psych-major
09-21-2005, 05:40 PM
Which today consisted of ordering an Opteron server on my corporate credit card (specs attached) and when it gets here I am "required" to set up a triple boot with Windows, Centos, and OpenSuSE. w00t!
Click to See Complete Forum and Search --> : I LOVE my job...
Headfuzz
09-21-2005, 06:34 PM
Dude! Sweeeeeeeeeeeet! :cool:
Exodus2001
09-21-2005, 07:02 PM
Big woopy crap. When I get to work tomarrow I'll be runing a 25-year-old CNC machine. Oh, wait...
bwkaz
09-21-2005, 07:43 PM
We finally decided to start using Linux (officially anyway) at my job today. We've had a VPN endpoint box running a modified RH 7.2 for quite some time now, but we administer it through a web interface, and don't have shell access. (Though the people at corporate do: we can download the logs through the web interface, and we see successful ssh attempts across the VPN for user "root" about once a week or so.)
But we needed another box to route between 3 or 4 different VLANs, and possibly bridge 2 of them, with firewalling capabilities for the routed paths. We've been looking into plastic router/firewall boxes, but none of them are really designed for that (most have only 2 "sides", not 3-5, and none of them can understand VLAN-tagged traffic, so we'd need about 10 physical ports to plug a ton of these plastic router/firewall boxes into).
I made some comments yesterday about how easy that setup would be in Linux -- just install some random distro on a random Dell machine, set up the NIC, install the "vlan" package to add several different tagged VLANs, set up each virtual VLAN interface (IP address, mask, etc.), run the firewall rules, and turn on /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward to do routing. We'd only need 1 switch port, because of the 8021q module, which adds support for VLAN tags.
I finally got the go-ahead to do this today, after trying a couple different brands of plastic router/firewall box. Took me an hour and a half to download Knoppix (I wanted something based on Debian, but I didn't necessarily want the whole Debian net-install learning curve, and I wanted to make sure as many things as possible were autodetected hardware wise), and maybe a half hour more to set up the VLANs and the routing once Knoppix had booted. Then I did a knoppix-install and overwrote the 2K partition (oh boy did *that* ever feel satisfying... :p), then spent another hour reconfiguring some of the installed packages. Tomorrow I do the firewall rules.
But Opterons would be even cooler... :D
But we needed another box to route between 3 or 4 different VLANs, and possibly bridge 2 of them, with firewalling capabilities for the routed paths. We've been looking into plastic router/firewall boxes, but none of them are really designed for that (most have only 2 "sides", not 3-5, and none of them can understand VLAN-tagged traffic, so we'd need about 10 physical ports to plug a ton of these plastic router/firewall boxes into).
I made some comments yesterday about how easy that setup would be in Linux -- just install some random distro on a random Dell machine, set up the NIC, install the "vlan" package to add several different tagged VLANs, set up each virtual VLAN interface (IP address, mask, etc.), run the firewall rules, and turn on /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward to do routing. We'd only need 1 switch port, because of the 8021q module, which adds support for VLAN tags.
I finally got the go-ahead to do this today, after trying a couple different brands of plastic router/firewall box. Took me an hour and a half to download Knoppix (I wanted something based on Debian, but I didn't necessarily want the whole Debian net-install learning curve, and I wanted to make sure as many things as possible were autodetected hardware wise), and maybe a half hour more to set up the VLANs and the routing once Knoppix had booted. Then I did a knoppix-install and overwrote the 2K partition (oh boy did *that* ever feel satisfying... :p), then spent another hour reconfiguring some of the installed packages. Tomorrow I do the firewall rules.
But Opterons would be even cooler... :D
cybertron
09-21-2005, 08:28 PM
I know how you feel. I had the "misfortune" (sarcasm;)) of having to install Linux on a couple of dual 2.4 Xeon blade servers. The things freakin' fly because they have 4 gig of RAM and dual 15k SCSI drives. I had the actual misfortune (not sarcasm) of having to install Windows on one too, and the thing took about 10 times as long to get set up because of the whole "no SCSI drivers, normal OS imaging floppy won't work because of that, don't have a valid activation code because you should be using the pre-activated version that the floppy downloads, etc." We're also looking to convert a number of our benchmarking clients to Linux because they can run ~3500 simulated users while the Windows ones max out at 1500. Those machines are pretty old though so it's not as fun, but I also enjoy it a lot whenever I get to overwrite a Windows partition.:)
happybunny
09-21-2005, 09:45 PM
flexing our server muscles?
