OpenBSD Server Rack (2009)(openbsd.org)
openbsd.org
OpenBSD Server Rack (2009)
https://www.openbsd.org/images/rack2009.jpg
13 comments
Not my kit here... But...
About 20 years ago (in college, of course) I ran OpenBSD on an UltraSparc 5 as our network router.
We had hundreds of meters of Ethernet cable running across the house and out through the windows - by way of a LinkSys switch - as it was the most "economical" route for the network.
WiFi back then was new, expensive, and comparatively slow. Sub 9ms ping is what we needed for gaming, and 54mbit wasn't gonna do it.
I worked hard on the firewall rules, and it had zero downtime, felt like a real sysadmin.
Maybe I was.
About 20 years ago (in college, of course) I ran OpenBSD on an UltraSparc 5 as our network router.
We had hundreds of meters of Ethernet cable running across the house and out through the windows - by way of a LinkSys switch - as it was the most "economical" route for the network.
WiFi back then was new, expensive, and comparatively slow. Sub 9ms ping is what we needed for gaming, and 54mbit wasn't gonna do it.
I worked hard on the firewall rules, and it had zero downtime, felt like a real sysadmin.
Maybe I was.
Same but 2004: https://www.openbsd.org/images/rack.jpg
There is always a cyberpunk feel of weird hardware and weird OSes clobbered together with wires and sticky notes.
This brings back memories of running to the server room when something went wrong, now replaced by an admin panel on $CLOUD_PROVIDER's website. Not quite the same thrill.
Looks pretty nice. Love those sun boxes.
I wonder, what does it look like today?
I wonder, what does it look like today?
From what's in the picture, no more VAXen, no more SGI boxes, the SUN boxes you love are gone,(assuming you meant the Sparcstations, and not the SPARC 64 stuff), and that Zaurus sitting on top of the left VAX got put out to pasture, too.
Longsoon came and went as a platform between then and now (or at least I didn't see one in the picture, I don't remember what year they came out) and they support more ARM hardware and RISC-V as a platform now.
Assuming they don't have too much ARM hardware, they can probably fit everything they support on one rack now.
Longsoon came and went as a platform between then and now (or at least I didn't see one in the picture, I don't remember what year they came out) and they support more ARM hardware and RISC-V as a platform now.
Assuming they don't have too much ARM hardware, they can probably fit everything they support on one rack now.
> no more VAXen
Yeah. I tried to donate a VAXstation 4000 to OpenBSD when I was emigrating from the UK. My then-new employers Red Hat offered to ship it to Canada free of charge.
Unfortunately, when he discovered it wasn't the fastest model, Theo de Raadt changed his mind.
It was a couple of years until I had a permanent place to live with some storage space. I asked for it back, and Red Hat Farnborough had lost it.
I am still very unhappy about that. It was quite a valuable machine.
Yeah. I tried to donate a VAXstation 4000 to OpenBSD when I was emigrating from the UK. My then-new employers Red Hat offered to ship it to Canada free of charge.
Unfortunately, when he discovered it wasn't the fastest model, Theo de Raadt changed his mind.
It was a couple of years until I had a permanent place to live with some storage space. I asked for it back, and Red Hat Farnborough had lost it.
I am still very unhappy about that. It was quite a valuable machine.
One or two M1 Mac Minis in there as well I think.
When I got to CERN back in 2002, on my office there was a stack of Sun boxes like those waiting to be collected for recycling purposes, most researchers were already into Windows 2000 or OS X on their desks, while server racks were migrated to a custom Linux distribution, later Scientific Linux.
I always loved this picture
I avoided spending a quarter mill on F5's by deploying OpenBSD as firewalls/L4 routers but I was able to keep some of the budget... For a year there I would e-mail them every 6mo and ask what they wanted. Sad when I changed jobs and had to stop.