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Hi,

I have several V240 machines that I need to get working. There are 4
total, and only 2 of them have DVD drives installed, so I am thinking
that I can do the Solaris installation on the 1st two, then remove the
DVD drives from those and move them to the other two machines.

The first question that I have is how do I remove the drive?

There are two metal tabs on top, and I was assuming that I could just
press "down" on them and then pull the drive out simultaneously, but it
seemed that the drive still wouldn't budge, and I didn't want to force
things.

The Sun admin manual says to "unclip the drive", but it's not really
clear what "unclip" means.

If anyone here is familiar with the V240, can you tell me what the
proper way is to remove the DVD drive?

Also, when I move the DVD drive to the other machine, will it
automatically find the DVD drive, or do I have to do something like a
"boot -r"?

Thanks,
Jim

ohaya wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I have several V240 machines that I need to get working. There are 4
> total, and only 2 of them have DVD drives installed, so I am thinking
> that I can do the Solaris installation on the 1st two, then remove the
> DVD drives from those and move them to the other two machines.
>
> The first question that I have is how do I remove the drive?
>
> There are two metal tabs on top, and I was assuming that I could just
> press "down" on them and then pull the drive out simultaneously, but it
> seemed that the drive still wouldn't budge, and I didn't want to force
> things.

Push down on the clips, then pull away from the 240. Its hard the first
time.

> Also, when I move the DVD drive to the other machine, will it
> automatically find the DVD drive, or do I have to do something like a
> "boot -r"?

I insert at power-off, which is how they say you are to remove it as
well, but it does hot-remove ok (no guarantee). I then boot and it
recognizes it with Sol 8, 9, 10.

HTH.
--
J

HI,

ohaya wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I have several V240 machines that I need to get working. There are 4
> total, and only 2 of them have DVD drives installed, so I am thinking
> that I can do the Solaris installation on the 1st two, then remove the
> DVD drives from those and move them to the other two machines.
>
> The first question that I have is how do I remove the drive?
>
> There are two metal tabs on top, and I was assuming that I could just
> press "down" on them and then pull the drive out simultaneously, but it
> seemed that the drive still wouldn't budge, and I didn't want to force
> things.
>
> The Sun admin manual says to "unclip the drive", but it's not really
> clear what "unclip" means.
>
> If anyone here is familiar with the V240, can you tell me what the
> proper way is to remove the DVD drive?
>
> Also, when I move the DVD drive to the other machine, will it
> automatically find the DVD drive, or do I have to do something like a
> "boot -r"?
>
> Thanks,
> Jim

Not a answer to your question but maybe a answer to your problem.

Why don't you setup one Sparc as boot server and do a net boot, much nicer.

Also experience tells that things that are untouched works better that
those systems that are fiddled with in mechanical way!

So just copy the install CD's to a Sparc server of anysize aslong at it
has ~3GB of diskspace to spare and then you can install all 4 at the
same time!

surf to http://www.bigadmin.com and search for "cd-free".



/michael

Michael Laajanen wrote:
>
> HI,
>
> ohaya wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > I have several V240 machines that I need to get working. There are 4
> > total, and only 2 of them have DVD drives installed, so I am thinking
> > that I can do the Solaris installation on the 1st two, then remove the
> > DVD drives from those and move them to the other two machines.
> >
> > The first question that I have is how do I remove the drive?
> >
> > There are two metal tabs on top, and I was assuming that I could just
> > press "down" on them and then pull the drive out simultaneously, but it
> > seemed that the drive still wouldn't budge, and I didn't want to force
> > things.
> >
> > The Sun admin manual says to "unclip the drive", but it's not really
> > clear what "unclip" means.
> >
> > If anyone here is familiar with the V240, can you tell me what the
> > proper way is to remove the DVD drive?
> >
> > Also, when I move the DVD drive to the other machine, will it
> > automatically find the DVD drive, or do I have to do something like a
> > "boot -r"?
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Jim
>
> Not a answer to your question but maybe a answer to your problem.
>
> Why don't you setup one Sparc as boot server and do a net boot, much nicer.
>
> Also experience tells that things that are untouched works better that
> those systems that are fiddled with in mechanical way!
>
> So just copy the install CD's to a Sparc server of anysize aslong at it
> has ~3GB of diskspace to spare and then you can install all 4 at the
> same time!
>
> surf to http://www.bigadmin.com and search for "cd-free".
>


Michael,

FYI, I had started trying to setup a Solaris install server this
afternoon (and saw your post after I got home), and got it working. It
(net boot) is really cool!

