Mailing List Archive

I've got an E450 with Apache, but not the rest of your list. It works rather well. Just install Apache, make a couple of changes in the config, and it's all good.

Don't get hung up on hooking a modem to the 450 - you could put it anywhere, and simply use email to deliver notification to the email system. I've successfully used an alias in /etc/aliases to redirect email to a script. If you need to know how that's done, let me know. It would allow you to put the modem somewhere you're more familiar with, and send messages to it from the 450.

Ralph Mitchell



-----Original Message-----
From: Nic le Roux [mailto:nicl@i-procc.za.net]
Sent: Mon 7/25/2005 2:51 AM
To: gentoo-sparc@lists.gentoo.org
Subject: [gentoo-sparc] Software Compilation

Good Moring,

I've been tasked to gather some info on Using a Sparc 450 for setting up
network monitoring tools.
These will include Nagios, MRTG, RRDtool, Ntop and Apache as the web
front-end.

Has anyone here used these packages with success on Gentoo ?
I'm a Mandrake user and have no experience with Sparc machines.
I unfortunately also do not have a Machine to test with.

Is there any Major hiccups that I can encounter ?

The biggest worry that I have is I need to connect a GSM modem to the
machine via serial port in order to send sms's


Any advice / help would be greatly appreciated,


Thanks and Regards
Nic

--
gentoo-sparc@gentoo.org mailing list

Thanks Ralph.

It, will however be a requirement to put the modem on the E450.
Because of the way Nagios generates the sms's and as a means of removing
another point of failure I have to put it on the E450.
Guaranteeing the delivery of the sms is of utmost importance.
Is there complications in getting it set up on the Sparc machine itself ?

Are there changes in the Apache config made as a requirement of it being on
the E450 ?
Something in the list that I left out was postfix, using a smarthost on the
network to deliver mail.

On that note is the Sparc distribution very stable ?

Thanks for your inputs.
Regards
Nic



_____

From: Mitchell, Ralph [mailto:rmitchell@eds.com]
Sent: 26 July 2005 12:22 AM
To: gentoo-sparc@lists.gentoo.org; gentoo-sparc@lists.gentoo.org
Subject: RE: [gentoo-sparc] Software Compilation



I've got an E450 with Apache, but not the rest of your list. It works
rather well. Just install Apache, make a couple of changes in the config,
and it's all good.

Don't get hung up on hooking a modem to the 450 - you could put it anywhere,
and simply use email to deliver notification to the email system. I've
successfully used an alias in /etc/aliases to redirect email to a script.
If you need to know how that's done, let me know. It would allow you to put
the modem somewhere you're more familiar with, and send messages to it from
the 450.

Ralph Mitchell



-----Original Message-----
From: Nic le Roux [mailto:nicl@i-procc.za.net]
Sent: Mon 7/25/2005 2:51 AM
To: gentoo-sparc@lists.gentoo.org
Subject: [gentoo-sparc] Software Compilation

Good Moring,

I've been tasked to gather some info on Using a Sparc 450 for setting up
network monitoring tools.
These will include Nagios, MRTG, RRDtool, Ntop and Apache as the web
front-end.

Has anyone here used these packages with success on Gentoo ?
I'm a Mandrake user and have no experience with Sparc machines.
I unfortunately also do not have a Machine to test with.

Is there any Major hiccups that I can encounter ?

The biggest worry that I have is I need to connect a GSM modem to the
machine via serial port in order to send sms's


Any advice / help would be greatly appreciated,


Thanks and Regards
Nic

--
gentoo-sparc@gentoo.org mailing list

On Tue, Jul 26, 2005 at 07:45:23AM +0200, Nic le Roux wrote:
> Thanks Ralph.
>
> It, will however be a requirement to put the modem on the E450.
> Because of the way Nagios generates the sms's and as a means of removing
> another point of failure I have to put it on the E450.
> Guaranteeing the delivery of the sms is of utmost importance.
> Is there complications in getting it set up on the Sparc machine itself ?

If I remind correctly the E450 has 2 serial ports, but they look like PC
Parports. If you want to connect a modem, you have to use
adapters.(gender changers at least)

If you do not have a Grafics card installed (we usually don't have) you
will need a console (or zero-modem cable and minicom) to setup the
system. If you follow the documentation correctly you should not
encounter any problems.

