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lazyfortress
Joined: 16 Sep 2018
Posts: 279
Location: Maryland, USA
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 Posted: Thu Mar 30, 2023 8:12 am Post subject: Where to find pre-2000s servers? |
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I’ve been looking for a variety of old tower servers, such as some IBM RS/6000 series, IBM PS/2 model 95, Sun Enterprise 250, Sun SPARCservers, and I see people on various forums stating how they picked them up for $200 or less. All the ones on eBay are $500+, which is absurd for such an old piece of equipment.
How do people find these servers for so cheap? Where should I be looking? I’ve had luck with an IBM Netfinity in a very used condition, and I don’t know if it even works. The guy is supposed to send more photos.
Are old IBM servers as tough as people say?
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crazybubba64
Joined: 03 Jul 2018
Posts: 1371
Location: WI, USA
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| Posted: Thu Mar 30, 2023 11:13 am Post subject: |
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Try to find local metals recyclers willing to sell you scrap material by the pound.
You may need to end up hauling entire pallets of servers in order to get what you are looking for.
If they won't sell to you, try to find out which downstream recycler they sell to and try to buy from them.
Otherwise try to see if there are any collectors in your area? Shipping huge servers is costly, especially when packaged correctly. A lot of the high prices on eBay are to offset shipping and/or risk in selling a large old server that may not survive the trip.
Alternatively, do some detective work and try to find local businesses or organizations that used this sort of equipment and see if you can make a connection to get access to it if it ever gets tossed.
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crazybubba64
Joined: 03 Jul 2018
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Location: WI, USA
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| Posted: Thu Mar 30, 2023 11:15 am Post subject: Re: Where to find pre-2000s servers? |
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| lazyfortress wrote: | | Are old IBM servers as tough as people say? |
Physically? Yes, they are heavy as hell and built like tanks. Often a huge pain to service though (lots of flathead screws and hex-head bolts).
Best of luck finding parts if anything goes wrong.
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CPUShack
Joined: 16 Jun 2003
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Location: State of Jefferson, USA
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max1024
Joined: 15 Jan 2015
Posts: 636
Location: Belarus
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| Posted: Fri Mar 31, 2023 1:13 pm Post subject: |
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| CPUShack wrote: | https://www.cpu-world.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=33826&highlight=proserva
Sometimes on the forum |
It's very good choice for now )) |
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lazyfortress
Joined: 16 Sep 2018
Posts: 279
Location: Maryland, USA
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| Posted: Sun Apr 02, 2023 9:16 pm Post subject: |
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[img]http://imgur.com/a/uyTETtp[/img]
I ended up picking up this IBM Netfinity 5000 over the weekend. Had to drive all the way from UMD to Long Island.
It has a 6GB hard drive, I figure I might need more depending on what I can do with this.
I was told I could run Linux on this (it has two Pentium IIIs), but I’m not sure what task I could make this server do, something that doesn’t require a monitor (remote access).
I was hoping I could turn it into a file server or a rudimentary firewall.
Edit: I was told there were "numerous" 32 bit distributions of Linux I could run on this. How would I go about installing Linux on this thing?
I could really use some advice, thank you! |
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Williac
Joined: 25 Feb 2022
Posts: 933
Location: Canada
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| Posted: Sun Apr 02, 2023 9:58 pm Post subject: |
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At least the support documentation is still online.
https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/setupconfiguration-utility-program-netfinity-5000
That's always helpful. Some of these older systems might have USB ports, but may not support booting from them.
Couple of options. Burn ye olde Boot CD and start from there. Or take the drive out and put it in another system where you can preload a partition with the setup media and make it bootable (Harder if you've got SCSI in this)
Most modern linux kernels and distros aren't going to know much about the hardware inside. But there are ones geared at legacy hardware.
https://www.tecmint.com/linux-distributions-for-old-computers/
If security isn't top of mind, you can always find an era-appropriate distro and install. Like RHCE before they started charging for it.
As a firewall? This thing would have a heck of a time pushing enough packets for a modern 1Gbps link. But anything sub 100Mbps should be okay. Your power bill might get a bit chubby though.
I used to run LRP off an old P166 back in my early cable modem days, and it did the trick. But DD-WRT on something that consumed 1/20th the power worked better after a while. |
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lazyfortress
Joined: 16 Sep 2018
Posts: 279
Location: Maryland, USA
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| Posted: Sun Apr 02, 2023 10:55 pm Post subject: |
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| Williac wrote: | At least the support documentation is still online.
Couple of options. Burn ye olde Boot CD and start from there. Or take the drive out and put it in another system where you can preload a partition with the setup media and make it bootable (Harder if you've got SCSI in this)
Most modern linux kernels and distros aren't going to know much about the hardware inside. But there are ones geared at legacy hardware.
https://www.tecmint.com/linux-distributions-for-old-computers/
If security isn't top of mind, you can always find an era-appropriate distro and install. Like RHCE before they started charging for it.
As a firewall? This thing would have a heck of a time pushing enough packets for a modern 1Gbps link. But anything sub 100Mbps should be okay. Your power bill might get a bit chubby though. |
The thing does have SCSI, so I'll buy a CD drive for this tomorrow. Should arrive by next week. It's got the CD drive cable, so no worries for me on purchasing one.
