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So two spanky 48TB Sun Fire x4500 "Thumpers" have arrived, and after finding a hydraulic trolley we mounted them in the bay. Booted the first one up, and ran through the first-time installation. Now I'm no Solaris expert, but I'm open minded enough to give it a go.

It then asked me which network port was my main one -- e1000g0, e1000g1, ... to e1000g4. That's really useful. I took an educated guess and got it right.

* Why isn't there a seperate console so I can do a prtdiag and try to figure out which of the network ports has the cable installed on.

A few more network settings, set the root password, reboot, and we're all happy, although it's a bit strange that it's not asked me to create a non-root user yet.

BIOS flashes through, and my ping starts working, and everything is hunky dory. Until it gets to the front page. There's a fucking GUI isntalled by default on a fucking file server! What fucking Sun twat decided that would be a clever idea. I appreciate I can install Solaris without the gui, but whoever decided that a 170lb 4U £30K box that's packed with so many fans that you can't hear the phone ring, would make a good desktop. I assume that's the only reason Staroffice is installed on the thing. Perhaps it was a managerial idiot that had worked elsewhere?

Of course the default refresh rate of 85Hz threw our networked KVM out of whack, probably a problem with the KVM, but we don't use it much, and it works with every other box (Windows and Linux). I eventually manage to get it to take a Ctrl-Alt-Backspace, and the console appears.

Attempt to log in as root, but no --
ttymon cannot allocate controlling tty on "/dev/console"

So I try sshing in to the box, but I can't connect as root. That's fair enough for default security (if it had offered the option to create a new user by this point). At least it would be fair enough if you didn't have the following ports enabled by default:

21/tcp open ftp
22/tcp open ssh
23/tcp open telnet
25/tcp open smtp
79/tcp open finger
111/tcp open rpcbind
513/tcp open login
514/tcp open shell
587/tcp open submission
4045/tcp open lockd
6000/tcp open X11
6112/tcp open dtspc
7100/tcp open font-service
32771/tcp open sometimes-rpc5
32774/tcp open sometimes-rpc11
32775/tcp open sometimes-rpc13
32776/tcp open sometimes-rpc15
32777/tcp open sometimes-rpc17
32778/tcp open sometimes-rpc19
32779/tcp open sometimes-rpc21
32780/tcp open sometimes-rpc23

Now perhaps I'm just used to the superior "nothing installed until I say so" method that real OSes use.

Now I know there's an RSC I can use, if I had a network to plug it into, but this is supposed to be a quick boot and go. I can splat Ubuntu on an HP320S with 12TB of storage and be good to go, fully patched, and secure as possible, in less than an hour. This is going to take a lot longer. Perhaps that idiot manager is actually a saboteur from somewhere, trying to reduce UNIX to the level of other "operating" systems.

ZFS is really nice, but is the hastle of Solaris really worth it? I may try Opensolaris on the other box.

So, a 10 minute walk back down to the apps room, and then - having created a new user - I log on to this very expensive server via SSH, and I'm greeted with some fucking advertising!

Have Sun been taking tips from Dell or PC World?


Welcome to the Sun Java Enterprise System 5!

For your convenience, this server has come equipped with components from the Java Enterprise System, the new infrastructure software consolidation. This system is available for a 90-day evaluation and is also deployment ready. It includes the following network services:

- Portal Services
- Network Identity Services
- Availability Services
- Web and Application Services
- Security Services ....


What a load of bollocks. If you must, throw the crap in the post to my manager, but don't bother me.

Sun have managed to really piss me off.