For those not familiar with larger IBM hardware, OS/400 installation is not quite the same as installing Windows or Linux. I would bet that most in this forum know a little bit about IPL's, but here's some handy info, before I get into the install process.
Note: in my case, the hard drives were cleaned. The system gave an error on the op panel that related to a failed disk; however that was not the case. No output to terminal.
IPL levels on this particular system:
A, B, C, D, with N or M
Normally you want to IPL in B, N. B is the normal state, and N means "non-attended"; the system will come up without questions.
Using B, M means attended IPL. The system brings you to the DST menu, to work with disks, install OS/400, etc, and then makes you log in before continuing the IPL process. Asks you current day/time and other things before coming all the way up.
IPL in D, M to "boot" off a different device, in this case the CD-ROM drive. Starting with the "I_BASE_01" disk, power on the system, and watch many codes fly on the op panel, the processor activity light flicker, and listen to the drives chatter as the system installs the "LIC", licensed internal code. It will take a while... however at the end of that, there is finally output on the terminal. A very cool ASCII (EBCDIC?) art screen that says "OS/400". Well, I thought it was cool anyway!
Going through the standard "language selection" (default number *should* be English, check the IBM manual online to be sure), and then date/time info, and probably some disk config, it's time to install the system. The menus are pretty straight forward, and I felt everything was easy to follow especially being so new to the system. At this point, you basically initialize at least one disk, and proceed to install OS/400 from the remaining CD's.
During this process, there are 2 users that require passwords: the DST QSECOFR user, and the regular system QSECOFR user. Make sure to set a password for both.
So, during the last (automatic) IPL, the system will churn on a few things, but should bring you to a login screen. Log in as QSECOFR with your password; you don't need to worry about the other fields. And now you are there! Next step though I found was to install additional software. Searching IBM docs proves to be easy, and the documentation is pretty easy to understand as well (although I am a system guy). Not only did I have to install a lot of additional software (compilers, TCP/IP, things we take for granted), but I also still had to set up RAID.
When I got this system, there were 9 drives included. One spare, 8 in the system. When I installed OS/400 though, I could only see one disk; all the others said "I/O error" in one screen, and "Read/Write Protected" in another. Turns out they were part of a RAID set, and the battery was dead on my RAID card. I found a better model (2748, as opposed to the 2741 that was in there) on ebay cheap, and installed that. More RAM and a NiCD battery on the card. The disks were still complaining, and that's when I found out they had something written on them to say they were part of a RAID set. Finally initializing the disks...
RAID is interesting on this system. The disk subsystem is called "DASD", and you have one or more "ASP"s in your DASD. My process was incorrect at first; I added 3 disks to ASP 1 (without distributing data), and then created ASP 2 with the remaining 4, figuring I could mirror them at that point. Nope. So, I had to bring the system down to get to the DST menu to remove disks from ASP 1, and remove ASP altogether. I then re-added 3 disks to ASP 1, distributing the data, and then told it to start mirroring. ASP 1 went from 4 disks to 2 disks, mirrored. So, I added the remaining 4 disks to ASP 1, and it happily distributed / mirrored the data.
Work with Disk Status
03/06/13 15:21:06
Elapsed time: 02:11:41
Size % I/O Request Read Write Read Write %
Unit Type (M) Used Rqs Size (K) Rqs Rqs (K) (K) Busy
1 6713 8589 13.9 .2 4.7 .0 .2 16.3 4.7 0
1 6713 8589 13.9 .2 4.8 .0 .2 4.9 4.8 0
2 6713 8589 13.7 .4 6.4 .0 .4 8.9 6.3 0
2 6713 8589 13.7 .3 6.8 .0 .3 7.7 6.8 0
3 6713 8589 14.2 .2 4.6 .0 .2 8.7 4.5 0
3 6713 8589 14.2 .2 6.1 .0 .2 14.0 4.5 0
4 6713 8589 14.2 .2 4.3 .0 .2 6.3 4.3 0
4 6713 8589 14.2 .2 4.5 .0 .2 7.2 4.3 0
Now, I also noticed the option during the "Install Licensed Programs" process to create install media. This is key, because I do not have license keys... So I created a install tape, which should contain all installed programs, as well as a backup of users, data, etc. A sort of all-in-one way of recovery it looks like, which I will be testing soon as OS/400 expires at the end of this month, currently.
Connectivity? Yes. From my linux based laptop, I use a package called "tn5250", and point it to the public IP address of the system. Works like a charm!
Printing? Yes. tn5250 has a program called lp5250d. You basically point lp5250d at the AS/400 system, and the system auto-configures the "printer". The system wants to print a lot, so look out! *Note: I had some frustration with this at first, trying to configure a remote outq. This was incredibly easier and less frustrating.
Webserver? Yes, there is a HTTPD service. Haven't worked with it yet.
FTP? Yes... log in using your username and password. No anonymous login!
NFS? Yes, although I haven't worked with this yet either.
Shell? Yup, qshell. "STRQSH", fairly odd but works if you want.
F4 is your friend if you don't know the options for a command. F1 is your friend many times as well... and using tn5250, shift <function key> to get to F13-F24.
Hmmm.. any questions, I'll be happy to answer them!
This system is at: 400<dot>carleynet<dot>net
If you would like an account, send me a message. I'm hoping that at some point in the future I can get a job working with these.
Clay
Much faster than using CDs to install the system.