[web-team] script usage & failure modes

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Lisa Corsetti (svlug at flygirl.com):

> As for what we accomplished.  We got some hardware together,
> went to 3 stores to find the right cables and now have the 2230
> and the JBOD in one place and "talking to each other."

We rocked -- and you kept things going nicely.  

Turns out, all those stories we heard about the two units, or one or the
other of them, having hardware problems is almost certainly rubbish.
There was no sign of anything being unreliable.  Just to make _sure_, 
I'm going to low-level format all seven 36GB SCA drives in the JBOD
using the Adaptec BIOS program for that purpose, do likewise to the two
9GB and two 18GB drives in the 2230, install Debian "testing" afresh
with a... um... less creative partitioning/RAID configuration, and
run Cerberus Test Control System (stress-testing suite that we used at
VA Linux Systems) on it for a couple of days.  That will provide a
hardware clean bill of health once and for all.

One additional reason why I disbelieve the claims of hardware problems
is that the same folks kept also claiming that it's impossible to boot
the 2230 with the JBOD attached except by booting _from_ the JBOD, and
were claiming you cannot (in that situation) select one of the 2230's 
own drives as the boot drive:  I personally solved both problems in
about 30 seconds.  

One wants to connect the JBOD to the internal motherboard connector
marked "LVD" = low-voltage differential (SCSI channel B), and the 2230's
own drives to the internal motherboard connector marked "SE" =
single-ended SCSI (SCSI channel A).  Then, you navigate in the L440GX+ 
BIOS Setup to where you select a boot drive, pick the 9GB drive on
channel A, and you're done.

Gone from Via.net were some parts that should _not_ have been taken from
there:  the original external SCSI cable that had connected the two
units (somewhat rare and potentially expensive to replace), and the
extra JBOD drive carriers Marc Merlin gave us (simply impossible to find
in 2007).  I strongly suspect all of those parts are sitting in Paul's
house.  They need to be reacquired.