Connect using ALOM to Sun Fire V210

I have bought from eBay a second hand Sun Fire V210 server and I'm really stumped at the lack of complete instructions on how to connect to it.

I don't have a Windows machine, I've only got Ubuntu and OS X computers. None of them have an old RS-232 port on them either.

In saying that, I have no problem going out and buying cheap Windows 98 laptop for $50 that has RS-232 port available on it if that is what I need.

So can someone tell me, and don't reply with something vague like "use hyper terminal in Windows" or "connect using terminal" because that's seriously not going to point me in any direction. I've read nearly all the manuals and guides from Sun/Oracle, but it's just not making sense and I don't want to waste money on something that doesn't fit the bill because I didn't understand the instructions.

To put it simply, I just need the basic instructions on what I need, how to connect, and from there, how I can go about installing Solaris 10 on this sytem. Once I've got Solaris 10 on there, I won't need any more help and I can be off of my way to learn some things for myself.

Thank you in advance to anyone who can save me anymore grief that I already have given myself.

PS - There is no OS on there at the moment. The HDD's have been cleared. And there is no CD/DVD drive. I need to go buy one to install the OS.

Well I could write loads on this but I'm assuming from your post that you only need pointers and you'll be off doing your own research. If you're already running Ubuntu and OS X then surely you're not a novice.

Read this thread:

and also follow the link within there. These are a couple of threads I was previously involved in. These talk about a V240 but the V210 is the same.

Yes, easiest way to install Solaris is via a DVD drive but there's nothing special about that hardware peripheral so borrow one that fits from anywhere.

Hope that helps. Post back any questions and I'll pick them up.

If you are an IT engineer do you know anyone managing CISCO switches you could steal a cable from?

Thank you for pointing me to that info. It seems to be clearing up for me a bit.

I do however have a few more questions;

#1 Can I use my MacBook with the CISCO cable, having the RS-232 end in the back of the V210 and the eth0 end of the cable in the Ethernet port of my Mac, manually set an IP and use the command

telnet 10.20.30.40:10000

or will that not work?

#2 Failing that, could I use a USB to RS-232 adapter with the CISCO cable and plug the USB into my MacBook and then use some magical command in terminal to telnet via the USB instead or will that not work?

#3 Is this image the CISCO cable that we are referring to?

If I can't use my MacBook to do this, I'm already scouring for an older crapol� laptop that I can whack WinXP on there. I tested out HyperTerminal in Parallels on OSX, and it is easy to follow, but I think because my computer doesn't have a serial port, it wouldn't give the option I needed to generate a faux connection.

Just use a USB to serial adapter... This works fine for me. You'll also need a terminal program on your mac or use the screen tool from commandline.

Answers to your questions:

No.

Yes. Put CISCO cable RJ45 end into the console/serial port on V210

Yes it is.

---------- Post updated at 01:55 PM ---------- Previous update was at 11:40 AM ----------

Forget about networking/telnet, connect the CISCO cable to the serial/console port of the V210 and put a dumb terminal on the end (think VT100). Run a terminal emulator on your MAC out through a USB to serial adapter as per DukeNuke2's post.

And for the record, it's not magic. That server may look like any 1u Dell or HP but you'd be naive to treat it like one. It may look the same on the outside, but Sun hardware isn't built like the commodity x86 servers and you can't manage it like one. You'll save yourself some agony if you approach it on it's own terms. Sun\Oracle are far from perfect, but there's always a reason for the approach they took. Sometimes the reason is profit driven and arbitrary and other times it's purely for some perceived technical superiority. But it's never magic.

OK, so I'm sorry for firing up this thread again but I'm confused to all hell.

Since I thought this was going to be a walk in the park, I went and also bought a Sun Nextra X1 while I was waiting for my 2 cables to arrive.

I bought the CISCO cable and a Serial-to-USB adapter cable and have them connected like so:

I plug the RJ-45 of the CISCO cable into the Serial MGT port on my Sun V210.

This is the picture of the port in question:

I also plugged the RJ-45 into the A LOM and the B SERIAL ports on the back of my Nextra X1.

Here is the images of those too:

I then use CoolTerm as I was instructed up above to use it to connect to my servers.

This is where I get stuck? I'm only presented with 2 options to connect to a device using CoolTerm as pictured here:

Can someone please point me, with instructions in the right direction of what to do? I'm really stuck now and my only other option is to pay someone to do this for me, but they would require the servers to be on-site and they won't explain to me what they did. I want to understand how this works, and how I do all this.

I plugged the USB cable into the Mac, and it just didn't give me an option to connect to the USB port in CoolTerm. I listed out my /dev directory and it shows up all these connections but I don't know which one I should use.

Can I please get a little bit more information to help me out here. I really want to get these servers up and running so I can start to learn a bit more.

My only other option that I can see at this point is to buy an old computer and spend more money and get Windows XP on it and use the CISCO cable with that and the HyperTerminal app. I don't really want to go down that path. I want to get these two up and running. I want to install Solaris on one, and OpenBSD on the other.

Thank you in advance!

I believe the explanations above are pretty good. You need to get a terminal program and a working serial connection to the server. I use a PC, putty and a usb to serial adapter. I have a Mac as well, but it's for personal use. If I really wanted to do it on my Mac I'd just dual boot into Windows 7 and go from there.

These things aren't easy, there's a reason why Unix Admin are well compensated.

You are on the right track but your MAC based terminal emulator is not seeing the USB to serial adapter so isn't offering you that serial connection option. (The two bluetooth options are coming from the inbuilt MAC bluetooth adapter I guess.)

I'm not a MAC expert. We need DukeNuke2 to contribute here because he said that he uses MAC terminal emulation all the time.

However, things are going in the right direction.

DukeNuke2 will see this and the previous posts so hopefully will respond.
Let's wait and see.

I guess i was lucky pickin out a working usb-to-serial adapter... I bought this one:

Sitecom - CN-104 - USB to Serial Cable 0,6m

about a year ago and it is working fine on my Mac and is also fine on my Toshiba with Solaris 11.1 installed on it.

try to run "sudo dmesg" before and after you plug in the adapter and see if it get recognized by your mac. maybe you can download software/drivers for your adapter?

sorry to intrude, does it mean that "72-3383-01 Cisco Rollover Console Cable" can be used to connect PC RS-232 to 'Serial MGT' on Sun Fire ?

thanks.

@orange47...sorry to be terse (answering via mobile).
Answer is yes.

@danijeljames......how are you getting along with your problem?

Just reading your posts again I note that the photo you posted was of the 'NET Mgt' port. You should be connecting to the 'SER Mgt' port.
Don't be confused by the fact that the port is RJ45. It is really just a RS-232 port but Sun put it on a RJ45. It's not a ethernet port.

The 'NET Mgt' port is an ethernet port and you can't use that until it's configured with ip address, etc.