G'day all
I have purchased 2 big IBM H50 RS/6000 enterprise servers. I am led to believe they are running AIX 4.3.3.
Now problem is getting into remote console and turning off remote console and enabling my graphics card which i have installed. Now i was told to remove it, and try again. But i have not been able to get any serial console connection.
Can i get some advice on what i doing wrong, or how i can get these 2 big unit up and running?
Cheers
When you say big and purchased, are we talking a 7026-H50, withdrawn from marketing in 2000? Do you actually have a licence to run AIX? It may come with the server, but it would be wise to check.
You are way back level of OS and possibly firmware too - just like me, I have four H70 and an M80 running AIX 4.3.3 :o
Depending what graphics card you are trying to use, it may just be too new for the server firmware to deal with or the OS may not recognise it. You would be better using the serial console. You can buy the appropriate cable to connect a laptop if need be.
Of course, I may have misunderstood completely. You mention Remote Console, so is that via an HMC? If so, can you go to the real HMC and get the console working there? You have to enable remote console support on the HMC, but I've had lots of trouble with Java too.
Can you give more details of what you are getting/not getting and how you are attempting to do so.
Thanks, in advance,
Robin
Liverpool/Blackburn
UK
If it is the H50 from 2000, these are pre-power4 systems, so they will not run AIX 6 or higher (need POWER4 processor or higher for that).
However, to test your null modem connection, connect at 9600 baud, no parity - with the power off, but unit turned on. You should get some response - this is the systems interface. You "lose" this interface when the system powers on.
If you are not getting any response, try different speeds (e.g., 19200) - maybe someone changed the default speed.
If the system is up and running (power on) it may be that it was configured without a serial console connection active - and then it would be "dead" by definition.
There are several approaches - but just to know if the console is responding at all, I would start from power off. Less noisy too 
Hope this helps!
Thanks Michael.
Just for my own curiosity, what are some of the other ways. Also, with the serial console, do u i need a keyboard and mouse plugged into the server before i run the serial console,
Also, do you by any chance know the default ip address for the HMC as well?
Yes. IIRC it won't even run 5.2 because it was a rs6k-pc (or something such - the same as the 43P-140, which had the same problem) platform. If memory serves right the 6H1/6H0 series was introduced as a successor because of that.
The rs6k would not switch off the serial interface like the modern machines do with the HMC connections. The settings are 8,N,1 at 9600 baud (19200 was introduced with the Regatta, IIRC). You need a nullmodem-cable and a gender-changer. IBM used to sell these cables (for something like $100 apiece, LOL) ready-made, but you can easily build your own with a minimum of soldering expertise. The following pinout might help, which explains also the reason why not every cable works:
RS6000 (AIX) Console Connection Cable Wiring
No. You need either a terminal (like the once ubiquitous IBM3151), which can either emulate a "Wyse60" (recommended) or any other known terminal (be warned, though, that the standard terms like "vt100" were crappily defined in AIX - best works the Wyse60 and the ibm3151, but the latter is emulated correctly only by itself).
I hope this helps.
bakunin
Cheers Bakunin. I managed to get serial console working using putty.
Both the H50 RS/6000 are running AIX 5. Is it possible to remove AIX, and install from scratch a copy linux at all? or am will i have mass issues? Any answers would be most helpful
Great! I saw only now that i forgot to mention terminal emulators instead of physical terminals. putty will work, kermit or its clones will probably too. Anyways, you got it running, so this is only for purposes of completeness, should this question be asked again.
Yes, but perhaps not 5.2. My own pair of 43P-140s are running 5.1, because this supports the rs6k-pc architecture, but (IIRC - it has been a long time since) in 5.2 support for it were dropped. Anything after 5.1 might not work.
No, you *should* have no issues and yes, this is (should be) possible. There is a Linux for the POWER platform (PPC-architecture) and i remember having seen it running on vrious IBM systems, even at the times the H50 was a modern machine. I haven't done it myself in these days (todays pSeries have support for Linux in LPARs built-in and it is quite a common thing), so i can't tell you anything more than this - sorry for being vague.
I hope this helps.
bakunin
Cheers bakunin
Your help is awesome.
I am happy I got 2 of them, and now i know how to get them going, and get into them, it is awesome. The units are running 5.1 AIX. I will keep one as AIX. And the other one will run Linux. It is easier just to remove the SCSI drive, put another one in, and go for a fresh install of Linux? Much like you can with a x86 (32bith) and x86 64bit?
