Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Switching RaQ's

I had some free time this weekend to realize one of my test. In this case I tested the second Cobalt RaQ4 with CentOS+BQ and Torrentflux 2.4. Very happy with the results. Now I can download big files of various GB's.

After this successfull test I decided to switch servers and use the new one as BitTorrent permanent client. To do that I only need to set the ip address of the new one like the old RaQ and install the no-ip.com linux client. And here start the problems: The CentOS+BlueQuartz distributions didn't have compiling tools.

I only found the GCC-Tools package from NuOnce Networks in a BlueQuartz package but it doesn't want to install by the easy way with the GUI. Fortunatelly theirs forums has the solution, install it manualy by the shell: Here is the link.


  1. Upload the file via FTP to the server.
  2. Uncompress the file: tar xfvpz BQ-5102*
  3. Go into the RPMS folder: cd RPMS
  4. Be root: type su and then the admin password as required.
  5. Install all the pakages with rpm -ivh --force --nodeps *.

And ready. Now you can follow my previous guide to install the no-ip.com client.

UPDATE

With the new software, the symbolic links to the noip software have to be done in other way then the old RaQ4 software:

In the old Raq you have todo in the /etc/rc.d/init.d folder:

# ln -s noip /etc/rc3.d/S99noip
# ln -s noip /etc/rc6.d/K99noip
# ln -s noip /etc/rc0.d/K99noip

In the new CentOS is a bit more tricky:

  1. # cd /etc/rc3.d
  2. # ln -s ../init.d/noip S99noip
  3. # cd /etc/rc6.d
  4. # ln -s ../init.d/noip K99noip
  5. #cd /etc/rc0.d
  6. # ln -s ../init.d/noip K99noip

Friday, April 11, 2008

SunFire V120 as a Workstation

Yeah... Finally I have an Sparc machine with display!!!!

The last two nights I had been working with my V120 server, installing a PGX32 gfx card that I received sometime ago. First I installed with the old Solaris 10 installation but nothig was appearing on the screen, only some noise. I didn't have the handbook and I wanted to do a fresh install. Today at lunch time I reinstalled it but the result was the same.

Some search in the sun website to reach the Framebuffer Handbook. First I configured the card from Solaris but I only get a yellow screen.. this was better anyway. Then I tried modifying the NVRAM parameters:

  1. From the root prompt: # poweroff
  2. In the lom prompt: lom> bootmode forth
  3. lom> poweron
  4. When I have the ok prompt I type >ok setenv output-device screen:r1280x1024x60
  5. ok reset
And... after a reboot my monitor start to show the boot messages and then the login screen!

Today is too late and I am so tired. Soon I put pictures and more explanations.

See you.

Thursday, March 20, 2008

A silent Octane

She has new fans. Now she is enough quiet to work near the table!!!!!

Unfortunately I thing I was wrong ordering the Sharkoon 120mm fan, the Octane needs more power in this fan. Oufff. New fan will be ordered next week because now the air is getting hot after 30 minutes of run. The 92mm fan is OK and this is the good thing because this was the noisy one!!!

Nothing more today

Titox.

PD: How slooooowwwwww is Firefox in Irix!!!!!!! A lot of time wasted to write this post!!!

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Silencing

Hello.
Today arrived at home a new packet with a lot of fans. First I ordered two new fans for the Octane2 and small ones for the Extrem Networks switch and Gigabyte server. In th switch I changed the three original Delta Electronics fans by slow and quiet Sharkoon S402030L-3. This new fans run at only 3000 rpm with 16 dB(A) of noise.... With the switch running you hear anything!!!!! This new fans take out small air quantity but the switch is placed outside a datacenter - in my room!!!!-, and with the small amount of machines running over there, It isn't needed to take out a lof air -That room is not ver heat-.

Maybe tomorrow I'll upload some pictures. The only special thing that I did is to change the wires in the fan plug as the original fans have.

At the end I replaced the Octane PSU fan for a new quiet Sharkoon one but after a lot of work done (nearly 30 bolts out and then returned in place), the fan doesn't turn :(
Today I'm too tired to check it again.... tomorrow perhaps.

See you.

