Connect Laptop to Sun 5500
Hello,
I am new to Sun hardware, but have spent many many hours using the Solaris O/S. I have recently been asked to set up a lab for my team and was given a Sun 5500 as my first project. They have given me complete control to do whatever I want with it, but I am having trouble just getting started. This server has not been touched in quite some time and has no console attached to it. I believe this is called a "headless" server from what I've been reading. It does have the keyboard and mouse attached, though.
Can anyone advise me on how to get a display up so that I can begin looking at this server?
I would really like to just be able to connect my laptop to the server but have not been able to find much information on how to do this. I keep finding articles that explain how to connect the serial A db25 port from the clock board to a serial port on the laptop, but I have no serial port on my laptop.
I started looking up part numbers found on the server's cards and figured out that I have a Sun/LSI graphics card with a female 13w3 port on it.
If the laptop is not an option and I can actually round up a spare VGA monitor that works, can I get away with buying a male 13w3 to female db15 vga adapter? If so, can I use basically any VGA monitor?
There is a Sun 6500 beside this one which has no console either, but does have what looks like a female db25 to rj45 adapter sitting in the rack. Would this be another option somehow?
Thanks in advance!
[1532 byte] By [
evicm] at [2007-11-25 22:46:49]
# 1
If you do have a graphics card in the server then you can use that. However, it would not be my first option as it is much easier and nicer to be able to use the console port. This way you can if you wish connect it to a terminal server and have access to the console port anywhere on the network.
With regard to how you connect to the server via serial port A. There is a good section here on that:
<a href="http://supportforum.sun.com/hardware/index.php?t=tree&th=3542& ;amp;start=0&rid=6690&SQ=602d74baf80cb7a3f4e1327298286441" target="_blank"> http://supportforum.sun.com/hardware/index.php?t=tree&th =3542&start=0&rid=6690&SQ=602d74baf80cb7a3f4e132 7298286441</a>
As a side note, if the server has not been used in a while I would highly recommend that when you do get connected to it that you do the following.
1. Break the server to the ok prompt, if needed.
2. At ok prompt type 'setenv auto-boot? false' (stops the server booting automatically, can be set to false / true)
3. At ok prompt type 'setenv diag-level max' (sets the level of diagnostics normally set to min / max)
4. At the ok prompt type 'setenv diag-switch? true' (sets whether diagnostics are run or not, normally true / false)
Once the above is done you should pass the server through diagnostics for 2 or 3 hours by powering it on using the switch and powering it off using the 'power-off' command from the ok prompt. There are ways to loop diagnostics on the server using the '<shift>+L' key sequence, but it is often nicer to do a complete power off before doing diagnostics.
If errors occur you should see then during post or on the LEDs on the server. As well as this you can have a summary of the diagnostics results using the 'show-post-results' command from the ok prompt.
After everything is finished and you are happy that the hardware is ok, you can set auto-boot back to true and diag-switch back to false and continue setting up your system with an OS, etc.
# 3
Hello Eric,
get a USB-to-Serial converter or PCMCIA serial-port card for your notebook.
As Stuart (stumoor) suggested, a console cable is required to diagnose or maintain Sun servers.
<b>show-post-results</b> just displays the results of the diagnostics, while messages during post are directed to the console port (or RSC/ALOM if available).
Most installations use console servers and/or access the systems via RSC/ALOM (that's a dedicated network).
Michael
maal at 2007-7-5 17:02:10 >
