IBM xSeries 330

= IBM xSeries 330 / x330 and Gentoo = The IBM xSeries 330 is a 1u rack mounted server. These can be obtained cheaply and make good home or colocated servers due to the fairly efficient Pentium III or III-S CPUs.

The system is shipped with either fixed parallel ATA disks or hotswap SCSI trays. Two 64-bit PCI-X slots are available for expansion, including one full length with room for high end RAID controllers. These systems can be reworked to use new high density SATA (see Links Section).

Hardware
/proc/cpuinfo

lspci

ASM Console Install
These systems use IBM C2T cable chaining and require a breakout cable to get standard keyboard/video/mouse ports. Alternativly, Gentoo can be installed using the ASM managment card.

DB9 NULL Modem cable Second Computer with DB9 Serial Port PCI Video Card (optional) USB Keyboard (optional) A NULL modem connection from your second computer to the eServer is required to get into ASM. I used xterm (gnome-termial won't work) to run "minicom" on my desktop machine to connect to the ASM interface. Serial settings are "57600 8N1" or "9600 8N1". Once in press "Esc" then you see the following:

Press ESC USERID:USERID PASSWORD:PASSW0RD (That's PASSW-ZERO-RD) Local System ASDF123456789 2 - Monitors 3 - Error Logs 4 - SP Configuration 5 - System Services 6 - System Power 7 - Boot B - Remote Terminal Status E - Storage R - Remote SP Access Y - Disconnect Current Login Z - Start Remote Video

Now connect a monitor and USB keyboard to the server (A PCI video card will fit in the PCI-X slot). Fire up the server with you Gentoo Install CD. Press "Z" to start remote video. Press F1 to get into BIOS setup. Make sure you're booting from the CD rom drive first. Once you get to the prompt your USB keyboard magically works. Start the install with: boot:gentoo-nofb doscsi

I had the best results with this, even if you don't have SCSI drives installed. Do your install using your USB keyboard and Monitor, the ASM remote video stops working once the liveCD is running. Remember ServerWorks ATA controller, and email me if you have problems. cwidger@gmail.com

Serial Console Install
You may also install using serial console. This requires that you set console redirection in the BIOS to COM1 (from the POST) and also enable redirection after system boot (this enables using isolinux, grub,etc, not linux kernel). After that, you have to change the port the external serial is conneted to to com1 (that is the one farthest from the edge of the mainboard). After that, you could access ASM only when power is down and use it to powerup the machine. The serial line shows POST and also the loader from CDROM. In the loader, you have to set kernel parameter console=ttyS0,9600 (or whatever speed you wish to use, but 9600 is default for most devices, even today). After that, system boots and install could go as on vga console with some minor limitations like Shift-PgUp not working. I am not sure how gentoo handles such a case, but Debian sets the console parameter it got for install to bootloader, maybe in gentoo it needs to be set manualy.

Links

 * SATA refit and more: http://www.kev009.com/wp/2007/03/28/ibm-xseries-330-x330-sata-retrofit/, http://www.kev009.com/wp/2007/04/15/building-nas-part-2/
 * UpdateXpress: https://www-304.ibm.com/systems/support/supportsite.wss/docdisplay?lndocid=MIGR-44208&brandind=5000008
 * Out of band management adapters: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Remote_Supervisor_Adapter