• Mac OS X,  Mac OS X Server,  Mac Security,  Xsan

    Update the Promise Vtrak Firmware Using SSH

    Updating the firmware on Promise arrays is straight forward enough from the WebPAM. But what happens if a firmware update goes funky and you can’t get into the WebPAM any longer (ah, the joys of beta testing)? Well, you can always download an older firmware and reload it provided you can ssh or telnet into the host. Download from http://www.promise.com/support/download.aspx?m=93&region=en-global for your given model. Then, you need the firmware accessible to the Promise chassis via tftp. A simple tftp GUI tool is available at http://ww2.unime.it/flr/tftpserver. Once configured, log into the Promise array and then use the ptiflash command to update the firmware. In the following command we’ll use the -s option to identify…

  • Mac OS X,  Mac OS X Server

    Running TFTP on Mac OS X

    TFTP, or Trivial File Transfer Protocol is a protocol that can be used for quickly shuttling files about. While similar to FTP, TFTP has no username and password (in most cases) and should not be running when you do not need it. It’s still in use today for a number of appliances such as routers and switches, to get firmware and occasionally configuration files. There’s a nice little GUI utility that can be used to house a TFTP server on Mac OS X. It’s funny enough, called TFTPServer. You can obtain it at http://ww2.unime.it/flr/tftpserver. Once you have downloaded it, you can open the application and you will be placed into…