NCR Unix MP-RAS v3.02.00 Install
 

Current System Configuration :

Special note : SCSI configured on IRQ 10 and 3com on IRQ 11

Now the fun stuff :

  • Insert CD and restart Server.  (Bios must allow bootable CD.  Mine does)
  • Let Server boot the CD or hit enter to start sooner.
  • The following message appears among the text passing by on screen -
  • "NCR High Availability CMOS Area Checksum Error"
  • Perform Installation
  • Interactive Installation
  • System Name : ncr
  • Enter Date
  • Insert CD in drive (already done here, this is mostly if you had to boot from floppy)
  • Press enter on message about maintenance media
  • Enter to destroy disk for new install
  • Y to reformat HD (took about 40 minutes on my SCSI3 - 2Gig drive)
  • Select Y to use 100% unix
  • Insert flex diskette and select 1
  • x to exit and run (and then remove diskette)
  • Add the following packages :
  • OSARS, VolMgr, acp, cacheopt, desktop, fastrkEX, modifdev, mpi, navigEX, osis, scd, scde, ulimusr, upgtools, vxva, xR3fonts, xcontrib, xr5ati64, xstatsup
  • 1 for Microsoft PS/2 mouse with no rebuild
  • x to save and exit (this then takes about 1 hour 30 minutes to 2 hours)
  • default X display of 640x480x8 - this can always be changed AFTER the system is installed.  Learned not to test out video ideas until after server is installed completely, otherwise you hose about 2+ hours.
  • Use XDM (640x480)

    • Disk setup parameters for my 2.1 Gig drive (note that if you make a separate partition for /opt, you dont need as large of a root partition) :

    / of 200 Mb
    /var of 200 Mb
    /opt (slice 8) of 150 Mb
    /usr of 300 Mb
    All others remain default
    Insert Maintenance CD.

    The system will then reboot.
    Starts up and I am seeing a problem with Volume Manager.  I have yet to resolve this one, although I have not yet given it any attention.
    Spawns tcpconfig to setup network.  I chose the following parameters :
     

    I was having TREMENDOUS problems with my disk.  I found out that there was a bad spot that I could do nothing about, and couldnt even low level format it.  The company who sold it to me replaced it and then we got going again, all over again that is.

    I also had many problems with the network on the NCR box.  It would not recognize my 3com card.  I played around with the bios, turning on and off the plug and play, and setting certain IRQ's that I heard it had to have, like 9.  This would not work, no matter what I tried.  Granted I only gave it about 2 hours before quitting.  You do have to pick a point that you accept it to be impossible you know.  I then tried my Intel Pro 10+ card.  The same applies that happened to the 3com. About 2 hours later I quit.  Then I decided to go check what patches NCR was offering for network cards, with the thought being they would only patch supported cards, and since I cant find any hardware compatibility list, this would have to do.  Well let me tell you it did.  I found that the SMC 9334BDT card works well.  I also found out AFTER ordering it, that it is a dual interface card, very nice.  All for 99 bucks.  Not too bad.  Anyway, this allowed me to now configure an interface, and all is now good.  You can check my status page (link from the prior page) to see if it is still up.

    Another thing. I am stuck with one 2.1 gig drive. Partitions are limited, and so is space.  After adding my other 32 Meg DIMM, now giving a total of 96 Meg, I am recieving messages about not enough Dump and Swap space. That is easy enough to fix, however, I have to use new partitions, one for each. I was already at about the limit. After now using those two, I have no available partitions left. So I recommend having all your memory in place durring install, or plan for full memory size when slicing the disk in the first place. I will very likely reinstall, because it makes for more good practice. 

    Yet another thing. I had to configure the Xserver separately because it didnt seem to work out when setting up on install. To do so, go to the /usr/bin/X11 directory and run xservconfig. I chose to use (R5)640x480x4 with virtual resolution of 640x480. This seemed to do the trick.

    I also had to setup the dumpspace because it wasnt taking in startup. It WAS configured in /etc/dumpnodes, but isnt being used. I created a file in /etc/rc2.d, called S99sysdump, but think its too late in the start up order, so I may move it up to the 80's.

    Modify /etc/default/login to comment out line about CONSOLE.

    Slice up disk a little further, by adding a slice (c) for 614400 blocks (300 Mb) starting at sector 2381864. Then we have to temporarily move current /usr/local to /usr/local.hold. This is currently only holding netscape, but we will move it over after mounting new fs. Of, course using sysadm, we must build the fs first. I used vxfs and defaults of 1024 block size, 81920 files. Also setup a partition of 1024000 blocks for /temp-ftp, and the remaining space for /home.

    Copy the netscape back into new /usr/local filesystem, using :

  • cd /usr/local.hold
  • find netscape -print | cpio -pdvm /usr/local

    Run netscape after copying directory from /usr/local.hold to /usr/local. Setup proxy for http and ftp as 207.86.37.2 port 8000.

    Get, off the tape from dryrunbk, the entire distribution of /var/adm and /usr/local. This brings samba, big brother, and some other utilities, like xdir. Also get the Install directory, so we now have tcl, and perl. There needs to be two links created for wish8.0 and wish in the /usr/bin directory, to the /usr/local/bin/wishes. Dont forget to setup the /etc/rc3.d startups for bb and samba.

    Had to edit the bb-hosts file, to include current hosts. Just took it from the comet server, which serves as the display server anyway.

    Had to edit the /usr/local/samba/lib/smb.conf file to setup the correct parameters. I am trying to use the security = server idea, and using the ntserver for my password server. Also modify any shares. Lastly add the "server string" line below the line saying comment, and use same value. This seems to be newer syntax for old idea.

