Any other Swift users using a Cobalt Raq Server ???

[jfk064]

Hi all,

Have just picked one of these up off eBay to run a few websites off.. Should arrive in a day or so..

Its a Raq3i that has been upgraded and runs the Raq 550 OS..

Anyone had any dramas etc with getting it to run ???

Any info/comments appreciated..

John

[Incabulos]

Hmm, it looks like it has the old old Cobolt interface that came with the original Qubes, judging from

http://www.isp-planet.com/hosting/staq2.html

Sun still have the docs available for this box though, look at the Discontinued Product Manuals link at

http://www.sun.com/hardware/serverappliances/documentation/index.html

It cant be that old though, it seems to have an AMD k6-2 ( Pentium II equivalent approx ) under the hood instead of the MIPS cpus that the original series has. Regardless, I suspect that the provided OS will be quite old and probably still vulnerable to attack even when the most current patches are applied.

You might try installing your own Linux dist or OpenBSD instead, that way at least it will be up-to-date, which is pretty essential if it will be internet-facing, like a web-server will most likely be. If you cant change the OS, activate whatever firewalling the thing has and block internet access to all ports except TCP/80 and TCP/443 if possible.. and even better, make sure its running a current rev of Apache even if you have to download the source and compile it yourself.

[jfk064]

Surprisingly, it was fairly easy to set up.. Has been working quite well as well.

In the interim, I also stumbled upon a website www.ruby-project.net which basically takes the patched freely released sun code and lets it run on a standard box under Red Hat 9... Instructions were that easy that even a child could set it up !! I could have saved myself a few dollars (the raq put me back $650) but I guess I like the sound of it's dual fans :-)

Cheers,

John

[jfk064]

I know its an old thread, but stumbled upon this site a couple of days ago..

www.rackstar.net

They've basically taken the old Cobalt code (which ran on Red Hat 7) and modified it so it runs on Fedora 4.. Various ISO images are available depending on whatever version of the real "RAQ" you have - the catch here is that you need to flash the rom on the Raq to get it to take the new OS.. I did mine successfully but its not for the faint hearted...:eek:

The cute thing about it also is one of the ISO images is for non RAQ servers, ie: standard PCs, so for those comptemplating throwing a web/mail/ftp server together on an old PC, it sets itself up in about 20 minutes ..:D

Cheers,

John

[Incabulos]

Nice find, I'll get around to checking it out one of these days. I wonder how easily it comes up inside a VMware session? I guess if the software is new ( so sendmail, apache, etc holes are all patched ) there is no reason to not use it, and FC4 is pretty new as far as current software goes.