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Installing Red Hat Linux on the Cobalt Qube 3 Appliance
The following is a technical recipe or "howto" document for one successful procedure to install the Red Hat Linux distribution onto a Sun Cobalt Qube 3 model internet appliance.
Warning! Use this procedure at your own risk.
- Red Hat on a Qube 3: Introduction
- Using Flashtool to Upgrade Qube 3 Proms
- Inside the Cobalt GenIII Kernel RPM, Part 1: Preparing a Sandbox
- Inside the Cobalt GenIII Kernel RPM, Part 2: Making the Ext3 Patch
- Inside the Cobalt GenIII Kernel RPM, Part 3: Building to Spec
- Installing Red Hat Linux, Part 1: Stock Distribution
- Installing Red Hat Linux, Part 2: Customization for Cobalt
- Installing Red Hat Linux, Part 3: Booting the Qube 3
- Ideas for Managing Red Hat Linux on the Cobalt Qube 3
Ideas for Managing Red Hat Linux on the Cobalt Qube 3
The core transfiguration of the Cobalt Qube 3 appliance for Red Hat Linux 7.2 is complete. This is just the beginning of making use of the Qube 3 as a solid household or small office server appliance based on Red Hat Linux.
It is now time to decide how to manage, maintain and administer the Red Hat Cobalt Qube 3 appliance. Here are a few suggestions.
Red Hat Network
One of the most important details in system administration is keeping the device up to date with security and bug fixes. Red Hat offers an excellent service called the Red Hat Network. The main tool for the Red Hat Network is up2date, which not only can keep the device updated with the latest fixes, but can notify the registered device's administrator of security advisories and available updates.
It is also more convenient to install any standard Red Hat software package via up2date than via CD-ROM, since the Qube 3 usually has no CD-ROM device directly connected. The up2date tool will fetch the required package as well as any required dependencies automatically.
As of the time of this writing, hundreds of megabytes of software has been updated since the release of Red Hat Linux 7.2 (Enigma). Most of these errata, as they are called, pertain to security and stability fixes. Installation of these packages are recommended.
The economical service fee varies for the Red Hat Network, depending on their current promotions. However, for one machine, Red Hat waives all fees. It is an excellent value for home networks or for small offices which need to keep their Red Hat Linux boxes up to date.
See the Red Hat Network homepage at https://rhn.redhat.com/ for details on this service. If it's not https, it's not Red Hat Network.
Even without the automatic Red Hat Network tools, the same errata packages are offered at the ftp://updates.redhat.com/7.2/ repository. Remember to fetch errata updated packages for both i386 and noarch architectures, in your language of choice. All administrators should run a properly up-to-date system.
Webmin Administration Kit
The webmin http administration kit is available for Red Hat Linux 7.2 as an RPM package. This is the closest available solution to replace Cobalt's own web-oriented remote administration package.
Webmin is a web-based interface for system administration for Unix. Using any browser that supports tables and forms (and Java for the File Manager module), you can setup user accounts, Apache, DNS, file sharing and so on.It is aimed at a slightly more hands-on technical audience while still making everything available through an icon and menu interface. Perfect for those Qube administrators who prefer Red Hat Linux over the stock Cobalt suite.
While webmin has a different interface than Cobalt's web administration interface, it is more customizable, expandable and supports more types of services typically found on servers using Red Hat Linux (or other popular distributions).
See the webmin homepage at http://www.webmin.com/webmin/ for details.
Developing for the LCD Panel
With some work, making the LCD panel's menuing system work is possible with Cobalt's panel-scripts package. Experimentation is the best approach here.
Some copies of the Cobalt OS Restore Disc may have multiple versions of the panel-utils and panel-scripts packages. Find and use the most recent for the architecture. The "pacifica" script packages are for Raq architectures, and the "carmel" scripts are intended for Qube architectures.
Even without the LCD panel menus, making the LCD panel display some useful information is fairly simple. The lcd-write command will output two lines of up to sixteen characters.
Some people have made some fairly elaborate perl scripts to scroll or animate their LCD screens. For more feedback during bootup, try putting some lcd-write commands in the /etc/rc.sysinit script or in the helper file, /etc/init.d/functions script.
Managing a Cobalt Qube 3 using Red Hat Linux is a different proposition from leaving the Sun Cobalt distribution of Linux on the device. Many details of administration are different and will take personal investment of time to iron out the minor wrinkles.
Administrators may have varying reasons for preferring Red Hat Linux on a Qube appliance, including robust ext3 filesystem support, familiarity, consistency with their desktops, more tinkering or "hacking" potential with full compiler tools available, third-party rpm packages that are not easily installed on the Qube due to a different version schema, or a wider range of applications included with the core distribution.
Whatever the reason, enjoy Red Hat Linux 7.2 on the Cobalt Qube 3 appliance.
End. Back to Red Hat on a Qube 3: Introduction
Text and artwork are Copyright © 1996-2002 Ed Halley.
Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds.
Red Hat, and Red Hat Linux is a registered trademark of Red Hat, Inc.
Sun, Cobalt, and Qube are registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Many thanks to Dax Kelson of Guru Labs, and to Tim Hockin of Sun Microsystems for their assistance and tools.
Copying in whole or in part, with author attribution, is expressly allowed.