    Had to set ulimit to unlimited in /etc/profile.

    And ALWAYS make a backup.

    Install netscape fasttrack server, by :

  • Make sure that netscape will run before beginning load of the server.
  • cd /opt/net/internet/fasttrack_ex
  • Verify that the server and tar file(s) are here.
  • cd httpd
  • ./ns-setup
  • Use /usr/local/netscape for the server root (answer yes to use it for the "already exists message")
  • Answer yes to configure a new server now.
  • Accept the default server.domain name of ncr.getthru.com
  • Use 1615 for the server port (comet systems use 615, and netscape recommends > 1024)
  • Run the admin server as root.
  • Access username of admin is fine.
  • I use the same password as the root account, but that is just me.
  • Allowed hosts are *.getthru.com
  • Allowed IP's are (default)
  • Hit return for navigator to launch
  • In another window, create group nogroup as next group number
  • In another window, create user nobody, as the next 100 series user number, with shell of /bin/false and home directory of /home/nobody, and finally leave the password as locked.
  • In the netscape window, just say ok to defaults.
  • Create a link using : ln -s /usr/local/etc/httpd/htdocs /usr/local/netscape/docs/dryrunbk
  • Finally, click on "Start your new server" link.

    Today (06-28-2000), I decided to fire up the NCR server and do some prodding around. It has been a while since I used it, and wanted to configure the other interface on the dual homed card. It took me a good ten minutes to remember how to do this on an NCR box. I admit that currently, I like this feature better on Solaris, because there is no loss of service on the running interfaces.

    What I did, was to edit (after making a backup copy of course), the /etc/inet/sdf file, to include a new stanza for the other interface. I simply copied the first "ethernet0" entry and created an "ethernet1" entry. I changed the "en1" to an "en2" and changed the host name and IP, otherwise it was pretty easy.

    Last but not least was to perform the "/etc/rc2.d/S60inet stop" and "/etc/rc2.d/S60inet start" function, which effectively restart the networking on the server. I need to investigate if I can restart just the one interface like Solaris can, although the man page says 'ifconfig' can only be used for this at boot time. Just make sure you are on the console or a serial terminal when you perform the stop/start procedure.

    For the dns feature to work, which I had not used before, I changed the "nametranslate" variable from /usr/lib/tcpip.so to /usr/lib/resolv.so.

    The old entry looked like this : 

    ##
## Initialized a new SDF file: Wed Jul 29 21:35:20 EDT 1998
##
[STREAMware-TCP]
# -- WARNING --
# DO NOT MODIFY THE "SYSTEMIFNAME" LINES BELOW. DATA CONTAINED ON IT MAY 
# ALSO BE CONTAINED IN SOME OTHER STANZAS - IT MUST REMAIN CONSISTENT. 

ethernet0:
        SYSTEMIFNAME    = en1
        HOST            = ncr   ncr.getthru.com
        IP              = 207.86.37.8
        NET             = ncr_net
        SUBNET          = 255.255.255.0
        FORMAT          = ethernet
        MANAGED         = yes

snmp:
        VERSION         = 1
        ENABLED         = yes
        AUTHENTICATE    = yes
        SYSDESC         = STREAMware TCP Release 6.0.0 for MP-RAS
        SYSCONTACT      = Local System Administrator
        SYSLOCATION     = Local Computer Center
        COMMUNITY       = admin  127.0.0.1 read-write
        COMMUNITY       = public  0.0.0.0 read-only
        COMMUNITY       = local  127.0.0.1 traps

dns:
        DNSTYPE         = none

nametranslate:
        LIBRARY         = /usr/lib/tcpip.so

routing:
        DEFAULT =  ntserver             IPADDRESS = 207.86.37.2

ipforwarding:
        FWDENABLED              = yes

    The new entry looks like this : 

    ##
## Initialized a new SDF file: Wed Jul 29 21:35:20 EDT 1998
##
[STREAMware-TCP]
# -- WARNING --
# DO NOT MODIFY THE "SYSTEMIFNAME" LINES BELOW. DATA CONTAINED ON IT MAY 
# ALSO BE CONTAINED IN SOME OTHER STANZAS - IT MUST REMAIN CONSISTENT. 

ethernet0:
        SYSTEMIFNAME    = en1
        HOST            = ncr   ncr.getthru.com
        IP              = 207.86.37.8
        NET             = ncr_net
        SUBNET          = 255.255.255.0
        FORMAT          = ethernet
        MANAGED         = yes

ethernet1:
        SYSTEMIFNAME    = en2
        HOST            = ncr100        ncr100.getthru.com
        IP              = 207.86.37.88
        NET             = ncr100_net
        SUBNET          = 255.255.255.0
        FORMAT          = ethernet
        MANAGED         = yes

snmp:
        VERSION         = 1
        ENABLED         = yes
        AUTHENTICATE    = yes
        SYSDESC         = STREAMware TCP Release 6.0.0 for MP-RAS
        SYSCONTACT      = Local System Administrator
        SYSLOCATION     = Local Computer Center
        COMMUNITY       = admin  127.0.0.1 read-write
        COMMUNITY       = public  0.0.0.0 read-only
        COMMUNITY       = local  127.0.0.1 traps

dns:
        DNSTYPE         = none

nametranslate:
        LIBRARY         = /usr/lib/resolv.so

routing:
        DEFAULT =  ntserver             IPADDRESS = 207.86.37.2

ipforwarding:
        FWDENABLED              = yes