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

    Use A Serial Interface with Promise Arrays

    Many of us use a Keyspan Serial adapter to manage devices with serial ports on them. Those who find you need to console into devices but hate the fact that you have to either use Zterm (which is no longer maintained) or boot a Windows Virtual Machine will find an application called goSerial pretty handy. GoSerial makes a Keyspan serial to usb adaptor, connected with a null modem cable, useful. You will be in CLI heaven in moments. goSerial can be downloaded here. You can also use the screen command. The screen command will open a virtual terminal and provide the functionality of an old DEC VT100 terminal. Screen is…

  • 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…