Phil & I have bought a Sun Netra T1 105 440MHz/1Gb server and Netra ST D130 storage array from ebay, for a grand total of 196+VAT.

We’re going to rape the D130 for its racking ears and one of the 18.2Gb disks and put them in the T1. So then we’ll have the storage array for backup or further spares such as PSU.

We’re still looking around for a colo for 30-50ukp a month.

I’ve been playing with Jumpstart today and actually managed to extract the Solaris 10 11/06 (update 3) image from the DVD ISO using Linux:

Symlink Linux-equivalent programs for install script:

ln -s /bin/tar /bin/bar
ln -s /bin/sed /usr/bin/sed
ln -s /usr/bin/gdb /usr/bin/adb

Create mach script for install script:

echo '#!/bin/bash' > /bin/mach
echo "uname -p" >> /bin/mach
chmod 755 /bin/mach

Make directories:

mkdir -p /home/jumpstart/install
mkdir /home/jumpstart/config
mkdir /mnt/s0
mkdir /mnt/s1

Mount DVD slice 0:

mount -t iso9660 -o loop sol-10-u3-ga-sparc-dvd.iso /mnt/s0

Calculate slice 1 offset – number in start column of second slice multiplied by units (12279*640*512):

fdisk -l sol-10-u3-ga-sparc-dvd.iso

Mount DVD slice 1 using offset:

losetup -o 4023582720 /dev/loop1 sol-10-u3-ga-sparc-dvd.iso
mount -t ufs -o ro,ufstype=sun /dev/loop1 /mnt/s1

Run install script on DVD slice 0:

NOSPACECHK="yes"; export NOSPACECHK
cd /mnt/s0/Solaris_10/Tools
./setup_install_server /home/jumpstart/install

Now I’ve got a 3.7Gb tarball of all the files ready for bunging on a TFTP server.

I’m going to learn how to make custom JASS scripts too, as it will be handy for work as well as for [re]building this Sparc.

Update: just watched Hot Fuzz, which should have been much better considering the cast, although the last ten minutes or so was worth sitting through the rest.