So, you’ve got an old Google Appliance kicking around? Maybe from an expired Google Enterprise Partner Program (GEP) agreement? Why not turn it into an ESX server.
Once your license has expired, you’ll want to do is check with Google and make sure they don’t want the hardware back (they never do, but best to check). It’s safe to say that doing this is going to void your warranty.
The first thing you’re going to need to do is reset he password on the BIOS so that you can change the boot order. The easiest way to do this is to open the chassis and remove the jumper labeled PWRD_EN. The jumper is located just behind the memory towards the rear of the server. The next time you boot you can hit F2 to get into the BIOS.
With the BIOS now open, set the option to boot form the front USB ports. You’re going to want to flash the BIOS with a newer, non-branded one. A Google appliance is just a Dell PowerEdge 2950 with a yellow coat of paint and a snazzy front bezel. Head over to the Dell site and download the latest BIOS (I used 2.6.1). Once downloaded, run the utility to create a BIOS update floppy disk.
With the floppy disk in hand, connect an external USB floppy drive to one of the front USB ports and boot from your BIOS update disk. The update will give you an error message saying that a Dell PowerEdge 2950 BIOS cannot be applied to a Google Enterprise Search Appliance. Fear not, when the update exits it’ll leave you at a DOS prompt. Run the following command:
020601 /forcetype
It should complete successfully and reboot. Remove the floppy drive, enable visualization support in the BIOS and then install ESX. If you don’t have a USB CD drive handy, check out my guide on installing ESX from a USB Key.
Awesome instructions! Worked perfectly. I had recently come into acquisition of some old GSA’s. Knowing that they were Dell 2950’s I just couldn’t figure out how to get past the BIOS update issue. Once I was able to use the command above everything worked great and I now have a beautiful, bright yellow, server. Thanks for your help. I hope someone else finds this useful.
Glad you found it useful Tom!
Does this procedure affect the functionality of the GSA? I acquired a GSA from a now defunct group where everone got laid-off and wanted to recover the password. Is the GSA running Redhat and if so is there a known password recovery procedure?
Thanks
Also, I moved the jumper and can now get into the BIOS. However, there is a bios password set. Is there a way to reset this to none?
Hi Mark,
Formatting the GSA will turn it into any other PE2950.
I didn’t bother to try and recover the BIOS password they used, or the console root password.
If the group is defunct the chances are the license on it will have expired anyway. You could boot from a linux distro on a USB key or similar after clearing the BIOS password. Chroot the installation and change the password that way. Probably not worth the effort to brute force the password.
Let me know if you need more details.
Mark,
Just take the jumper off and leave it off . That will remove any BIOS password. If it hasn’t worked chances are you’ve removed the wrong jumper.
Fantastic instructions Dave…I am about to try it out on a search appliance I have acquired. Do you know if you are able to re-create a RAID 5 on the 5 hard drives?
Hi Ryan,
That’s exactly what I did. Ended up deleting the existing configuration and created a RAID5 array on them (added in a hot spare too).
My BIOS jumper configuration is different than you explained: “remove the jumper labeled PWRD_EN. The jumper is located just behind the memory towards the rear of the server.”
Mine has a jumper next to the cmos battery labeled CLR_CMOS with 3 pins. With the server off, I moved the jumper over, waited a minute, then put it back. I was then able to get into the BIOS on reboot.
I got to the part where I do: 020601 /forcetype
It put a bunch of numbers on the screen, and just sat there for 10 minutes or so. I pulled the power, rebooted, and it came back up with the old google bios.
Do you have any other suggestions on how to flash the BIOS?
Hi Joe,
How unusual. Is it a Dell PE2950 chasis?
If you get the service tag of the system and enter it into the Dell website, what does it detect the system as?