twinax.org › IBM i, From Doorstop to Modern Business Server, Part 1
This is the first in what I hope to be a regular series of instructions that will take you from having an i (or AS/400e, iSeries, what have you) from a completely empty machine to a useful, modern platform for running services on.
Before I go any further, I do need to make a disclaimer that I can’t be held personally responsible for damage, software (more likely) or hardware (much less likely, have you ever stubbed your toe on one of these?!?) I also make no claim to these being “best practices” or safe methods of deploying solutions, though I do my best to research my methods as well as possible before making such suggestions.
Now that that’s out of the way, we can move on to the fun and meaty part of the article!
Step one: Obtaining an i.
Yep, to do stuff on an i, you need to have an i. There isn’t any way around this…well, except maybe borrowing a friend’s i (no, I’m not kidding, I’ve done this).
There are several ways to get one. Let’s go through them one by one. There are factors common to all of these methods that are absolutely necessary to point out
1. Craigslist.
Craigslist is a good place to find a really cheap, sometimes even free machine, or they can be obscenely over priced. However, you have to beware of a few things if you’re going to go this route.
The bad:
First, you may have to drive a long distance to pick the machine up – and they can be huge. Many times, the person or company listing the machine really doesn’t know what they have, and will post ether no picture or several pictures of unhelpful portions of the machine. Be prepared for the worst, and there are no guarantees when you get it home that it will even run. Tip: Bring a dust mask, sometimes the side effect of the i’s uptime is that they live in some scary places!
The good:
Craiglist machines can come cheap. REALLY cheap. They’re also much easier to negotiate on, as many times the seller just wants it out of where it is.
This also has no inherent value, but sometimes they come with some interesting stories from the owners or paperwork showing what they were used for. Fun bonus.
Conclusion:
Know your i before you go digging into this, and be prepared to spend money after the fact. I don’t recommend looking for your first machine on Craigslist unless you have someone locally to help you with it.
Side note: Creigslist is a great place to get parts machines. If you’re just looking for a disk expansion box or a tape drive, I do recommend this option. Get your friends involved and share!
2. Freecycle
You just can’t go wrong with this one. The machine may have seen some scarier places after decommissioning though. I can’t stress the dust mask/respirator thing enough.
3. Scrappers
I’m not going to differentiate too much between scrappers and craigslist, as you really need to watch out for the same things in a Craigslist buy.
Scrappers can be another great source of i hardware, but for lack of a better term, be prepared to fight for it…no, I don’t mean punch the scrapper in the mouth! The idea here is that you’ll do more for the scrapper by paying for the machine and or take it away than they would gain in scrap value. Bartering is sometimes applicable here. If you offer to trade a pile of commodity PC hardware or something the scrapper is looking for, you may get it for less or free.
4. eBay
eBay is a bit of a mixed bag. You have people that “found stuff” like Criagslist, Freecycle, and scrappers. You have some intermediary salvage and reseller companies, and occasionally you have ISVs reselling more current systems.
The bad:
You really don’t know what you’re buying here. You’re on a time limit before the auction closes. Sometimes it’s hard to get a hold of the seller to ask questions – and you MUST ask questions since you usually can’t go physically see the machine before you purchase.
Shipping can also be obscenely high, usually padded, especially when not dealing with an ISV or reseller, but even then, beware.
The good:
There is one hope if you’re sold some bad hardware: eBay does have a protection policy when the item isn’t as described. You may be able to get your money back in this situation, but I wouldn’t try it. My best advice is to deal with a reseller or ISV using eBay as a tool to divest themselves of items that have sat around too long. You’ll know them when you see them. Keep an eye out.
Conclusion:
Know what you’re buying. Ask questions. Do research. Really, really be sure they have what’s described before you commit to anything. Pick up locally if at all possible.
Commonalities
Now we come to the common factors to look out for, and they are many. This could be a whole article all on its own, but I’m going to outline it here.
- Missing drives. Most of the time, you will find that the machine either does not come with drives, or has been wiped. Be prepared to spend money on disk drives, and this is especially the case with scrappers and craiglist/freecycle situations. It means a whole lot more beyond just replacing the disk. FIrst, you must purchase specific IBM i disk drives for that model. They swap between quite a few, but are specific by disk sled. Drives and sleds do not swap as they have electronics in them, matching them to the mechanism.
- No QSECOFR password. In the case of machines that have not have their drives pulled, it’s highly unlikely that the seller knows what the password is. Unless someone foolishly left DST passwords as default, there is almost no way of recovering this short of calling IBM. Be prepared for a system wipe.
- No OS media. You need OS media, if you want to do a reload. You should make it a point to obtain a copy of the media for whichever version of the OS your machine is licensed to run. You can install any version the machine is capable of running, but without a key you only get a 70 day trial.
- Clock Battery failure. This is a huge issue, and requires you email IBM support to get a new System Password and System Unique Identifier (SUID). It used to be a simple process of emailing them the output of the SUID/System Password prompts, but I recently received an email from the m the last time I attempted this that I needed some additional data. If at all possible, find out when the last date was the machine was running, or when the clock battery was changed.
This is by no means an exhaustive list, but is a good basis for how to search for an IBM i on a budget and not get stuck with a doorstop.
That’ll do it for this time. Phew! Still with me? Write a comment! You know you want to!
Read the original at twinax.org.
