Tag Archives: Solaris

Oracle Sun Microsystems T2000 (and similar) ALOM/SC Password Recovery

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ServerSo today, I am working on a nice little Sun Microsystems T2000 server. It was purchased used by my customer and I am setting it up. Right away I ran into a snag, naturally, because I didn’t have the ALOM (Advanced Lights Out Management) or SC (System Controller) password for this machine go to this web-site. According to the person that sold the server, it was pulled from a working environment, the drives were wiped and it was sent out to be sold. This means that I had no way to get the old password from anyone, therefore I had to get past it myself.

Let me lay it out for you. In this situation you can’t really recover the password or see what it currently is. The only option at this point is to go in and clear out or erase the ALOM NVRAM so that you can then get access and setup a new password. In order to do this, you will need to connect your laptop to the serial management port. You can do this with a laptop or PC or whatever but for the sake of this article I am going to just use laptop. You will also need access to the power cords, because you are going to have to physically cut the power to the server to get started. OK, ready? Got everything in order? OK, let’s begin. Continue reading →

Learn Solaris UNIX or Linux Today, The Real Way

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OK Folks, I added this post so I could tell you about a new article that I just posted.  Just like the title here suggests, I talk about learning Solaris UNIX and/or Linux the real way or maybe it would be better said as the right way.  I don’t suppose there is a wrong or right way, but still.  In this article I reach down into the depth of not only my own knowledge but I lean heavily on my own experience as well, and use that information to share all I know and can rant about learning solid UNIX and Linux skills for the up and coming nix jockies out there.  I really hope that this article can help someone and maybe more than just one naturally.  It’s some (I think) good advice on how to get started and some of the best ways to dig in there and learn some good stuff.  Maybe in the future I’ll post more lower level hard core how to stuff and see how that goes over.  Some of that kind of stuff I have posted already (like SVM disk info and Symantec Storage Foundations (formerly Veritas Volume Manager)) has been real popular.  Anyway, for anyone interested, head on over to the Library and check out the new article on Learning Solaris UNIX and Linux today, you might find something helpful in there!  If you have any thoughts about it or something you think I should add, please drop me a line and let me know.  Thanks!

Solaris patchadd Return Codes

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I just posted some new goodness for all of the Solaris admins out there.  I have compiled a list of return codes from the patchadd command for both Solaris 9 and Solaris 10, and it has come in very handy over the ages.  So, I thought I would share.  Take a look at it here, and don’t forget to check out the entire library with all sorts of information in it here.  Enjoy!

Oracle Buys Sun Microsystems

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Or, the end of the tech world as we know it.  Maybe that’s too harsh, time will tell.  I know one thing for sure, Oracle stepped up with an offer that was only $400 million more than IBM was tossing around (I know, “only”, but when you are talking $7+ billion it’s not so much), and I bet IBM is now pretty mad at themselves.  Not just because they let Sun get away, but more importantly because Oracle with all of Sun’s technology under their belt, just became a veritable behemoth competitor.

I can’t say that Oracle buying Sun is worse than IBM buying Sun, I think either would have been bad, but I do think that IBM would have made more of the technology that Sun has, especially in the hardware arena.  Most people already run Oracle on Sun, but I think Oracle was angling the software more than the hardware.  Now they have the whole “stack” sewn up.  They have been re-branding Red Hat Linux to provide “their own” operating system, but now they don’t have to because they really do have their own operating system with Solaris.  One that lots of people prefer for running Oracle versus Linux and especially Windows.  Now Oracle can provide the application, the database, the operating system and the hardware platform to run it all on, all in one nice bundle.  I have come to think of it as the “O-Stack”.  Now, instead of a LAMP stack, Oracle will be pushing their O-Stack.

I just hope that the folk out there that have a considerable investment in Sun (me included), not only in SPARC, but also their X86 line, didn’t just get screwed.  Can Oracle keep the support going?  Will they keep the hardware lines going?  What will happen to Solaris, MySQL and Java (to name a few)?  Only time will tell, but I for one am not pleased with this announcement.

I’ll have more updates as I find information to share.

Sun Microsystems Drops SPARC Chip

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OK, I admit that headline is a bit misleading, but it’s also true.  I spend time regularly working in an environment that is all Solaris UNIX running on SPARC chips, therefore we use SPARC based Sun Blade workstations exclusively.  This means that the platform we use to manage and develop on is the same as the platform we manage, which is a good thing when you are dealing with hundreds of mission critical servers.

I was speaking to one of my Sun contacts, enquiring about some workstations when I was informed that Sun has now dropped all Sun Blade workstations based on the SPARC chip.  You will only be able to buy workstations with Intel or AMD (x86) processors.

What!?  I personally think that’s stupid, and it puts me in a bind.  Before you flame, I know why they did it.  The SPARC workstations are expensive and I am sure they don’t sell very many so they decided it was more economical to stop making them altogether.  And yes, I know I can run Solaris x86, but why would I want to introduce a whole new architecture just for managing my existing systems?

Either way you slice this, I think it is a sign of the times.  Quality and performance will give way to cheap.  I read articles on the Web about how solaris is slow and the SPARC chip “sucks” because it “only” goes up to 1.5GHz or so when Intel goes over 3Ghz.  That just makes me smile because it just shows how little people know about how things work.

When you get right down to it, I guess it all comes down to money.