8CPU 3ghz, 46 Gigs RAID 5 hot swappable RAM (you read that right), 11 GigE NIC's, 2TB storage via multiple 2Gig fibre paths. I got 6 of these...just ordered 2 more!! These run VMware ESX (RH7.2). I have just over 10 "guests" running on each of them and they don't even break a sweat!
We have 2 Itanium HP servers that stink. They had no video nor ps/2 ports by default. Very silly configuration and Oracle released service packs for their database on ALL architecures BUT Itanium.
8CPU 3ghz, 46 Gigs RAID 5 hot swappable RAM (you read that right), 11 GigE NIC's, 2TB storage via multiple 2Gig fibre paths. I got 6 of these...just ordered 2 more!! These run VMware ESX (RH7.2). I have just over 10 "guests" running on each of them and they don't even break a sweat!
We have 2 Itanium HP servers that stink. They had no video nor ps/2 ports by default. Very silly configuration and Oracle released service packs for their database on ALL architecures BUT Itanium.
cybertron
09-21-2005, 09:57 PM
That's probably because even Dell finally dropped their Itanium-based line of servers. And we all know how loyal Dell is to all things Intel. Too bad, it was a cool name too except for the unfortunate Itanic moniker. Kinda foreshadowing I guess.:)
je_fro
09-22-2005, 04:28 AM
why'd you go for a crappy MSI?
Go Tyan, baby!
Go Tyan, baby!
dkeav
09-22-2005, 04:55 AM
what jefro said, if your gonna blow the bucks on the chips dont skimp on the most important part
Parcival
09-22-2005, 05:29 AM
I know how you feel. I had the "misfortune" (sarcasm;)) of having to install Linux on a couple of dual 2.4 Xeon blade servers.
Has there been a goldrush as of late in northern Iowa? :D
Has there been a goldrush as of late in northern Iowa? :D
psych-major
09-22-2005, 11:32 AM
why'd you go for a crappy MSI?
Go Tyan, baby!
I've actually had really good luck with MSI. So until they burn me, I'll keep using their stuff.
Besides, NewEgg doesn't stock Tyan, and I needed to order all from the same place.
However, my company's virtual tape library (www.virtualtapelibrary.com) runs a heavily modded RedHat distro with a Tyan mobo and dual zeons...
We've also been putting MSI 1U servers into the field as mainframe library controllers. the price is excellent and we've yet to have a failure. (knock on wood)
8CPU 3ghz, 46 Gigs RAID 5 hot swappable RAM (you read that right), 11 GigE NIC's, 2TB storage via multiple 2Gig fibre paths. I got 6 of these...just ordered 2 more!! These run VMware ESX (RH7.2). I have just over 10 "guests" running on each of them and they don't even break a sweat!
32-bit crap! :D
Actually, what are you running for fibre-attached storage on this monster?
Also, my above-mentioned machine is literally an R&D toy, the real work gets done on our three Unisys mainframes, the newest of which is the Libra 590 (http://www.unisys.com/eprise/main/admin/corporate/doc/ClearPath_Plus_Libra_Model_590_Spec_Sheet.pdf).
The funniest part is, we drop all that money on massive computer hardware, and yet we buy our coffee in plastic buckets at Costco. Go figure!
Go Tyan, baby!
I've actually had really good luck with MSI. So until they burn me, I'll keep using their stuff.
Besides, NewEgg doesn't stock Tyan, and I needed to order all from the same place.
However, my company's virtual tape library (www.virtualtapelibrary.com) runs a heavily modded RedHat distro with a Tyan mobo and dual zeons...