Sunday, March 9, 2008

New BitTornado

Using Torrentflux with BitTornado from a long time, I always had problems downloading big torrents. I never had been able to download any linux distribution via the BitTorrent network and this is a big trouble for me. In files bigger than 3 GB's, like Fedora or Solaris installation DVD's, always I had a "Torrent died" messahe whe the download reached near 2,5 GB's. And everytime I tried to restart the server returned a bad "Torrent died" after checking the existing data. I deleted the downloaded part but nothing went better.

Now I'm working 600 Km from my home but yesterday nigth I had the same problem, then I deleted the file partially downloaded I tried to restart de download but TorrentFlux said the same and I decided to search some information. The TorrentFlux website says nothing about upgrades and nothing related in the its forums. Then I went to the BitTornado webpage I there is a new release: 0.3.18.

The release information doesn't say anything about bug fixes, only encryption upgrade but happiness now I can restart my failed download. Only some days waiting for to see if I have a good end of my torrent file.

To upgrade BitTornado I downloaded the .tar.gz file in my laptop, uncompressed it and moved to the server the files used by TorrentFlux: two files .py in the TFBitTornado folder and then all the CVS folder. Then I rebooted the server.

Nothing more today, I need hollidays... too much work now...

Maybe the problem is my server. The Cobalt RaQ 4 is running the old CobaltOS and needs update to CentOS + BlueQuartz... I'll see.

Tuesday, March 4, 2008

One month later... One more RaQ4




OK. I have a lot of work in my job and I can't dedicate a lot of time to my servers but... I can't be quiet. I bid on one more Cobalt RaQ 4i two weekends ago and it came here last friday. The seller said it has no hard disk and a lot of screws were lost. He didn't guarantee that te Cobalt runs but after installing an old Maxtor 40Gb, I installed the Cobalt software without problems. The best of all is This new RaQ had been very very cheap!!!!!







First I installed the Zeffies special restore CD and his Turbo Updates but some of the packages didn't want to install and this restore CD only detects 8GB-more or less- of the 40GB disk. Later I was thinking how this machine can serve files via SMB and I decided to install the Qube3 OS. Oohhhhh! This OS is beatiful and I think it is a lot faster then the old one.




I like the BlueLinq update system but it has a big fault: There is not a button to install everything with only one press, and I spent one day installing packages. Oh yes, the package Qube3-All-Security-4.0.1-17041 don't want to install.



Now I have a lot of work playing with this new software but I'm thinking to use this as first server and use the other Cobalt RaQ 4i as development system.

Here you have a picture of my servers - Ouch, yes, I have a new Extreme Networks switch-. maybe the next thing to do is find a place for all, a cabinet perhaps?

Monday, February 4, 2008

Finally, I have a Solaris machine

Yesssss. Here it is. A Sunfire V120 arrived last week. I spent all the weekend installing and configuring Solaris 10 and the Java Web Server.

My first idea was to run this machine as redirector or Reverse Proxy but it's noisy as the my Gigabyte server... I have to buy a lot of new slow fans!!!!

After the installation of the last release of Solaris 10 for Sparc I'm very impressed with the Sun webserver software, the configuration page via web site is fantastic and it has a wide quantity of options to configure the server. But there is a new things to learn and I need some time to know how works this server software.

In the other hand, the Webconsole software -included in the Solaris package- is really a good idea but now I can only manage ZFS and I don't need it. I'm going to install the Webmin Solaris package and try.

I have to say Solaris is more different from linux than I was thinking, big diferences in console commands and file structures makes me headaches to find some configuration files and, the installation path of some applications are very inconsistent: I have the webserver on /sun/webserver7/, and the webconsole in /usr/share/webconsole/. The freeware of the Companion DVD is in another place and I can't remember everything. Maybe with some work.....

Also, I miss some usefull tools from linux like wget. I downloaded it from ftp://ftp.sunfreeware.com/ but after installation I received a message saying I need some libraries to get it running. This is not a big trouble but some extra work is needed to do some jobs that were very easy with the linux of my Cobalt Raq. Maybe Solaris has it's own tools for the same job but I can't find any list of the equivalent commands and the existance of some freeware makes me doubt about the existance of this list itself.


Here you have some pictures of this hard weekend: