Open Source Solutions

As we mentioned on receiving the Sun Fire T2000, one surprise was the need to use a terminal emulator to initialilly set-up the server through the system console port. Even more suprising was that it was still using a RJ-45 connector for the serial line, just like an old Dec VT100 terminal. Of course, we're not the only one to be so surprised.

Then the time came to plug it in. That’s where the trouble started: the machine doesn’t do any video-output at all. I know it’s not really necessary for a server box to have the latest and greatest in video acceleration hardware, but a most servers come with a MACH64 of some kind onboard so you can at least get up a text console without hassle. Not the Sun– it requires that you have a computer available with a serial connection. That’s all fine with me, I have such stuff anyway. But the serial connection for this uses an RJ-45 connector instead of the standard DB-9 one. And the only adapter I had for that didn’t seem to be the right one. Luckily I was able to fabricate my own...
-- CyBeRHQ.nl » Sun Fire T2000

You can also find more links about this in Frostyland "Sun Fire T2000 Try and Buyers".

As we said previously, this isn't new for Sun, but it is a bit of a pain if you aren't set up as a Sun-centric data center. We used the hyperterminal terminal emulator that comes with WindowsXP on a laptop, and the RS-232C serial port [DB-9 male] on the back of the laptop. We did see available Cisco Console standard RJ-45 to USB cables. That should work as well.

If you don't have soldering irons or appropriate crimp tools, building your own is also painful, as Pins 4 & 5 from the Sun need to be spliced together to go into Pin 5 [all signal ground pins] of the DB-9 connector. If you don't have the right tools, one way to do this is to simply cut the wires for both pins 4 & 5 from the RJ-45 part of the adapter, strip some insulation off of the wire for pins 4 & 5 from the RJ-45 and off one of the pins that you cut off, and twist all three together, and push the pin into the hole for pin 5 of the DB-9F.

Interpreting the pin-out was a bit dicey as well, both for the Sun system console from the manual, and for the adapter that we bought. Doug, one of the owners of Strawflower Electronics in Half Moon Bay, helped us to figure out the color coding and pins of the RJ-45 half of the adapter that we bought. Of course, the pin-out for the Sun SC port and the stanadard RS-232C determined what pin to push into what hole of the DB-9F half of the adapter.

Here's what we came up with, and it worked wonderfully well - for the entire three minutes that you actually need it before you can switch to the system console network port and use telnet over ethernet.

Click to view original size

In addition to the pin-outs on the picture, here they are in a table.

We don't show it, but when you twist Red and Green together to connect Pins 4 & 5 with Pin 5 for the signal ground, you might want to put a bit of electrical tape around the bare wire. And you may want to close up the adapter housing, or not, as you only need the thing for less than five minutes.

Don't forget to read "Powering On the System" in the Installation Guide, 819-2546-10. Get all the docs.

sc> poweron
SC Alert: Host System has Reset
sc>
sc> console –f
Enter #. to return to ALOM.

Which lead to a bunch of system messages and the ok prompt

ok show-disks
a) /pci@7c0/pci@0/pci@2/pci@0,2/LSILogic,sas@4/disk
q) NO SELECTION
Enter Selection, q to quit: q
ok
ok boot [use the value from above]

Which leads to more system messages...

and then the console login:

Now install some software and go have some fun. We're starting with mock source systems to use in our Open Source solutions for BI testing, and then the open source databases and software for the ODS, data warehouse and tools.