I also was able to pull the DVD drive. As Jason suggested in his post,
I pushed down on both tabs, and pulled with a little more effort this
time, and the drive popped right out.

Jim

> > Not a answer to your question but maybe a answer to your problem.
> >
> > Why don't you setup one Sparc as boot server and do a net boot, much nicer.
> >
> > Also experience tells that things that are untouched works better that
> > those systems that are fiddled with in mechanical way!
> >
> > So just copy the install CD's to a Sparc server of anysize aslong at it
> > has ~3GB of diskspace to spare and then you can install all 4 at the
> > same time!
> >
> > surf to http://www.bigadmin.com and search for "cd-free".
> >
>
> Michael,
>
> FYI, I had started trying to setup a Solaris install server this
> afternoon (and saw your post after I got home), and got it working. It
> (net boot) is really cool!
>
> I also was able to pull the DVD drive. As Jason suggested in his post,
> I pushed down on both tabs, and pulled with a little more effort this
> time, and the drive popped right out.


Hi,

For the record, here's a link to the basic procedure that I followed to
get the network boot/installation working:

http://www.sunhelpdesk.com/node/26

The procedure was pretty accurate, except in my case, I have a Solaris 9
DVD (as opposed to a set of Solaris 9 CDs), so I just needed to do the
setup_install_server, and did not need the add_to_install_server.

Also, in my case, I have a 2nd drive on the install server, which I have
configured as "/disk1", so I put the Solaris image files on
"/disk1/Solaris9".

The only other thing that I had to figure out was how to get the
ethernet/MAC address of the to-be-installed servers. I ended up doing a
"banner" in OBP at the "ok" prompt, which showed the MAC address and
used that for each of the V240s.

As mentioned above, this all worked quite nicely.

In fact, since the other machines I have on this test network are Sun
Blade 150s and SF280Rs, they are all in the same Platform Group (sun4u),
so I can do all of my future installations off of that install server
from now on!!

One question though:

Most of these machines (the V240s and the 280Rs) are headless, so I have
to tip into them to do the "boot net". Once I get past all of the
installation questions, etc., and while the installation is still in
progress, can I unplug the serial cable and move it to another machine?

I'm wondering if doing that will cause the in-progress installation to
abort because the serial connection is gone?

Thanks again,
Jim

HI,

ohaya wrote:
>>>Not a answer to your question but maybe a answer to your problem.
>
> The only other thing that I had to figure out was how to get the
> ethernet/MAC address of the to-be-installed servers. I ended up doing a
> "banner" in OBP at the "ok" prompt, which showed the MAC address and
> used that for each of the V240s.
>
Hmm I don't get what you mean with that, you have the MAC id in the
openboot header or what do you mean?

> As mentioned above, this all worked quite nicely.
Yes.

I myself have a problem netbooting since installed S10 but I have not
had time to debug it for a week or so (:

>
> In fact, since the other machines I have on this test network are Sun
> Blade 150s and SF280Rs, they are all in the same Platform Group (sun4u),
> so I can do all of my future installations off of that install server
> from now on!!
>
Great
> One question though:
>
> Most of these machines (the V240s and the 280Rs) are headless, so I have
> to tip into them to do the "boot net". Once I get past all of the
> installation questions, etc., and while the installation is still in
> progress, can I unplug the serial cable and move it to another machine?
>
> I'm wondering if doing that will cause the in-progress installation to
> abort because the serial connection is gone?
>
> Thanks again,
> Jim
Well I have enough selfconfidence to say that I am very unsure of RS232
every time I need to connect anything

But if you have diabled CTS/RTS or whatever the signals are named it
should not be any problem.

