Depending on the operating system you intend to run, the drivers may be supplied with the operating system (IBM i, AIX) or may need to be configured seperatly (Linux).

So this machine has several PCI slots.. good! Now the question is how to install the drivers of an ethernet card or fc-card. Does IBM use some internal drivers, already in the system, or is it necessary to install them somehow?

thx,
Claudio

Thanks,

Huon

rgds,
Tom T.

Thanks,
Tom T.

Just some feedback on what i did this last 3 days. I have tried the crossover cable, and setup the Ip adress in the LAN Console wizard with 192.168.1.1, the subnet mask with 255.255.255.0. I had to set a gateway IP, it would not let me have blanks there, so i put in 192.168.1.1 there too, which i was told by IBM to do. DNS i left blank.
On the actual LAN card on the PC, i manually set that to 192.168.1.2 and 255.255.255.0
Long story short, no connect after IPL’ing the M25, got A6005008 in manual mode. I used the “65 21″ procedure and found that the M25 was correctly shipped with LAN Console code. I then reset the Qconsole profile with a whole bunch of moving up and down on the tiny console. Still no connect.

I hooked up a seperat Switch i had brought with me, used the same IP adresses, but used normal ethernet cables of course. Nothing. I tried a diferent PC, nothing.

The PC i have been trying to setup as a LAN console is an IBM laptop with Windows XP, has V5R4 Client Access with the latest servicepack installed. It does however lack a bunch of windows updates i discovered tonight, not sure if that would matter but…
It would seem that i am …. out of luck here. I have a dialogue with IBM on this one, but i am all out of ideas as to what is wrong here.

Best Regards
Oyvind

Thanks for all the help, cant wait to get to work next week and try this. The reason why i used those 217… adresses was because the customer wanted to be able to access the console from within his LAN, if i set the console IP to 192.. he wont be able to, or? But at this moment, i just want to be bale to login the system, setup a LIND and install all the software. I can worry about the access through LAn later on.

Again, thanks a lot.

Best Regards from Norway
Oyvind

It doesn’t really matter which address you use. A good way for starts is to use a statically assigned address on the PC side (since the PC acts as BOOTP server it should have a static IP address).

Go with 192.168.1.1 for the IBM i (what you enter in the Wizard) and 192.168.1.2 for the PC (Subnet Mask 255.255.255.0, Gateway Address Empty, DNS Empty).

You can change this later if need arises, but if you just use a direct passthrough cable it doesn’t really matter.

As for the actual LAN Console, what IP adress, subnetmask and gateway can i use when i go through the Configuration wizard?

And, since LAn Console uses BOOTP, i dont assign a spesific IP to the network card in the Lan Console PC?

Thanks for helping me out!

Best Regards
Oyvind

These IP-Adresses are routable. It sounds like a very unlikely scenario to use routable IP-Adresses for the LAN Console function.

1.) Remember that there distinctly different concepts: The LAN Console uses it’s own port (but not adapter) with it’s own IP-Adress. IBM i OS uses another port with it’s own IP-Adress. So you need AT LEAST two IP-Adresses – one for the LAN Console Interface, and one for the IBM i Interface (with it’s own LIND and everything).
2.) LAN Console configuration happens through BOOTP, which is very similar to DHCP, except older and more primitive. The OpsCon Application acts as a BOOTP server. Make sure that the OpsCon application can actually do that, desktop firewalls may prevent it from doing so.
3.) The system must be configured for LAN Console operation. You can use the 65+21 Service functions to make sure it is configured correctly. I’ve had several systems shipped from IBM that weren’t preconfigured correctly.
4.) OpsCon usually uses the first port of the adapter. It’s T5 in the model 515/525/520 (the POWER6 predecessors), and i don’t know in the top of my head on the newer systems – but it’s the port with the lowest number.
5.) Use WireShark or NEtwork Monitor to debug your BOOTP traffic.
6.) Make sure to configure OpsCon correctly. The default partition ID is 1, not 0.

I just read the tips for getting the LAN Operations Console up and running. Ive been struggling with a brand new M25 last couple of days, trying to get the LAN console to work. The system is non-partioned and no HMC. It has a 4x 1GB Ethernet card, and two HMC slots, HMC1 and HMC2. I have setup the connection with a valid IP adress (217.173.248.86), mask and gateway, and the Console PC has a manually set IP in the same net(217.173.248.87), and same subnet and gw. The M25 server is going to have 217.173.248.85 one i can get into the system and configure a line.

I have an ethernet cable from the PC to the LAN, and one ethernet cable from the LAN to the M25, i have tried all the four slots, and also the two HMC slots.

After reading this post i want to try the crossover cable option, i just wondered what IP adress should the actual console PC have in this case, just use DHCP or set an IP adress, and which one?

Thanks in advance, im off to a bad start with the LAN console, never done it before :)

Best Regards
Oyvind

Refer to your steps as below, I got some question. When I configure an IP on the ops console, how about the LAN-port on the server? How do I know the IP? Will the server auto detect the ip? DHCP?
1.) Connect a crossover cable from the first LAN-Port (on 4x 1Gbit Card, not the HMC Ports) to your PC
2.) Start Operations Console, configure the initial IP settings the Ops Console connection should have (this must be another ip than your IBM i OS will have)
3.) Start the connection
4.) IPL the System
5.) When prompted for U:PW enter 11111111 / 11111111

Luke,

Great review of the M15.

There is a very simple solution for Twinax support on the new M15 and M25s with no native Twinax capability.

The DeviceController will support all Twinax devices on the existing cabling infrastructure. It connects to the i5 over Ethernet.

It is 19″ rack mountable.

It is also an IBM ServerProven solution.

It will work with any version AS/400, iSeries or i5. People don’t need to “stay stuck with their model 270 or model 800″.

You can see a diagram of a typical installation

By the way, it also works to make locations with remote controllers capable of working as pure TCP/IP connections.

There are no special instructions necessary for the newer machines.

You can check the Systems Infocenter for detailed instructions. But in general, the procedure is very easy.

1.) Connect a crossover cable from the first LAN-Port (on 4x 1Gbit Card, not the HMC Ports) to your PC
2.) Start Operations Console, configure the initial IP settings the Ops Console connection should have (this must be another ip than your IBM i OS will have)
3.) Start the connection
4.) IPL the System
5.) When prompted for U:PW enter 11111111 / 11111111