*blushes* Thank you, you're welcome.
Yes, you can do that. Be aware, though, that the integration of hardware and sofware is much higher than with PCs, which are regularly built out of a heap of nondescript components. Original IBM disks have a special firmware on board which makes them known to an AIX system instantly. Non-IBM disks show up there as "other SCSI disk", whereas IBM disks are recognized for size, queue depth, etc..
How much of this applies to Linux i don't know. I never ran Linux on that old systems. Just give it a try and if everything fails you can still put the original disks back into the case.
You might also have a look if the rootvg is mirrored. You could unmirror the rootvg then, this way freeing one of the installed disks and use this for the installation of Linux. Unlike PCs the firmware ("microcode" in IBM speak) maintains a "boot list" of devices to boot from. In fact there are 2 bootlists, one for the "service" and one for the "normal" key position. IBM systems had a key (not sure if the H50 has still one or if that device has gone virtual already on it) with 3 position: "locked", "service" and "normal". See the bosboot commands man page for more details about that. It is used to modify that bootlist and put boot sectors onto devices.
Caution: bosboot is an AIX command. If there is a similar command in PPC-Linux so that you can get back to have AIX booted i don't know.
To find out if the rootvg is mirrored (as root):
# lsvg -l rootvg
Shows a list of LVs in the rootvg. If the column for "physical partition" ("PP") shows the same number as for "logical partition" ("LP") the respective LV is not mirrored. If the number is twice (thrice) the number for "LP" it is mirrored (or doubly mirrored). If you have a mirrored rootvg you can use unmirrorvg to remove one of the mirrors and then reducevg to get the respective disk out of the rootvg.
I hope this helps.
bakunin
G'day bakunin
Sorry to keep at you about this, but you seem to have the knowledge i have forgotten about over the years.
My two H50 RS/6000 are running AIX 5.1. Am just inquiring as to where i can firmware updates for both the SMS, HMC etc. Or am i stuck?
If there are, can let me know where i can find them?
Microcode updates for current systems are downloaded via Fixdist Central, but the H50 is long out of support.
What you probably need is this page, which lists all the microcodes and service processor updates there are. As it seems the last one (from 2004) added support for AIX 5.3 so you should indeed go with this one.
I hope this helps.
bakunin
Addendum: the download page you are looking for is here.
cheers. I will give that a shot. see what happens
bakunin I'd say you were about 5 years out there, this shows 2009 code:
http://www14.software.ibm.com/webapp/set2/firmware/lgjsn?mode=1&mtm=7025-H50
HTH
gday dukessd,
cheers for the post, however, knowing the fact the IBM stopped the H50 RS/6000, why would they still do firmware?
@dukessd: good catch!
As this link suggests IBM withdrew the H50 in 2000. "End of support" was perhaps several years later, it might even have been past 2009. IBM sells professional equipment (the H50 might be old, but it was quite a big iron in its times) and part of this is that your investments are protected by support even long after it was withdrawn from market.
bakunin
g'day all,
just wondering, are there other operating systems that might work on my H50. Seems as though everytime i burn a disc, the server says, either unable to load kernel, or unable to load disc?
what other op systems can i try?
"Officially" the H50 supports AIX, nothing else. Linux might work (even though it is not supported by IBM, thats the "official" part) and maybe some BSD variant (none of which i have experience with, YOYO*) ) will do, but nothing of these is guaranteed to work. At the time the system was built and sold the open source software was perceived (by the managers) more as a nuisance which will go away if one closes the eyes hard enough.
I have seen countless web servers with critical documentation and/or services or other very useful systems sit peacefully under someones desk running some Linux. Usually, sooner or later the managers got word about this, shutting it down immediately and "migrating" the service to one of their official Windoze-IIS-blabla hosts, where it usually ran on ten times the resources with about 10% of the service still usable. In most cases, after some time passed, a scrap machine with some Linux was built under someones desk and brought to do what was really needed.
Well, i don't want to bore you with my stories of yore. You probably understand by now why for your system Linux (and other alternative OSes) are not really documented with How-Tos and/or similar documents.
I hope this helps.
bakunin
__________
*) You're On Your Own
Cheers fella.
What i may try is to see if NetBSD will load on, but if not, i might try and hunt down a copy of AIX 5L 5.1, and reinstall the whole lot. Problem i have found, is i don't have the current login details or password, so i figure, whether i get NetBSD or AIX working, i will just strat from scratch