Introducing The TeraQube!With a 500GB sata harddrive, this old Cobalt machine is not quite a terabite of storage, but is capable of it! Either by adding another 500GB sata drive or by replacing it with a terabite disk. Built as a proof of concept and as a testbed for the new Strongbolt2 installer, this Cobalt Qube has all of the features that have been requested - modded the the maximum and running an 'enterprise' kernel. Whilst developing Strongbolt2, I worked for a long time testing the software on a Cobalt Qube. This was mainly because it was very portable and quiet (if you are careful you can run these without a noisy fan). Strongbolt2 is a complete re-write of the Strongbolt installer for Cobalt hardware. The TeraQube has the following features:-
The Cobalt ROM has always been seen as a limitation of the hardware. It has prevented the ease of install of other OSes, as the installation has traditionally been a tricky network based affair. This has disuaded OS vendors from providing a specific installer for this hardware and until Strongbolt was avaiable, Cobalt hardware was restricted to the Cobalt installer. However, there is many useful features that have been overlooked. The ability to change settings in the CMOS from the booted OS means that you can change the boot method of the system from a fully booted machine. A simple command like "cmos -c defboot hda1" will set the Cobalt to boot from hda1 the next time the system boots up. This is not an easy thing to do on most whitebox machines. We have exploited this feature in Strongbolt2 to easily set the server to reboot to the install medium. In short, if you have the Strongbolt2 USB key permenantly placed in the USB port, and need to re-install, you simply set the machine to boot from sda1 and reboot. 2.6.23 ROMThe 2.6.23 ROM is a massive update to the Cobalt hardware. This highly tweaked, modded and specialist ROM includes a micro kernel that has been developed specifically for the hardware and Cobalt specific features. Every single kernel option has been included to provide the functionally required to run a modern Linux distro. Whilst still retaining the original kernel network boot options, the ROM kernel is USB and SATA aware (only sata_sil cards work). This means that the system will boot from USB and SATA drives. The kernle has been modified to wait for USB devices to settle whilst booting - making them avaiable to read in to read from them during the boot process. USB key installInstalling the TeraQube is simple. Using the LCD controls or a serial connection, the system was set to boot from sda1. The 2.6.23 ROM then starts booting. After detecting the USB disk, the system reads the sbinit kernel from the USB drive. This loads a new kernel, executes our modified version of Anaconda and proceeds to install the system as defined in the Strongbolt2 install kickstart file. This is all completely automatic, and no user interaction is required. After the system files have been installed the post-installation scripts set the server to boot from the system disk and reboots! All of this is networkless and hassle free! The newly installed system is then easily networked via setting IP address, netmask and gateway options using the LCD control panel. What could be easier! Installs using AnacondaAnaconda has replaced the Strongbolt install script. This is because Anaconda is better able to deal with some of the more complicated parts of the install procedure. This also makes maintenance of the system easier. Anaconda is also better suited to doing a system update. Remote system updates are made possible through keeping an up-todate USB key image on a USB key permenantly plugged into the server. SBinit - the new Cobalt boot init methodSBinit (Strongbolt init) is a replacement for the kernel code used to perform the "Leap of Faith" part of the boot sequence. After the ROM kernel has started, it reads the kernel options in the configuration file and boots the seconda stage kernel. SBinit removes the restrictions of having to run a specialist bzipped kernel. It also removes the size restrictions (1.6MB) of the second stage kernel. This has facilitated the ability to run a modified enterprise type kernel similar to one shipped with CentOS. USB install - Remotely!The USB install method provides the capability to remotely re-install the operating system in a few keystrokes. After backing up the files that are essential for networking, the remote reinstall will set the system to boot from the USB device, then run through the anaconda installer. After the system has run the installer the networking configuration will be re-applied ready for logging in. Install is fully automatic (no network required)With all of the required configuration files and package files stored on the USB device, the re-installation procedure is performed without any need for network connectivity. This provides an easy to manage re-installation method, very useful in situations where the unit is stored in a remote location (such as a data-centre). Monolithic Enterprise kernelThe Linux kernel has come a very long way in the last few years. The Kernel now supports more hardware than ever out of the box. Whether you want to use a PCI wireless card, a sound card or an external USB bluetooth adapter the chances are that your device is probably supported in the modern kernel. We have taken the current enterprise kernel and patched it to support the Cobalt specific hardware. SATA support (still beta)The new 2.6.23 ROM includes support for Sillicon Image SATA cards. With only a limited amount of space for features in the ROM kernel, the compiled in modules had to be chosen carefully. Unfortunately, there was only enough space to include support for one SATA driver in the ROM kernel. Silicon image (sata_sil) was considered the most popular SATA card available, so this was the driver that we decided to include. CentOS5 (without BlueQuartz)Our TeraQube is loaded with CentOS 5. This is quickly becoming the 'Operating System of choice' for many
Systems Administrators. There are many features that CentOS 5 offers; including PHP5, MySQL5, Apache 2.2 and
many many more. For more details on the features included in CentOS 5, please visit the following URLs: 500GB SATA HarddriveUtilising all of the new features of the new 2.6.23 ROM, our TeraQube is equipped with a 500gb SATA hard drive. Support for dozens of external USB devicesThe new modular enterprise kernel provides support for many new devices. In particular, USB devices are probably of most interest to users. For example, there is modular support for:-
Support for Dozens of PCI CardsThe enterprise kernel will also open up the possibilities for those who want to add PCI cards to their servers. Cards that may be of interest include:
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