>
> Are there changes in the Apache config made as a requirement of it being on
> the E450 ?
> Something in the list that I left out was postfix, using a smarthost on the
> network to deliver mail.

Your default Apache settings should play well, but be aware that if you
can't distribute you load to several cpu's (more threads/processes) E450
performance will suck.

>
> On that note is the Sparc distribution very stable ?

This might bring up discussions but here my opinion:

2.4 Linux and stable libs --> very stable
2.6 Linux and stable libs --> quite stable but I would not bet on it

If you ever need a ~sparc flags to get the versions you need use it
careful, only mark the specific package in /etc/portage/package.keywords
and newer use ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="~sparc" emerge foo_bar.

If it doesn't need to be linux I would suggest you try opensolaris.
It is free, has solid rock stability on sparc and you can install gnu
tools to compile/run gnu software.(At least Apache and Postfix runs well
on opensolaris)

regards klaus
--
gentoo-sparc@gentoo.org mailing list

On Tue, 26 Jul 2005, Nic le Roux wrote:

> Thanks Ralph.
>
> It, will however be a requirement to put the modem on the E450.
> Because of the way Nagios generates the sms's and as a means of removing
> another point of failure I have to put it on the E450.
> Guaranteeing the delivery of the sms is of utmost importance.
> Is there complications in getting it set up on the Sparc machine itself ?
>

I shouldn't think so. I've used serial applications on SPARC Linux in the
past without issue. Can't imagine the modem would be much harder.

> Are there changes in the Apache config made as a requirement of it being on
> the E450 ?

No. Apache is Apache is Apache. The hardware platform is irrelevant.

> Something in the list that I left out was postfix, using a smarthost on the
> network to deliver mail.
>

I've used Postfix on SPARC Linux. In fact, it's installed on my machine,
though I don't use it much with my current setup.

> On that note is the Sparc distribution very stable ?
>

I run ~sparc without problems on three different machines.

Ric

--
gentoo-sparc@gentoo.org mailing list

> > It, will however be a requirement to put the modem on the E450.
> > Because of the way Nagios generates the sms's and as a
> > means of removing
> > another point of failure I have to put it on the E450.
> > Guaranteeing the delivery of the sms is of utmost importance.
> > Is there complications in getting it set up on the Sparc
> > machine itself ?
> >
>
> I shouldn't think so. I've used serial applications on SPARC
> Linux in the
> past without issue. Can't imagine the modem would be much harder.
>
> > Are there changes in the Apache config made as a
> > requirement of it being on
> > the E450 ?
>
> No. Apache is Apache is Apache. The hardware platform is irrelevant.
>
> > Something in the list that I left out was postfix, using a
> > smarthost on the
> > network to deliver mail.
> >
>
> I've used Postfix on SPARC Linux. In fact, it's installed on
> my machine,
> though I don't use it much with my current setup.
>
> > On that note is the Sparc distribution very stable ?
> >
>
> I run ~sparc without problems on three different machines.
>
> Ric

Thanks Ric,

That Pretty much does it.
Will start the adventure tomorrow.
Thanks again to all, though I'm sure this wont be the last you hear of me
:-)

Regards
Nic

--
gentoo-sparc@gentoo.org mailing list

On 7/26/05 1:21 PM, Nic le Roux wrote:

> Will start the adventure tomorrow.
> Thanks again to all, though I'm sure this wont be the last you hear of me
> :-)

Aside from the previously mentioned lockups with 2.6 kernels, Gentoo
Linux has for me been a far better working environment than any other OS
I've loaded on my SPARC: Solaris, Debian, and OpenBSD. It's stable to
the point of boring. :-)

--
Paul Heinlein <> heinlein@madboa.com <> www.madboa.com
--
gentoo-sparc@gentoo.org mailing list

On Tue, 26 Jul 2005, Paul Heinlein wrote:
> Aside from the previously mentioned lockups with 2.6 kernels, Gentoo Linux
> has for me been a far better working environment than any other OS I've
> loaded on my SPARC: Solaris, Debian, and OpenBSD. It's stable to the point of
> boring. :-)

Isn't that the truth. I log in once a week (or sooner if a security
advisory gets posted) and run an 'emerge sync' and 'emerge system'.

