Installing new server - which software is important?

[Timothy Czarnik]

Hey all,

I am installing a D370 server today. I pretty much have carte blanche to install what I need, but cost of software/support is always a factor.

This server is going to be used to serve/develop e-forms and such. Its not going to be used very heavily. I have 1 4GB and 4 18GB disks. I intend to use the 4 GB disk for the OS.

Here's my question: In this case, what additional software over and above the O/S would you install? Mirror Disk? Performance Monitoring stuff?

Just looking for some thoughtful insight from the gurus. Any insight as to 11.0 vs 11i will be particularly well rewarded :)

-Tim

[Patrick Wallek]

Here is my list of absolutely required software:

Ignite/UX, which is FREE
Mirror Disk/UX (Costs $$$)
Online JFS / Advance JFS (whatever they're calling it now-COSTS $$$)
GlancePlus Pak (Includes Glance, Measureware and Perfview (I think - COSTS $$$)
Diagnostics (Includes STM and ESM, part of diagnostics CD)
Predictive

[Patrick Wallek]

Darn - just saw the last part of your question.

I would probably go ahead and install 11i. With 11i you also have the operating environments. There is one of the OEs that contains, I believe, all of the software I mention above, though I don't remember which specific one it is (either Enterprise or Mission Critical OE).

Check this link for info on the OEs:
http://www.hp.com/products1/unix/operating/index.html

I would also recommend getting another disk drive and mirror your OS disk. With one disk, if that disk goes bad, you are rebuilding that machine.

[James R. Ferguson]

Hi Timothy:

There are four pieces that leap to mind when I think of building a new server. In my opinion, *every* server needs these:

> MirrorDisk
> Online JFS
> Glance/Measureware
> Diagnostics (STM, EMS, Predictive Support) [FREE from the SupportPlus CD]

The rationale is simple. MirrorDisk and Online JFS and the Diagnostics suite maintain high-availability proactively. Glance can't be beat as a performance monitor.

Regards!

...JRF...

[Ravi_8]

Hi, Tim

Miroring the disk is remote in your system since the disk configured to mirror should be equal or more in size of the primary disk.
The softwares other than OS to be installed depends on the applications you use. For our MQSeries software we'll install aC/aC++ compilers, DCE and database(db2 & oracle).

[Sachin Patel]

Hi Timothy,
With monitoring software.
Perl, emacs (if you like it), ANCI c(not free), aC++ (not free). Netscape (if you going to internet from this sytem) are helpful.

Sachin

[A. Clay Stephenson]

Hi Tim:

Given that this box is not going to be used very heavily, I am going to depart a little from the other suggestions. If you want to install the OS on your single 4GB disk then save the money for Glance and buy yourself a 2nd 4GB drive to mirror the OS. Even restoring with Ignite is a poor second to never missing a beat from a failed boot disk. You can monitor the performance well enough with sar, top, and vmstat for your purposes - after all that's how us old kaisers monitored unix boxes before them new fangled thangs appeared. I would certainly install OnlineJFS, MirrorDisk/UX, the latest perl, JetDirect Software, IgniteUX, and if budget permits aC++ - you never know when you need just that little piece of c to get you out of a jam.

If it were me, I would now install 11.11; it's been rock solid for me for about 6 months now.

My 3 cents, Clay

[Deshpande Prashant]

Hi
I would prefer to have following on my machine

MirrorDisk
Adv JFS
Glance/Measureware
Ignite/Ux

Mirroring the roor disks helps a lot and gives peace of mind.

Thanks.
Prashant.

[Jim Turner]

Hi Tim,

For a development box, our standard suite is

+ MirrorDisk/UX
+ Online JFS
+ Glance Pak
+ HP C / ANSI C
+ Ignite/UX
+ Diags
+ JetAdmin

Cheers,
Jim

[Timothy Czarnik]

Hey all,

Excellent answers so far. I guess I should have pointed out that this server currently has only 1 processor and 256MB of memory. It has 5 slots for hot swap drives, all of which are full currently (1 4GB, 4 18GB).