We've also been putting MSI 1U servers into the field as mainframe library controllers. the price is excellent and we've yet to have a failure. (knock on wood)
8CPU 3ghz, 46 Gigs RAID 5 hot swappable RAM (you read that right), 11 GigE NIC's, 2TB storage via multiple 2Gig fibre paths. I got 6 of these...just ordered 2 more!! These run VMware ESX (RH7.2). I have just over 10 "guests" running on each of them and they don't even break a sweat!
32-bit crap! :D
Actually, what are you running for fibre-attached storage on this monster?
Also, my above-mentioned machine is literally an R&D toy, the real work gets done on our three Unisys mainframes, the newest of which is the Libra 590 (http://www.unisys.com/eprise/main/admin/corporate/doc/ClearPath_Plus_Libra_Model_590_Spec_Sheet.pdf).
The funniest part is, we drop all that money on massive computer hardware, and yet we buy our coffee in plastic buckets at Costco. Go figure!
dkeav
09-22-2005, 12:17 PM
sure newegg carries a few tyan boards, you will have to use the search feature to find them
psych-major
09-22-2005, 12:21 PM
There they are, I had to do a keyword search of the whole site, as they weren't listed under 'motherboards'. I miss the old site, their new design sucks!
cybertron
09-22-2005, 12:22 PM
Has there been a goldrush as of late in northern Iowa? :D
Heheh nope, in SE Minnesota actually. I'm interning at IBM in Rochester. We do performance testing so we have some pretty big machines. These Xeons I'm using were actually a cast-off from another department - too old and slow for them I guess :eek: . We've got a whole rack of like 24 of them minus my 3 that are just sitting there running World Community Grid. I keep trying to hint that if we threw Linux on the rest of them we could probably eliminate the hundreds of clients that they currently have down there, but so far no dice.:)
Oh yeah, and I've heard the number 320 tossed out in some meetings referring to the amount of RAM (GB) in one of our machines.:p I don't get to use that one though.:(
/pissing contest;)
Heheh nope, in SE Minnesota actually. I'm interning at IBM in Rochester. We do performance testing so we have some pretty big machines. These Xeons I'm using were actually a cast-off from another department - too old and slow for them I guess :eek: . We've got a whole rack of like 24 of them minus my 3 that are just sitting there running World Community Grid. I keep trying to hint that if we threw Linux on the rest of them we could probably eliminate the hundreds of clients that they currently have down there, but so far no dice.:)
Oh yeah, and I've heard the number 320 tossed out in some meetings referring to the amount of RAM (GB) in one of our machines.:p I don't get to use that one though.:(
/pissing contest;)
psych-major
09-26-2005, 03:55 PM
My day is looking up.
Boxes from NewEgg are making there way into my office! :D
Boxes from NewEgg are making there way into my office! :D
dkeav
09-26-2005, 04:06 PM
and the address and key code to the back door to this office are..?????
;)
;)
psych-major
09-26-2005, 05:48 PM
map (http://maps.google.com/maps?q=1+inverness+dr+e+englewood,+co+80112&spn=0.022629,0.040525&hl=en)
You'll have to figure out the lock youself... :rolleyes:
You'll have to figure out the lock youself... :rolleyes:
je_fro
09-26-2005, 05:59 PM
Hey cybertron...you know about our foldingathome team right?
Hint..hint...team 36480...hint...hint...
Hint..hint...team 36480...hint...hint...
psych-major
09-26-2005, 06:02 PM
Yes, I'll load FAH when I get it up and running...
New Avatar!
New Avatar!
je_fro
09-26-2005, 06:04 PM
psych-major...I think your map actually leads here:
http://maps.google.com/maps?oi=map&q=5880+Hwy+67+South,+Florence,+CO+81226
http://maps.google.com/maps?oi=map&q=5880+Hwy+67+South,+Florence,+CO+81226
psych-major
09-26-2005, 06:07 PM
I think their hardware is even beefier...
je_fro
09-26-2005, 06:08 PM
LOL
I'll bet!
