1. Report
- Arrived 15:30 or so. rkd met colo staff and got access card and key for cabinet.
- Colo staff had already opened our server and cabinet, and were checking it for rackability
- They knew that these rails had some flanges on them which were too wide for the racks. They had the tools (mainly a file) needed to file off the flange so that it would fit.
- The staff there helped with all aspects of the racking - I really didn't do that much besides try to help him when I could. This is much more than I was expecting.
- The staff also helped adjust the vertical rail supports, since they were too long to fit these rails. This involved lots of wrenches and things.
- Also, we had to remove the lock attachment point in order for fritz to be able to slide in (fritz is barely too wide). This involved a screwdriver, and wasn't too hard. But, there are nuts on the back of the screws, and if you aren't careful they will fall and get lost - bad!
- I cabled the machine myself
- fritz has two power supplies/cords. Plugged into the main cabinet supply, not our separate power strip.
- Pictures of the various ports on the back or on the site visit thing.
- Debian install:
- Went well except that I custom made my bootable drive. I had to download an iso image at the datacenter and put it on the drive, and it worked fine.
- For some reason we had to use the nameserver 8.8.8.8
- Drive installation
Not so well. We need rails for them. There is a picture here showing what is needed, I don't know exactly the name/type.
- Cabinet status
- It's a rat's nest. It requires the pressure of the door to keep it all in. This isn't intrinsically bad, we only have to mess with it occasionally so it's not a huge deal, but we could try organizing if we got the chance.
- I left the two TB drives, the screwdriver, and other random things in there.
- Server box and manuals
- rkd brought it home with them.
- There is a cable holder/organizer and not much else besides the various manuals and things.
- I also brought home the extra rails from krunk - they are very bare bones, see site visit pictures for what they look like.
- Departed around 19:45
Rack space map:
10 |
KVM |
9 |
KVM lower lip - unusable space as it is set up. |
8 |
krunk (decommissioned, just lying here) |
7 |
fritz |
6 |
fritz |
5 |
hopper (U3-5 are misaligned, and thus we are losing 1U of space. This will need to be corrected someday.) |
4 |
mire/hopper |
3 |
mire |
2 |
deleuze |
1 |
deleuze |
I think that mire/hopper could be scooted down by one knotch without having to power them off. That would align them properly and free up 1U of space. Alternatively, we could move mire down where it belongs, and then power down hopper, and move it up to where krunk is and free up 2U of space(U4-5). One of these should be a
1.1. Report
All tasks done, left to do:
- Insert disks 2x 1 TB WD disks (waiting in our cabinet) into Dell server (missing drive brackets)
- Recable the whole thing? (too many too dense wires at the back)
Attach KVM or serial things onto fritz. Right now there is no remote access mechanism. There is a PS/2->USB adapter in the cabinet, so all we need are VGA+PS2/KVM cables like we have for the other servers. The KVM has plenty of channels, it seems like 8.
- Power cycle the kvm/ipkvm - it was left in an unusable state.
1.2. Photos
http://hcoop.net/~hcoop/rkd-etc/hcoop/imgs-2010-01-05/
2. Software installation
- With USB stick (Debian stable/lenny AMD64)
Have non-free Debian package "firmware-bnx2" on the USB stick to recognize the network card in the server (http://packages.debian.org/sid/all/firmware-bnx2/download) (note: if you need firmware for network drivers, put an .iso on the drive if you have a minimal initrd/vmlinuz drive)
- Manual network configuration
Hostname: winner from member poll https://members.hcoop.net/portal/poll?id=31. (Note: when asked for the hostname, type just the hostname without domain name)
- IP Address: 69.90.123.75
Partitioning: see SetupNewMachines
2.1. Questions
Does the Dell server come with 6 drawers for disks (where disks can be inserted), or it comes with placeholders only and we need to get the drawers? No, drawers are needed separately
Any way to hook up the new server to our KVM/IPKVM? Do we have enough ports or a way to do this? (I believe yes, because IPKVM has 4 channels and IIRC at least one currently has no signal, meaning it is free?) No, we need VGA+PS2 cables. Or use a serial cable.
What to do with Krunk? We'd like to get rid of it, but as the network port tends to timeout and shut down from time to time, we can't say it's a reliable system. Do we want to put it up on Ebay or Craigslist anyway, or we just give it to any of our members who wants to pick it up and/or pay for delivery? It's just left there, disconnected and unplugged