New System is finally here

The new system has finally arrived and I am now in the process of unpacking and setting up the system to meet my initial needs.

The boxes arrived separately with the Software being delivered while I was away, thankfully a neighbor saw the package in the front porch and decided to take it in! I did inform IBM not to deliver anything until today at the earliest but I suppose that slipped through the net…

The first thing to do was unpack everything and bring it down to the office, this was fairly simple to do and the systems seem to be getting lighter all the time so I was able to do all this on my own (and I am not Mr Universe). I did a quick check of the packing lists and everything seems to be OK. The next logical part was to cable up the system using the Quick Start Guide as a reference. I came unstuck before I started, I was expecting to be able to use my Toshiba laptop as the Operations console, I told IBM I didn’t want the Twinax controller for this system so they shipped it with the Ops Console configuration. The laptop had no comms port to plug into! I checked out my T43 and just the same? I know the ports have little or no use normally but had not noticed they weren’t even installed? I know they have a configuration in the Device Manager so I was surprised to not find the external port. Still I have plenty of desktops which do have the ports externalized so I just moved the system close to one of those and cabled it up!

Once I had the cables connected the documentation states the I should use the configuration wizard to configure the Ops Console, as I had already installed the software I should only have had to run the configuration wizard. However the instructions shipped had no relationship to the actual screens presented! So it was back to good old guess how this technology works!

Couple of things to note, first ensure you install the IBM modem on the PC before you attach the cables. Next the information in the Quick Guide states you should enter QCONSOLE and add a password, this was not possible in the sequence stated. The server has to be running before the port can be detected, so when installing the modem I had to ensure it was configured to the right port and then unchecked the box which says try to find the correct port! Now I could start the connection in Ops console and fire up the server. It took a few minutes for the console to connect and I was given the panel which requires the password and user. I used QSECOFR as the profile and QSECOFR as the password, you need to ensure the password is in uppercase or its not going to pass the test! Then you will be prompted to change the password, it has to be 8 characters or less. You can change that later once you have configured the system. Again the documentation was very confusing about how to configure the Ops Console, thats not changed since it first came out and the IBM CE I had at the time even had problems!.

Now that I have started the server, the sign on screen appeared after a few minutes and I was able to sign in with the QSECOFR profile, this time the password was entered in lowercase and it worked OK. I had to change the password again as it had expired. The important thing here is the QSECOFR profile which is defined as a Service User is different from the OS profile which you use everyday, something I keep forgetting!

After a few minutes the system was up and running but the disks were very active for about an hour and the utilization crept from 24.1% to 25.1%, I suppose this is just moving and unpacking the data across the disks etc.

The next stage will be to configure the basics to allow the system to be connected on the LAN plus set up a few system values and configuration items.

Chris…