I'll bet!
psych-major
09-26-2005, 06:12 PM
Probably more like this (http://www.dynamicsolutions.com/disk_sys_ssd.asp) or this (http://talisman.mv.com/laptop.html)!
je_fro
09-26-2005, 06:19 PM
yeah...If I get some more ram, I can probably have the equivalent to this:
http://www.orionmulti.com/products/specs_ds96
Did you end up getting a tyan board?
http://www.orionmulti.com/products/specs_ds96
Did you end up getting a tyan board?
psych-major
09-26-2005, 06:23 PM
Very nice. Excellent FAH machine...
cybertron
09-26-2005, 09:16 PM
Hey cybertron...you know about our foldingathome team right?
Hint..hint...team 36480...hint...hint...
I haven't quite worked up the guts to put Folding on any of these yet. I'm tempted, but unfortunately I don't think the mostly Windows using people I work with would understand that Linux multi-tasks better so it won't cause weird performance issues like in Windows. (Edit: that and we all work on IBM's i5/OS aka OS/400 and they're convinced that any of these puny consumer-level OS's are crap:)) Also, the bigger problem is that all of these blade servers share a single off-site network cable, so I'd have to go down to the lab and plug in each one individually to get work units. These aren't cool enough to have a blade center with a built-in switch I'm afraid.
That said, I do have one now that will have a permanent sitewide connection that's not doing much other than running some cron jobs a few times an hour to monitor the status of our servers and generate a web page. Sounds like an awfully good candidate for Folding now that I think about it...:)
Hint..hint...team 36480...hint...hint...
I haven't quite worked up the guts to put Folding on any of these yet. I'm tempted, but unfortunately I don't think the mostly Windows using people I work with would understand that Linux multi-tasks better so it won't cause weird performance issues like in Windows. (Edit: that and we all work on IBM's i5/OS aka OS/400 and they're convinced that any of these puny consumer-level OS's are crap:)) Also, the bigger problem is that all of these blade servers share a single off-site network cable, so I'd have to go down to the lab and plug in each one individually to get work units. These aren't cool enough to have a blade center with a built-in switch I'm afraid.
That said, I do have one now that will have a permanent sitewide connection that's not doing much other than running some cron jobs a few times an hour to monitor the status of our servers and generate a web page. Sounds like an awfully good candidate for Folding now that I think about it...:)
psych-major
10-27-2005, 03:33 PM
So the beast has been up and running for a while, but I was on another project and I just got back to this yesterday.
It now has three 50gig partitions, with Windows 2003 on the first and SuSE 10.0 on the second. Both are obviously the 64bit versions. The third partition is reserved for CentOS, if needed for the upcoming project that this was purchased for.
I had a really tough time installing Windows. Since it is purely a development box, we decided to use one of our MSDN versions of server 2003 for the install. The DVD has both 32 and 64bit versions, and is bootable. It also has iso images of the same versions for making a CD if necessary. I booted it, and of course had to press F6, then go back to my desk and scour the internet for the 64bit SiL driver for the SATA controller. I found it, but of course my POS Dell laptop has no floppy so I threw it in the samba share on my Slack workstation and mcopied it to a floppy. Now armed with the right driver, I tried to load it into the Windows installer, but it said the file was corrupt. WTF? Turns out that Windows was booting the 32bit version of the OS from the DVD, apparently not recognizing that the proc is a freakin' Opteron... Anyway, no big deal, I know it's a 64bit system, so I burned the appropriate iso to a CD and tried again. This time the 64bit driver loaded fine and we were off and running...
Eventually I'm prompted for the key code. I enter the MSDN volume license key that shipped with the DVD, invalid. Again, WTF? Now I'm PO'ed so I download some other helpful materials, but still no go. I end up having the programmer who's MSDN license I'm using call M$ and after 45 minutes on the phone we have a new, valid code. The rest of the Windows install was fine, with only the mild annoyance of needing to blame someone whenever I reboot.
Then on to OpenSuSE 10.0...
