Fun with OpenVMS

I've had some discretionary time this work so I worked on a few projects that have been lingering in my mind for a while. I took out the old rx1620 and installed OpenVMS ia64 edition. It took me a while to remember that the serial console is needed to install something on this machine. Nothing comes out of the VGA output when you power on. Also there are two connectors labeled "console" in the back of the machine. Connecting to the normal looking RS-232 connector did not work either. Finally I tries the other connector with the special adapter that came with the machine. With a straight through RS-232 cable and the RS-232 connector on my PC I finally started seeing something.

I connected to the rx1620 using a PC with Solaris 10 installed. I modified the /etc/remote file to point the hardwire variable to /dev/term/a instead of b. running "tip hardwire" worked and I could  see that the machine was ready to install OpenVMS. 

The install process was lengthy and there were multiple questions interrupting the flow regarding DECnet setup, clustering, Kerberos, and other things. I didn't check if it would output to the VGA plug yet. 

Overall it was a smooth first start. I still need to figure out if networking is set up correctly and why FTP is not running. I need to install the license PAK's and some useful programming languages too. One thing about this server though is that it is big and loud! I wish I could install it at work or something and run it 24x7 from there.