The next thing you could do is to install a jumpstart server making the
install automatically or do a flash install.


/michael


PS the name RS232 is from "connect 2 to 3 or 3 to 2" DS

ohaya <ohaya@cox.net> wrote:
> One question though:

> Most of these machines (the V240s and the 280Rs) are headless, so I have
> to tip into them to do the "boot net". Once I get past all of the
> installation questions, etc., and while the installation is still in
> progress, can I unplug the serial cable and move it to another
> machine?

In general, yes.

> I'm wondering if doing that will cause the in-progress installation to
> abort because the serial connection is gone?

Nope. Not unless you've done something non-standard. I move serial
lines during installs like this a lot.

Note that if you have auto-reboot on, when you come back it may be at a
prompt asking you to enter the new root password (depending on your
finish scripts and other settings, of course). That can be a bit
confusing due to the lack of response to many keypresses.

--
Darren Dunham ddunham@taos.com
Senior Technical Consultant TAOS http://www.taos.com/
Got some Dr Pepper? San Francisco, CA bay area
< This line left intentionally blank to confuse you. >

HI,

ohaya wrote:
>>>Not a answer to your question but maybe a answer to your problem.
>>>
<snip>

> Most of these machines (the V240s and the 280Rs) are headless, so I have
> to tip into them to do the "boot net". Once I get past all of the
> installation questions, etc., and while the installation is still in
> progress, can I unplug the serial cable and move it to another machine?
>
> I'm wondering if doing that will cause the in-progress installation to
> abort because the serial connection is gone?
>
> Thanks again,
> Jim
Ops I forgot to warn you for one thing.

Always make sure that you have grounded the machines properly this is
especially important if you supply them from different phases.

So having a ground strap connected(between the two machines) before you
insert the serial signal is a very good step in making sure that
nothings breaks!

/michael

Michael,

Comments interspersed....

Jim



Michael Laajanen wrote:
>
> HI,
>
> ohaya wrote:
> >>>Not a answer to your question but maybe a answer to your problem.
> >
> > The only other thing that I had to figure out was how to get the
> > ethernet/MAC address of the to-be-installed servers. I ended up doing a
> > "banner" in OBP at the "ok" prompt, which showed the MAC address and
> > used that for each of the V240s.
> >
> Hmm I don't get what you mean with that, you have the MAC id in the
> openboot header or what do you mean?

I didn't notice the MAC address when I went into OBP, but I'll check
again. It may have been because I already had the machine powered up
before I plugged the serial cable in...



> The next thing you could do is to install a jumpstart server making the
> install automatically or do a flash install.

I forgot to mention, but I'm already doing that . That's what got
this whole thing started, i.e., I was booting with the Solaris DVD, so
that I could do the Flash installation (using FTP, in my case). Now
that I got the net boot working, I do the net boot, get through the
configuration dialog, point the installer to the server where I have FTP
running with my FLAR files, and ... DONE !!!

Thanks again, Michael...

Jim

Michael Laajanen wrote:
>
> HI,
>
> ohaya wrote:
> >>>Not a answer to your question but maybe a answer to your problem.
> >>>
> <snip>
>
> > Most of these machines (the V240s and the 280Rs) are headless, so I have
> > to tip into them to do the "boot net". Once I get past all of the
> > installation questions, etc., and while the installation is still in
> > progress, can I unplug the serial cable and move it to another machine?
> >
> > I'm wondering if doing that will cause the in-progress installation to
> > abort because the serial connection is gone?
> >
> > Thanks again,
> > Jim
> Ops I forgot to warn you for one thing.
>
> Always make sure that you have grounded the machines properly this is
> especially important if you supply them from different phases.
>
> So having a ground strap connected(between the two machines) before you
> insert the serial signal is a very good step in making sure that
> nothings breaks!


All of the machines are racked, except we have a couple of SB150s that
we use to tip or SSH into the headless servers. I'll have to see about
grounding those (the SB150s). I'm assuming grounding them to the rack
would be sufficient?

Jim