I booted disc 1, and YaST wanted to leave Windows and use the remaining 100gig for the install, I changed it to use just the second 50gig partition and the 1gig swap that it may eventually share with CentOS. I verified that it had booted the 64bit kernel, and it had obviously found the SATA drive ok, so I hit go and went to do something else. I came back periodically to feed it CD's, as there are 5. There were no glitches whatsoever in the install, none. After it finished and I set my networking info and turned off the firewall, it's up and running perfectly! (See attached)
Overall, the performance is amazing, at least while reading JL and checking gmail... I can't wait to get a real project going on it, like maybe FAH...
And je_fro, I stayed with the MSI board, seems to work great!
It now has three 50gig partitions, with Windows 2003 on the first and SuSE 10.0 on the second. Both are obviously the 64bit versions. The third partition is reserved for CentOS, if needed for the upcoming project that this was purchased for.
I had a really tough time installing Windows. Since it is purely a development box, we decided to use one of our MSDN versions of server 2003 for the install. The DVD has both 32 and 64bit versions, and is bootable. It also has iso images of the same versions for making a CD if necessary. I booted it, and of course had to press F6, then go back to my desk and scour the internet for the 64bit SiL driver for the SATA controller. I found it, but of course my POS Dell laptop has no floppy so I threw it in the samba share on my Slack workstation and mcopied it to a floppy. Now armed with the right driver, I tried to load it into the Windows installer, but it said the file was corrupt. WTF? Turns out that Windows was booting the 32bit version of the OS from the DVD, apparently not recognizing that the proc is a freakin' Opteron... Anyway, no big deal, I know it's a 64bit system, so I burned the appropriate iso to a CD and tried again. This time the 64bit driver loaded fine and we were off and running...
Eventually I'm prompted for the key code. I enter the MSDN volume license key that shipped with the DVD, invalid. Again, WTF? Now I'm PO'ed so I download some other helpful materials, but still no go. I end up having the programmer who's MSDN license I'm using call M$ and after 45 minutes on the phone we have a new, valid code. The rest of the Windows install was fine, with only the mild annoyance of needing to blame someone whenever I reboot.
Then on to OpenSuSE 10.0...
I booted disc 1, and YaST wanted to leave Windows and use the remaining 100gig for the install, I changed it to use just the second 50gig partition and the 1gig swap that it may eventually share with CentOS. I verified that it had booted the 64bit kernel, and it had obviously found the SATA drive ok, so I hit go and went to do something else. I came back periodically to feed it CD's, as there are 5. There were no glitches whatsoever in the install, none. After it finished and I set my networking info and turned off the firewall, it's up and running perfectly! (See attached)
Overall, the performance is amazing, at least while reading JL and checking gmail... I can't wait to get a real project going on it, like maybe FAH...
And je_fro, I stayed with the MSI board, seems to work great!
bburton
10-27-2005, 08:13 PM
flexing our server muscles?
8CPU 3ghz, 46 Gigs RAID 5 hot swappable RAM (you read that right), 11 GigE NIC's, 2TB storage via multiple 2Gig fibre paths. I got 6 of these...just ordered 2 more!! These run VMware ESX (RH7.2). I have just over 10 "guests" running on each of them and they don't even break a sweat!
We have 2 Itanium HP servers that stink. They had no video nor ps/2 ports by default. Very silly configuration and Oracle released service packs for their database on ALL architecures BUT Itanium.
Sixteen parallel 2.5Gbs fiberXtreme channels (that's 40Gbs) feeding 2TB of RAM (Solid State Recorders) acting as a buffer to the 2TB JBOD controlled by Solaris. Yummy.
8CPU 3ghz, 46 Gigs RAID 5 hot swappable RAM (you read that right), 11 GigE NIC's, 2TB storage via multiple 2Gig fibre paths. I got 6 of these...just ordered 2 more!! These run VMware ESX (RH7.2). I have just over 10 "guests" running on each of them and they don't even break a sweat!
We have 2 Itanium HP servers that stink. They had no video nor ps/2 ports by default. Very silly configuration and Oracle released service packs for their database on ALL architecures BUT Itanium.
Sixteen parallel 2.5Gbs fiberXtreme channels (that's 40Gbs) feeding 2TB of RAM (Solid State Recorders) acting as a buffer to the 2TB JBOD controlled by Solaris. Yummy.
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