Hello,
New forum user. This is my first post.
I'm a longtime vintage Apple enthusiast and collector with a lot of experience. However I had never previously seen NeXT hardware in person until two weeks ago. I got an email from a colleague about a retiring professor that needed help transferring files from a NeXTcube.
I jumped on the opportunity right away. The NeXTcube the professor had included the original boxes, manuals, software, etcetera. If he didn't meet me literally 30 minutes before taking off this would have been relegated to the scrap heap. :shock:
Here is a gallery of everything right now.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/kenfagerdotcom/albums/72157672632355765Being COMPLETELY out of my element with this machine I do have some initial questions.
My first order of business is doing a complete backup of the hard disk. I'd like to do this over the network if at all possible, but I'm not sure where to begin. I do have a RaspberryPi that I can ssh and transfer files to.
I'm trying to change the IP address and having no luck. /etc/hostconfig is locked and the SimpleNetworkStarter app won't let me change the IP. The hostconfig file is pointing to a long defunct university router IP.
Any recommendations and pointers are much appreciated.
Thanks!!!
I saw your post on reddit. Congratulations! It's beautiful :D I've also never seen one in real life, and probably never will :?
The best way would be attaching the drive to another SCSI system and take a full image copy of the disk (with dd or similar), or dual boot the box with another scsi disk/SCSI2SD if that's possible on black hardware and do a full image backup. With this method you would save the state of the machine as it is and it would be possible to set up a exact copy if at any point. No date/permissions or anything on the system will change like it would if you copy files one by one.
Another method would be to setup NFS on the RPi and mount that over the network, and then run ditto to the NFS share to copy everything over.
Quote from: bobo68Holy crap, what a nice find (also the Apple G4 Cube and the G3 minitower).
These threads should give you enough info about NeXT networking and backup over the network:
http://www.nextcomputers.org/forums/index.php?topic=1566 (http://www.nextcomputers.org/forums/index.php?topic=1566)
http://www.nextcomputers.org/forums/index.php?topic=3755 (http://www.nextcomputers.org/forums/index.php?topic=3755)
Best, bobo68
Thanks for the recommendation. I finally got root access this morning. Once I get this thing talking on our network correctly I'll give those a try.
Progress is coming in baby steps. :D
Still no luck changing the /etc/hostconfig file. It's locked and whenever I try to modify the permissions, they revert back.
I was able to convince our network person to assign a static IP to the eth0 MAC address. But yeah, I'm still locked to the old configuration.
TjL's cable modem guide might be able to get you going.
http://www.nextcomputers.org/NeXTfiles/Docs/TjLs_Cable_Modem_Guide.pdfWelcome to the forums. :)
Quote from: Retro_Mac_KenStill no luck changing the /etc/hostconfig file. It's locked and whenever I try to modify the permissions, they revert back.
Do you try to edit the hostconfig file directly? Why? Please take the steps I described in my post from in Sun May 08, 2016 10:23 pm thread
http://www.nextcomputers.org/forums/index.php?topic=3755 (
http://www.nextcomputers.org/forums/index.php?topic=3755).
From TjLs_Cable_Modem_Guide.pdf: "Despite its name, you do
not want to use SimpleNetworkStarter.app for this procedure"
Quote from: bobo68Do you try to edit the hostconfig file directly? Why? Please take the steps I described in my post from in Sun May 08, 2016 10:23 pm thread http://www.nextcomputers.org/forums/index.php?topic=3755 (http://www.nextcomputers.org/forums/index.php?topic=3755).
I started following the directions, but now when logged in as root the HostManager.app just hangs and doesn't open any windows.
Now I can't login using the default user account that previously existed and the admin user account I created to work with the machine. ::sigh::
Update: It looks like the default user and admin account no longer appear in the users list when using UserManager.app, so I must have screwed something up. The directories are still there.
Hello:
rm -rf /etc/netinfo /etc/hostconfig
cd /usr/template/client/etc
cp -rp netinfo /etc
cp hostconfig /etc
(reboot}
the above should get you back to square one
You should be able to login then set a password for the me account in preferences click the calender icon
logout you should now have a login screen , login as root set a password for the root account by clicking the calender icon ,
(If a password is not set for root in advance of any networking configuration; it can cause the system to hang after rebooting)
logout and log back in using the password then try and configure it hopefully will work.
The root Account
Every local domain has a root account (also called the superuser), which is able to bypass file permissions altogether. When you're logged in as root, you have far-reaching powers that let you perform a variety of administrative tasks. For example, root can change the ownership or permissions on any file or directory. (You can restrict root access for remote files. See Chapter 4, "Setting Up the Network File System.") Two ways to act as root are by logging in as root and by using the su command (see the next section).
Note: Don't confuse NetInfo root accounts with NEXTSTEP filesystem root accounts. NetInfo domains other than local domains also have a root account, but you don't log into these accounts. Instead, the root account is used to control access to the domain. If you want to make changes to a domain, you must know the root password for that domain. The root password for a network domain is copied from the local domain when the network domain is created. Once created, the passwords for the two root accounts are changed independently. See "Examining the NetInfo Database," later in this chapter.
Also if you have the documentation packages loaded it would be under NeXTLibrary/bookshelves Networking and System Administration (it comes in handy and a lot of folks don't know it is even there but it takes you step by step on how to configure the NeXT !) and I've uploaded it here as well so you can have a computer set up beside your NeXT and follow along to the instructions....
http://www.nextcomputers.org/NeXTfiles/Docs/NeXTStep/3.3/nsa/ hopefully this will assist in helping everyone to trouble shoot NeXT computer networking and configuration issues ! :D
I'm a bit late to this party, but duuuude.....! What an awesome find! I'm jealous...