*yawn*

The SPARCs really love Gentoo, they just run and run and run...

My next project will be move an e250 and an e450 to Gentoo... then those
boxes will be boring too. :-)
--
gentoo-sparc@gentoo.org mailing list

You log in? I have a cron job.. ;)

Seriously though, Gentoo is amazing on my sparc. I'm just not looking
forward to the switchover to 2.6..

Gary wrote:

> On Tue, 26 Jul 2005, Paul Heinlein wrote:
>
>> Aside from the previously mentioned lockups with 2.6 kernels, Gentoo
>> Linux has for me been a far better working environment than any other
>> OS I've loaded on my SPARC: Solaris, Debian, and OpenBSD. It's stable
>> to the point of boring. :-)
>
>
> Isn't that the truth. I log in once a week (or sooner if a security
> advisory gets posted) and run an 'emerge sync' and 'emerge system'.
>
> *yawn*
>
> The SPARCs really love Gentoo, they just run and run and run...
>
> My next project will be move an e250 and an e450 to Gentoo... then
> those boxes will be boring too. :-)

--
gentoo-sparc@gentoo.org mailing list

Gary wrote:
> On Tue, 26 Jul 2005, Paul Heinlein wrote:
>
>> Aside from the previously mentioned lockups with 2.6 kernels, Gentoo
>> Linux has for me been a far better working environment than any other
>> OS I've loaded on my SPARC: Solaris, Debian, and OpenBSD. It's stable
>> to the point of boring. :-)
>
>
> Isn't that the truth. I log in once a week (or sooner if a security
> advisory gets posted) and run an 'emerge sync' and 'emerge system'.
>
> *yawn*
>
> The SPARCs really love Gentoo, they just run and run and run...
>
> My next project will be move an e250 and an e450 to Gentoo... then those
> boxes will be boring too. :-)

I'm certainly jealous. My E4500 will only run a couple of days before
it hangs requiring a reboot. Sometimes it will still respond to pings
but that's all. Never any console messages, just a hung box. On my
uniprocessor sparc's (U5 and U30) is is very stable but not on the E4500
with 8 CPU's. It is running Gentoo with a 2.4 kernel (2.4.31 at the
moment).

Philip
--
gentoo-sparc@gentoo.org mailing list

On 7/27/05 7:36 AM, Philip Leonard wrote:

> I'm certainly jealous. My E4500 will only run a couple of days before
> it hangs requiring a reboot. Sometimes it will still respond to pings
> but that's all. Never any console messages, just a hung box. On my
> uniprocessor sparc's (U5 and U30) is is very stable but not on the E4500
> with 8 CPU's. It is running Gentoo with a 2.4 kernel (2.4.31 at the
> moment).

I've got a UP box (Blade 100), so I can't speak for SMP. Bummer about
your E4500. Noise and power consumption aside, I'd love to have one. :-)

I had the same "hangs without a trace" issue when I tried the 2.6
kernels. Sometimes the box would run for a couple weeks, sometimes just
a day or two. The end result, however, was always a mysterious hang.

--
Paul Heinlein <> heinlein@madboa.com <> www.madboa.com
--
gentoo-sparc@gentoo.org mailing list

Paul Heinlein wrote:
> On 7/27/05 7:36 AM, Philip Leonard wrote:
>
>> I'm certainly jealous. My E4500 will only run a couple of days before
>> it hangs requiring a reboot. Sometimes it will still respond to pings
>> but that's all. Never any console messages, just a hung box. On my
>> uniprocessor sparc's (U5 and U30) is is very stable but not on the
>> E4500 with 8 CPU's. It is running Gentoo with a 2.4 kernel (2.4.31 at
>> the moment).
>
>
> I've got a UP box (Blade 100), so I can't speak for SMP. Bummer about
> your E4500. Noise and power consumption aside, I'd love to have one. :-)
>
> I had the same "hangs without a trace" issue when I tried the 2.6
> kernels. Sometimes the box would run for a couple weeks, sometimes just
> a day or two. The end result, however, was always a mysterious hang.
>

Yeah. I've been hoping that when they release the 2.6 kernels for sparc
that this problem will go away. Yeah, the beast is a little much in a
home environment but the price was very right and I couldn't pass it up. ;-)
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