What to do With an ANS 500

[CompactMacLover]

Well I got an Apple Network Server 500 at a pretty cheap price. Cheap enough that I couldnt pass it up. What do you guys do with yours, They are as big as an end table, and was thinking of putting it beside my bed

 

[Strimkind]

One fellow member used an ANS as a server until recently. I'm sure you could set it up and have it running a website...assuming it came complete.

 

[Unknown_K]

The problem with old servers are they use up a lot of space, electricity, and are slow. I have a few old servers that I like quite a bit, but they don't have a real use as a server anymore (newer equipment is just better on electricity) more like something to mess around with.

I suggest you find the original AIX OS and mess around with that a bit.

 

[ClassicHasClass]

My ANS 500 (with a 200MHz CPU) is still running www.floodgap.com and most of my services. It's due to be decommissioned soon, but that'll be a few months yet.

You can install Linux on them, but it's not easy, and most current distros do not support it. NetBSD/macppc does and is a fairly easy install, but it does not support internal video (you need a serial console -- a cheap PC or a used Wyse will do nicely). However, AIX is really the only OS that supports them well. You can even get CDE up and running on the console, but you should do this inside a secured network as it has a lot of remotely exploitable flaws in this version. YOU MUST FIND THE ORIGINAL Apple-branded AIX -- IBM standard AIX will NOT work. You can run 4.1.4.0, 4.1.4.1 or 4.1.5 on them, but I strongly recommend 4.1.5.

My ANS runs AIX 4.1.5 with a hardened configuration I custom-hacked. It has done so since 1998 in nearly continuous service; I got mine nearly new, along with a spare 700 I keep around for parts. They're solid machines and they have exceptional I/O throughput for machines of their class. Their chief drawback is size; power-wise, they're actually not all that hungry (mine uses 130W on a 325W supply for the 200MHz card, 512MB of parity RAM, DDS-2 DAT and a single 18GB SCSI-2 disk).

The ANS is mostly of interest from a historical perspective and as a neat piece of hardware unlike anything else Apple ever made. I am an old AIX sysadmin from the 3.2.5 days, and I run AIX 6 on a POWER6, so I am very familiar with the OS and the ANS was a natural choice for me to own. For people who want a big Mac server, this is the wrong unit to get. But, for people who want a truly unique Unix server in their collection, this is a nice choice and an intro to medium-sized server iron.

 

[ClassicHasClass]

Btw, here's my little FAQ on AIX on the ANS. I need to make this into a formal site at some point.

http://www.floodgap.com/retrobits/ans/aix.html

and my hardware FAQ

http://www.floodgap.com/retrobits/ans/faq.html

Yes, my ANS 500 is serving it.

 

[ChristTrekker]

I managed to get pkgsrc working on mine, with AIX 4.1.5. Not many packages build though, as modern software expects adherence to newer standards.

http://christtrek.dyndns.org:8000/pkgsrc/packages/AIX-4.1.5/powerpc

It's powered off at the moment as I don't have much time to devote to it. I want to get the lcdproc server working on it, so I can display status messages from my other machines to it. That would be fun.

 

[ClassicHasClass]

Just use /usr/sbin/lcdstring. Write some sort of Perl script to gather up strings and blit them to the LCD that way. My crontab essentially feeds uptime to lcdstring every minute so I have a continuous uptime panel. For syntax, see my AIX FAQ.

The ANS LCD is one of its most entertaining features, surprisingly. I wish the control panel on my POWER6 was anywhere near as programmable.

 

[CompactMacLover]

Mine doesnt have the AIX CD, Anyone got a source of it??

 

[CompactMacLover]

Well I just picked the beast up, its heavy thats for sure. Its stock, right down to the 32MB RAM installed and one hard drive. Doesnt have an OS or AIX CD. Its in suprisingly great condition. All keys are with it, has the tape backup, and he gave me a box full of hard drives to populate the server, all 9GB drives

 

[ChristTrekker]

Just use /usr/sbin/lcdstring. Write some sort of Perl script to gather up strings and blit them to the LCD that way. My crontab essentially feeds uptime to lcdstring every minute so I have a continuous uptime panel.

Weren't you looking for a more elegant solution to that, back in 2002?

I suppose one could make a custom lcdproc driver for the ANS, using lcdstring, if one can't get it to build with the hd44780 driver. One would be correct in presuming I have not had any luck thus far with that. Maybe I'll have to boot it up again to have another go at it...

Its stock, right down to the 32MB RAM installed and one hard drive.

I had 96 in mine, but one of the extra modules was bad so I had to pull them both. Oh well, 32 is enough for a vintage OS like AIX 4.

All keys are with it, has the tape backup, and he gave me a box full of hard drives to populate the server, all 9GB drives

A box full of 9GB SCSI drives is a good conquest in itself!

 

[CelGen]

There's an off chance that the OS might still be on one of the drives of the ones in the box originally came from the system. I was lucky enough to get my three systems with the AIX 4.1.5 CD in one system and the RAID configuration diskette in another.

 

[CompactMacLover]

Well I got the server finally in my house. All the drive carriages are intact, however the little board that connects the scsi from the drive to the server is missing in all of them, even the tape drive is missing it and is non functional. Id really like to use this for what its intended to do, however with just 2GB of internal hard drive space thats quite little. I mean unless im hosting a small webserver with my blog and whatnot on it. Im just trying to figure out what to use this beast for.

 

[ClassicHasClass]

I think you're looking for a mezzanine board (that's the name of the interposer board you seem to be missing). Odd that they would strip them like that because they're really not useful for anything else.

I used to have a crapload of mezz boards around here but I don't know where they went. If I find any, you're welcome to a couple. I bought out Shreve Systems' old stock when they were liquidating intending to put more drives in my ANS, but I never got around to it. It just has an 18GB Fujitsu SCSI-2 in it now, which is enough for what it does.

 

[CompactMacLover]

I got a box full of 18GB Drives that came with it, the drives came out of an IBM AS/400, So I guess I could replace the stock apple drive with one of those for now. Right now im trying to figure out where to put the darn thing, its freaken huge, It may end up being my bedside table in my bedroom and server duties at the same time.

 

[CompactMacLover]

Well shes up and running AIX 4.1.4, Darn thing is noisy But ill play with it more and see what I can do with it

 

[ClassicHasClass]

Actually, as servers go, their noise level is really quite benign and much less than a rack unit. The 500 and 700 can be rack mounted -- and I do have such a kit -- but they were also noise-reduced for an office environment and they have side ventilation slots. I've only ever seen a 300 in pictures, so I can't say about that one, but I can't imagine it being significantly noisier.

 

[CompactMacLover]

I appreciate all the info guys. Im starting a Linux/Unix Admin class next term, So im almost thinking YDL on it, one of our class projects is to build our own webserver in unix/linux, Should be a riot to prove im doing this on 15 year old hardware . Im looking at getting a rack to hold all my networking equipment, everything is shoved inside a big printer stand right now with cables everywhere

 

[ChristTrekker]

Bah, the ANS is overkill! Get an old Quadra and install A/UX or NetBSD - that's plenty of juice to run a web server.

 

[CompactMacLover]

LOL I got a IIci and a Quadra 950 here and AUX, now i just gotta find the time and the external cd rom to do so