Server Built

Brett came by to help me get the server built yesterday. I have been waiting for Solaris 10 b60 (which has AMD-V support), but I am starting to seriously consider using b59 to install and then upgrading.

Only real problem with the build was that the Armor Extreme case had drive rails that got in the way of the Addonics drive cages... Brett managed to dremmel them out of the way.

On the left you will see 4 pictures... Yes, I resized it (Brett hates those 13MB photos), but you can still click on it to get a slightly larger photo.
The left images are with the doors open. The right images are with the doors closed.
The top images are with a flash (see detail) and the bottom without (see lights)...

Now to choose an installation medium :)

Belkin F1DE208C

Well, we got the room rearranged, rack moved, and setup the new KVM...

Unfortunately, it doesn't appear to work. Both 2x7-segment LEDs say "88" and the rest of the lights are randomly flashing...

I would look up the error code, but the manual has nothing, the website has nothing, and I am not finding anything on Google. Guess I will have to talk with Belkin support tomorrow.

Good thing I have the laptop.

Monitoring

Consider running Nagios, probably in Xen, unless I'd rather have an appliance.

Solaris*VoIP

Consider whether to use the Solaris version of Asterisk or Linux version (either way, it will be running in Xen)

Solaris 0-day Telnet Exploit

make sure to fix this

Solaris-optimized AMP Stack

ZFS Learning Center

Managing ZFS in Solaris 10 Containers

How to Quickly Install the Solaris 10 1/06 OS

with screenshots

Using DTrace from a Solaris 10 System

New Hardware Purchased

Well, temporarily giving up on the iSCSI drives being an economical option, I decided to go ahead and build a standard run-of-the-mill server... Here's the specs of what we ordered:

Asus L1N64-SLI WS
2x AMD FX-70
Thermaltake VA8004BWS
Thermaltake HardCano 13
2x Kingston KVR667D2E5K2/2G
Thermaltake 850Watt W0131
going to use an existing space nVidia 6600GT
2x Hitachi Deskstar T7K500 250GB Serial ATA II (mirrored boot)
5x Hitachi Deskstar T7K500 250GB Serial ATA II (raidz2 data)
2x Addonics AE5RCS35NSA
NEC Black Floppy (memtest86, hitachi drive tool, etc etc)
going to use an existing dual layer burner
Belkin 1500VA/1000 joules UPS

We're also upgrading the KVM:
Belkin F1DE208C
3x Belkin F1D9400-06 (for machines on the rack)
1x Belkin F1D9400-25 (for docking station on the desk)

Still need to grab a Cat6 cable from PCHCables when we get a chance to run out to Hillsboro.

Plan is to run OpenSolaris as Xen dom0, then host all Xen domU via locally shared ZFS NFS directory...

Poor Man's Thumper

Interesting read

Testing OpenSolaris

So I decided to try OpenSolaris on our old server (old being a year or so). It won't be the long term solution, because I want AMD-V for Xen... but here's my observations so far.

1. Installation was easy, but first time, it did not make the system bootable. I had to format all the drives to get it to quit presenting FreeBSD as a boot option as well.
2. The first install, it tried to use c2d0, but the second install it used c4d0. Shouldn't this be consistently the same boot device?
3. Even though the router has the NIC set to a specific IP, it defaulted to a different MAC address and thus a different IP. I can only assume that it is a virtual NIC.
4. When I switch back and forth on the Belkin KVM, the mouse freaks out in Solaris -- even though it works in Linux and FreeBSD.
5. When activating the remote desktop, via GNOME, it sets it to localhost and doesn't allow me to change it to use the server name or IP -- thus, can't avoid #4 that way. Might have to go in and edit the files by hand, but unlike Linux/FreeBSD, I am not too familiar with Solaris yet.
6. When I went to do the Update via the GUI, it asked for my Sun account info (which I provided) then just said there was an error. Guess that won't fix #4 or #5.
7. ZPOOL seemed to work fine -- but creating iSCSI, SMB and NFS targets (via CLI or GUI) only seems to work at the server end. No one else on the network can access it.
8. Contrary to what most people have said, the GUI doesn't look so bad.
9. I enabled Telnet in services, and that didn't seem to work either.

More later