Consultant needed to Convert SCO-Unix to a VM

UNIX SCO
1

Hi There,

we have made a byte-by-byte image with linux and dd of the harddisks of an SCO Open Server. When booting this image in vmware or kvm it starts booting SCO but then the system cannot recognize the expected Adaptec SCSI Driver.
We need an SCO expert who can boot an SCO Openserver CD (we have one) and add drivers for disk and network from there to the Installation.
The target of the project is that these images are running under vmware like they did before on a physical Hardware.
There are 2 Disk Images, each has 4 Gigabyte in size but they can be compressed.

Is anybody out here interested in doing this work ?

2

What release of SCO and patch level?
Download and run this tool from SCO, The SCO Group, Inc. | Support | Support Services

3

Hmm,

I cannot see the exact version because the machine is at a customers site. I also dont want to install anything on it.

To the best of my knowledge it is a SCO Unixware and a Version of 5.0.something

4

SCO OpenServer 5 will run on VirtualBox.

Your problem is going to be the Adaptec SCSI Driver. As far as I am aware, VirtualBox does not support any SCO Adaptec SCSI drivers or any of other SCO SCSI drivers.

5

Yes, I know.

So I need some SCO Freak to generate some boot cd and to enter some boot btld bla ... stuff on the boot prompt to bring the system up. Afterwards I think there is some mkdev hd magic and same ./link_unix stuff to be done.

Maybe we can use ide or lsi emulation or something else. I dont care if the resulting image is vmware or kvm/qemu

I have done this many times 15 years ago but I forgot all this magic.

We are willing to spend some 100 bucks if anybody is willing to get this running for us.

6

What version of openserver? Did a 5.0.4 hw -> vm last week.
Burn-in testing so far:
VMWare Workstation 8: solid, VMware player should work too.
QEMU-KVM: unsolved net performance... works but quickly degrades. looks like a driver-bridging issue
VirtualBox: on the bench right now.

7

I have the following version

Would you be able to virtualize it ? Can you estimate the cost ?

uname -X

System = UNIX_Sys
Node = unix
Release = 4.2MP
KernelID = 98/04/27
Machine = i386at
BusType = ISA
Serial =
Users =
OEM# = 0
Origin# = 1
NumCPU = 1

8

This looks like SCO Unixware 2.1.x (circa 1995) on an Intel 80386 platform. What's the make and model of the computer?

9

It is a No name self built PC with some ASUS Mainboard.

Anyone willing to bid for the vm-migration ?

10

I actually meant the make and model of the original computer.

Do you have an original SCO unix release kit to match the original computer? Is it on a medium which you can boot from on your modern computer? Just wondering if it is possible to cold install the O/S from original media and convince it that it only has IDE drives.
If the original O/S is what I think it is, the original media might be Exabyte tape.

If this is about porting and application have all avenues been explored for porting the data to a modern application?

11

this could be done, driver etc etc.. where u from

if the problem still persist, message me.