Unable to gain access into Sun X2821A infiniband switch

Notice: Page may contain affiliate links for which we may earn a small commission through services like Amazon Affiliates or Skimlinks.

epicurean

Active Member
Sep 29, 2014
785
80
28
I am unable to gain access into the management console of the switch. Got this off ebay hoping to start my learning journey for infiniband. The previous admin must have locked it tight. Its IP is not even shown on my DHCP server. None of the defaults on manual works
All attempts at SSH or telnet are denied.
Is there anyway to completely reset the switch to its default settings?

any help appreciated.
 

neo

Well-Known Member
Mar 18, 2015
672
363
63
Have you tried cold booting the switch and reading the output on the serial connection? Some switches' bootloader give you a safe mode / single user mode / restore factory settings option.
 

epicurean

Active Member
Sep 29, 2014
785
80
28
Have you tried cold booting the switch and reading the output on the serial connection? Some switches' bootloader give you a safe mode / single user mode / restore factory settings option.
Sorry, noobie here. What exactly do you mean by "cold booting" the switch?

can i use putty to do the serial connection from a win 10 pc to the switch?
I have a usb to serial cable which I use with female to female interface to my PC, will it work or this requires some specialised cable?
 
Last edited:

RandyC

Member
Mar 1, 2014
70
15
8
Portland, OR
I have one of these as well, but have yet to do a factory reset. I believe you can power off the switch, connect up the serial port, set it to 9600 8 N 1 for your serial connection in Putty, and then power it on.

Watch the serial console boot up messages, usually there is a key combination to do a factory reset.

Also these links might be of use.

Sun Datacenter InfiniBand Switch 36 Firmware Version 2.0 Documentation
[url="http://www.oracle.com/us/products/networking/infiniband/switch36/overview/index.html"]Sun Data Center InfiniBand Switch 36 | InfiniBand Networking | Oracle[/URL]
 

Scott Laird

Active Member
Aug 30, 2014
312
144
43
According to the docs, that switch doesn't have a traditional serial port; instead it has a USB host port, which is kind of weird. The two management ports are actually Ethernet, not serial. Try connecting the first management interface to your network and see if it gets an IP via DHCP, then try sshing in as root/changeme. If that doesn't work, then you'll need a USB serial adapter. See https://docs.oracle.com/cd/E19197-01/820-7746-13/820-7746-13.pdf
 

epicurean

Active Member
Sep 29, 2014
785
80
28
I tried a usb to serial adapter cable(which only has a male connector, so I had to use a female to female adapter as well), connected up to a PC , but nothing. Its really weird. Is there some kind of specialised/proprietary cable to do this?

I connected up to the next work but it does not show up in my router, although all the lights are led and seems to be working. I did a arp -a to find out which IP it was actually holding on to. When I tried to login, I was bounced off as unauthorised.

How exactly do I login via ssh as root /changeme?

much thanks
 

Scott Laird

Active Member
Aug 30, 2014
312
144
43
You'll need a null-modem cable; the F-F converter isn't going to work.

I'm not sure about Windows, but with normal unix SSHes, just do ssh root@<ip>, and feed it 'changeme' as the password. Might work, might not.
 
  • Like
Reactions: neo

epicurean

Active Member
Sep 29, 2014
785
80
28
Thank you. The right cable (null modem) worked and I can access the console via the usb -serial port.
For some reason, I cannot get an IP address for the switch to show up. is there anyway to rest that part of the switch to default? I would like to be able to access the management console via IP rather than this usb-serial combination.
 

matthias.link.77

New Member
Jun 4, 2017
2
0
1
46
Hi, I have the same issue here. Bought 2 of these switches, no IP assignment.

I can see the serial console, but again: default user/passwords don't work. How do I reset this to factory defaults without paying to Oracle support?

Thanks a lot for your help. Much appreciated.

Best regards,
Matthias.
 

morner

New Member
Feb 24, 2018
8
2
3
49
if you're not getting an IP, more than likely its set for static assignment. Just an FYI... I dont know how to use Windows.. other than notepad... so I can't answer anything windows related.

To find out whether the host is set for STATIC or DHCP, you'll need to connect a Linux, Solaris(or equiv), or an OSX based machine to the infiniband switch directly. Once connect you'll need to snifft the network traffic and you can look for ARP traffic or DHCP traffic.
If you want a GUI application you'll need to install WireShark

Linux or OSX:
tcpdump -vvvv -i <name of interface>
in Linux the name of the interface is usually eth0
in OSX the name can be something like en0

Solaris:
snoop -d <interface>
unless you have tcpdump then you can do the same

Connect everything up, once all the cables are connted and you have your sniffer listening for traffic , then power up the Switch and WAIT.. and WAIT.. you'll eventually see stuff fly by your screen.

oh yea.. once you get the IP address.. you can connect to the ILOM over IPMI and issue some commands using ipmitool. You may even be able to drop into a restricted shell and issue limited commands. My image was modified, so until I can get reload the firmware or some how reset to factory defaults.. I'm limited in what I can do with my switch.
 
  • Like
Reactions: epicurean

epicurean

Active Member
Sep 29, 2014
785
80
28
BTW, a little off topic : Is there a way to shut down this switch gracefully and have it restarted again (automatically)? I tried using a timer switch which works but sometimes its restarts with its fans at full speed, because it could not boot properly or something, but a simple telnet into the switch to input check_app_partition, and then rebooting brings it back to its normal self again.
 

morner

New Member
Feb 24, 2018
8
2
3
49
BTW, a little off topic : Is there a way to shut down this switch gracefully and have it restarted again (automatically)? I tried using a timer switch which works but sometimes its restarts with its fans at full speed, because it could not boot properly or something, but a simple telnet into the switch to input check_app_partition, and then rebooting brings it back to its normal self again.
it runs a version of CentOS. so you should have the basic commands , im locked out of my switches OS , so i cant verify. but try these:
- halt
- poweroff
- init 0 (this may not power it off, just shut the OS down)

dont forget, this is a datacenter switch... in real world scenarios this would rarely be powered off. I have a network capable power strip that i use to power on/off my machines that are in my basement. You can usually find these on ebay for cheap, i bought a 120/240 Geist PDU for $50 years back. It has a basic UI, temperature/humidity sensors. with a female adapter plug and a good power cable it can easily be adapted to work on standard 120v outlet.
 
  • Like
Reactions: epicurean

epicurean

Active Member
Sep 29, 2014
785
80
28
How does one set the MTU on this switch? I looked all over the manual but cannot seem to find the comands for it
 

epicurean

Active Member
Sep 29, 2014
785
80
28
The infiniband ports. I read something about smpartition, where there was some kind of mtu setting