IBM

It turns out that just next floor there was a nice PowerPC server (and InfoWindow term) that belonged to our department (but it was long forgotten).
I got it, trying to take ownership on it, and have some questions:

How do you open it?
What graphics can it take, it apparently has a graphic card, but will not boot when it's inserted
What was the last AIX that supported it?
Bear in mind, that I'm actually a newbie to AIX/PPC/MCA

I believe you need the key to open a C10 case.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RS/6000#Type_7009

AIX 3.2.5 - 5.1

AIX 5.1 was the last to support MCA.

Do yourself a favor and run 4.3.3. AIX v5.1 is very slow on the older, lower memory hardware. AIX v3 is very odd. Throughout the v4 series IBM made is much more friendly, though 4.3.3 is the easiest to find software for and the most friendly.

Don't mess with the Java admin tools, either. Go SMIT all the way (until you learn enough about AIX to do it on your own, though even IBM doesn't recommend that).

I might have some RS/6000 parts for MCA era machines.
$5 plus shipping.

Regan

OK, opened it, pulled the graphics out of it, will see if it finishes booting, for now no serial console and stops at 517

How long did you wait...? I've had RS/6000 stop at the same check code for what seemed like for ever but it was "normal" for that particular machine... I was doing device driver work on one RS/6000 and it had a 12 minute boot cycle. Even more modern machines stop in the same check code for several minutes..


....debugging by moving the panic() and reading the dump was tedious...

for now, just doing reboot cycles, but will wait - there's an update however: it nicely spit "PROBLEM DETECTED" with BNC connection

Update 2:OK. I suspect now it had some NFS shares that it's unable to mount now, unfortunately I can't get a proper serial console (help appreciated), and the graphics it has installed doesn't show anything (looks like it does at least start booting, because there's a serious disk activity after SCSI being checked).

The term you want is "AIX IPL progress codes"

http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/powersys/v3r1m5/index.jsp?topic=/ipha6_p5/diag1.htm

Yes, that's the first thing I got. The trouble is, without any interaction with AIX there's no telling why does it stop there.

You need to boot into single-user mode and hack the /etc/vfs or equivalent. So it's serial console time, you may need to boot from CD.

RS/6000 and pSeries (or “System p,” as they seem to be called nowadays) systems, even the more recent POWER4, POWER5 and above systems, tend to take forever to boot up (with all the diagnostics and so on), but once they're booted they're all good and well and hopefully don't require being rebooted.

Shall I write that again or you'll notice?

What does a "non proper serial console look like"? Anything from any serial port? You may have to press "1" or "2" at the serial console keyboard during critical times in the boot for it to switch to it.

IME only booting the installation media allows you to select a console at boot time, in that way. If you want to change it on a running system, you have to log in as root and run 'chcons'.

Sounds like time for the manual.

If it's getting to 517 I think it must have selected something as a console.

As others suspected, the machine doesn't let me log in from console, only hardware warnings are displayed (BNC token ring not connected), otherwise the machine boots, but is inaccessible and just halts with 517. Looks like I'll need to consult higher power (it has support contract)

I've never seen token ring on BNC.

Beats me, that what it says.

If you only see boot messages but no login on serial, it means either the machine isn't running getty on that serial line or it doesn't like your console cable. You need a fully wired laplink cable for it to be happy.

A workaround is to put the box into service mode, boot from an AIX CD, and go through the menus to get a maintenance shell on the box. Launch 'smit', configure the network adapter, set it for 'now and reboot', and reboot. Now, you should be able to telnet/rlogin in and continue on with setup.

Edit:
Added to my pages here for future reference: http://ps-2.kev009.com:8081/rs6000/serialconsole.html