get Tomcat working but its not a big deal if I cannot.
Quote: | Also there are some issues with the interface between the 64bit kernel and 32bit userspace - ulogd and snort/snort_inline are both seriously borked, which is a shame as I fancied having a head-less, cd-less, disk-less, 1u machine as my firewall. |
I am also thinking about trying to proxy the box with SSH tunneling. My company has just decided to block IM traffic. My thought was maybe I could point GAIM over SSH to my E250 and have it proxy to AIM. Any ideas? |
|
Back to top |
|
|
HackingM2 Apprentice
Joined: 26 Jul 2004 Posts: 245 Location: Cambridge, England
|
Posted: Sat Aug 14, 2004 4:50 pm Post subject: |
|
|
valiant wrote: | Have you tried the JRE? If so how about Tomcat? I am thinking about trying to get Tomcat working but its not a big deal if I cannot. |
Blackdown JRE 1.4.1 seems to work fine although I have not tested it with anything too complex yet. JBoss 3 seems to work so I see no reason why Tomcat wouldn't.
Quote: | I am also thinking about trying to proxy the box with SSH tunneling. My company has just decided to block IM traffic. My thought was maybe I could point GAIM over SSH to my E250 and have it proxy to AIM. Any ideas? |
If you have, or know of, software to do this it should work fine. You are only likely to run into problems when things need specific kernel modules loaded - they may work, they may not.
Most problems seem to stem from the developers inability to use a fixed size variable instead of long, etc. When it is compiled by gcc as 64bit they are a different size than when it is compiled with gcc as 32bit. As you can imagine this doesn't make for reliable interfacing between user and kernel space.
I have tried the 2.6.x kernel from dev-sources and it seems to work better for me than 2.4.x from sparc-sources or dev-sources. If it is not a mission critical box (which it doesn't sound like) then all I can suggest is that you try it and see. |
|
Back to top |
|
|
|