Will this still support the 11.11 OS (not getting bogged down, etc...). Its not much, but its what I have...

-Tim

[Mark Vollmers]

Tim-

I think the others have listed out most of it. Don't forget the simple stuff like gzip (get from the porting center http://hpux.connect.org.uk/). I would also suggest getting UPS software on the server (and the power supply, of course).

Mark

[Bernie Vande Griend]

I would agree with the lists already given, but if money is a concern, I would question Online JFS. It is very nice to have, but unless you need to increase/decrease the root filesystem, there are other means to do those tasks. We don't use it as we couldn't justify the cost, but we get along fine without it. Just means we spend a little more time planning out the initial sizes of our lvols. Besides the other items mentioned already I also install openssh, tcpdump, lsof, gzip (the one that handles files >2GB), and 2 system collection scripts: sysinfo and nickel.

[Bernie Vande Griend]

Yes, 11i will run fine on that configuration. 4Gb boot drive is the minimum rec by HP. Depending on your config, not all of what people normally put in vg00 may fit on 4Gb, so you may need to put /var, /tmp, /opt (examples) on another drive if 4Gb isn't enough. Or use one of your 18GB drives as the boot drive. We have a similar system which runs fine on 11i. Just make sure you allocate swap space equal to or greater than twice your physical memory.

[linuxfan]

Hi Timothy,


If you go with 11.0, then the "Must-Have" software would include,

-Mirror Disk/UX

"nice-to-have" would be
-Online JFS
-GlancePlus Pak

But if you go with 11.11 (Enterprise Operatinge environment, then you already have all these software)

Irrespective of which OS you choose, you could save on the compilers by using some of the GNU tools
-Perl
-gcc

Some of the must free HP tools
-Diagnostics/EMS [ Comes default with 11.11 Enterprise OE]
-Ignite/UX
-CIFS/9000 (Samba) [ Default with 11.11 Enterprise OE] (depending on your need)

If you like the GNU tools you can download the binaries or compile from the source depending on your needs

-HTH
Ramesh

[Santosh Nair_1]

Hi Tim,

Personally I would get the following:

Not free:
Mirror/UX
Online JFS (nice to have, but not required)
GlancePlus (again nice to have)
aCC/ansi C (very useful, but can get by without)

Free:
gcc (2.95, 3.0 is just too new)
Ingite/UX (great for making bootable recovery tapes)
Diagnostics
Perl (probably version 5.6, not the one in /usr/contrib/bin shipped with HP)
apache (if you need a web server web server)
less (less is more...:-)
mysql (nice little free database)
OpenSSL (a very secure replacement for telnet)

Thats all that I could come up with off the top of my head. Hope this helps.

-Santosh

[Wodisch]

Hello Timothy,

I have not noticed "lsof" and "trace" in the replies of
the other - get them anyway!
A C/C++ compiler may come in handy, buy HP ANSI/C
or HP aC++ or get GNU C/C++.
Perl and TCL/Tk are very useful tools for scripting, too.

AND you might need to install the "DCE Kernel Threads"
right now, for a lot of additional software just plain needs
it (like ITO/VPO/OVO agents).

My ?0.02,
Wodisch

[Michael Tully]

Hi Tim,

Opinions are like hats... nearly everyone in here has one, so I'm going to tip mine a little too...
As most people have suggested go for the freebies where possible, and by all means have a look at the HP Porting centre which has some valuable tools that can be used (all free). Just be a little weary of having too much if you are limited to any type of disk space restraints. Glance/Measureware
has a 60 day trial and so does Perfview, so try before you buy.... On-Line JFS is nice to have for HA, but some smaller systems invest in MirrorDisk/UX first.

One other thing that I would like to suggest is have a look at the following thread which gives some very valuable information on how to build a system,what order to do things and even some security hints.

http://forums.itrc.hp.com/cm/QuestionAnswer/1,1150,0x4499e7e60861d511abcd0090277a778c,00.htm

HTH
-Michael