What is LRP or DD-WRT? As for security, I was told (since I'm on a university network) to make a VLAN and then connect the server to that. I'm unsure how to make a VLAN though.
I was also told about AntiX and Windows NT. Would RHCE be a better option, and would I be able to do a minor networking task with RHCE?
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Williac
Joined: 25 Feb 2022
Posts: 933
Location: Canada
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| Posted: Sun Apr 02, 2023 11:08 pm Post subject: |
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| lazyfortress wrote: | | Williac wrote: | At least the support documentation is still online.
Couple of options. Burn ye olde Boot CD and start from there. Or take the drive out and put it in another system where you can preload a partition with the setup media and make it bootable (Harder if you've got SCSI in this)
Most modern linux kernels and distros aren't going to know much about the hardware inside. But there are ones geared at legacy hardware.
https://www.tecmint.com/linux-distributions-for-old-computers/
If security isn't top of mind, you can always find an era-appropriate distro and install. Like RHCE before they started charging for it.
As a firewall? This thing would have a heck of a time pushing enough packets for a modern 1Gbps link. But anything sub 100Mbps should be okay. Your power bill might get a bit chubby though. |
The thing does have SCSI, so I'll buy a CD drive for this tomorrow. Should arrive by next week. It's got the CD drive cable, so no worries for me on purchasing one.
What is LRP or DD-WRT? As for security, I was told (since I'm on a university network) to make a VLAN and then connect the server to that. I'm unsure how to make a VLAN though.
I was also told about AntiX and Windows NT. Would RHCE be a better option, and would I be able to do a minor networking task with RHCE? |
LRP was the original router-on-a-floppy for Linux. Something like PFSENSE would be the modern equivalent. LRP provided basic NAT and port forwarding/mapping services for small home networks.
And sorry, RHEL (RHCE was the certification), or just RedHat was what I used to use in my school days. But it was free then. Mostly using as an example of a distro that has enough history that it would have had a current release for when this system was new. And given the history of collaboration between IBM and RedHat, the hardware would have most likely been supported in full.
AntiX seems to be a Windows-like Linux environment. Like Lindows used to be. Haven't tried it myself.
And Windows NT if you want to rock it like the good old days. Not for the faint of heart. No device manager (that come along in Win2K). You might actually want to consider Win2K (server or workstation) for a slightly more user-friendly installation and experience.
As far as a VLAN (Virtual LAN) goes, that's almost always done network side (on the switch), unless you're connecting to a trunk port (less likely) and have to specify the VLAN via the Network Card settings.
Maybe you need to request one get provisioned for your drop?
Either way, you're going to want to keep this separated from other machines if you're running a legacy OS. The volume of vulnerabilities for older kit would be a cake walk to root / exploit with freely available tools and minimal experience.
If you need it to play with friends, one of the other OS mentioned in the above link (one of the Mint variants) might be more suitable.
If you want a real hoot, this thing would probably run Novell Netware. But getting TCP/IP to work on it pre-version-5 wasn't something most people did. So maybe not ;P |
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lazyfortress
Joined: 16 Sep 2018
Posts: 279
Location: Maryland, USA
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| Posted: Mon Apr 03, 2023 6:13 pm Post subject: |
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I'm leaning towards Windows Server 2000 at this point. As for VLAN, I was told I could make one with a Cisco router or something similar. But I'll definitely try to keep this machine separate.
Also the server gives me a "programmable interval timer failure" judging by the 1-2-1 beep code. The FRU/action is listed as "system board."
Is $51 a decent price for a replacement motherboard? I'm not sure if I'd have to flash bios on it.
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Williac
Joined: 25 Feb 2022
Posts: 933
Location: Canada
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| Posted: Mon Apr 03, 2023 10:44 pm Post subject: |
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Interesting. Some of the other members might be able to comment if the error is fixable on the board. Error message says replace board with Field Replaceable Unit (FRU). 51 isn’t bad in my opinion for a dual PIII board from 20odd years ago. But I’m not up on my MOBO prices.
Make your own VLAN on the router? Assuming you’ve got one. Most modern routers can create sub interfaces for VLAN tagging. But I’m also starting to think they want you to create the subnet that goes along with it. If it’s not the school’s you’ll have to configure the front end of it too. They will probably need to give you that information.
Router config varies by model and software version, though most Cisco gear shares a common interface via IOS.
In case you’re wondering, Apple has had to license trademarks from Cisco for both “IOS”and…… “iPhone”. |
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j.cpu
Joined: 29 Mar 2022
Posts: 244
Location: Germany
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| Posted: Thu May 04, 2023 2:05 pm Post subject: |
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| in my case in particular i get them from refurbishing IT equipment as a business. sometimes companies among the servers they decommision there are some old ones. a couple of weeks ago i received around 6 tons of servers. mostly proliant gen8 and 9. but among them were 20 with pentium 2 xeon, pentium3-s. at the office i have a rack just for the servers i like to keep for myself. most of them still work like a charm. |
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