Thin Clients: Sun Ray WAN Firmware

Ultra Thin Clients: Sun Ray WAN Firmware

Abstract:

Sun Microsystems had started as a UNIX workstation vendor based upon BSD UNIX. Most of these workstations were based upon diskless or dataless environments, where user data was stored on centralized servers. After an investment from AT&T, Sun has moved from predominantly a workstation vendor to a server, using AT&T SVR4 UNIX multi-processor scalable source code. In the process of moving it's core business to servers, Sun refocused their efforts on even lower costing thin clients. The SunRay line of ultra-thin clients provides virtually all processing on the server, with virtually all the data on the server, with merely providing the display, keyboard, mouse, and local ports through a multiplexed network connection. Sun recently provided Wide Area Network capability to the SunRay clients.

Finding a Sun Ray on a Dedicated Network

When a Sun Ray is attached to a dedicated network, the Solaris platform will provide for it an IP Address via DHCP. The physical address is written on the DTU, so the IP can be correlated via the "arp" command.

Ultra2/root$ arp -a
Net to Media Table: IPv4
Device IP Address . . Mask . . . . . Flags Phys Addr
------ --------------- --------------- ----- -----------------
hme0 224.101.101.101 255.255.255.255 . . . 01:00:5e:65:65:65
hme1 224.101.101.101 255.255.255.255 . . . 01:00:5e:65:65:65
hme1 IGMP.MCAST.NET. 255.255.255.255 . . . 01:00:5e:00:00:16
hme1 192.168.2.68. . 255.255.255.255 o . . 00:03:ba:26:9f:92
...
hme1 Ultra2-hme1 . . 255.255.255.255 SPLA. 08:00:20:89:ed:d3
hme0 Ultra2. . . . . 255.255.255.255 SPLA. 08:00:20:89:ed:d3
hme1 BASE-ADDRESS. . 240.0.0.0 . . . SM. . 01:00:5e:00:00:00

Determining the Firmware

Once can query the Sun Ray (by IP address) to determine the firmware level. Note, there is no WAN firmware on this unit, since there was no "GUI" prefix on the firmware identification.

Ultra2/root$ utquery -d 192.168.2.68
terminalID=0003ba269f92
terminalIPA=192.168.2.68
model=CoronaP2
currentAuth=192.168.2.252
currentFW=4.2_77_2009.10.19.17.01
...

Upgrading Sun Ray Firmware

The firmware must be upgraded to the GUI version. This is done using the user teriminal firmware administration tool, by the hardware address.

Ultra2/root$ utfwadm -A -f /opt/SUNWut/lib/firmware_gui -e 00:03:ba:26:9f:92 Unit "0803BA269F92" will be upgraded at its next power-on if it is served by host "Ultra2" and is connected to the network and is not already running firmware version "GUI4.2_77_2009.10.19.17.01". ### stopped DHCP daemon ### started DHCP daemon ### reinitialized DHCP daemon

Validating the Sun Ray Firmware

After booting the desktop unit, a second query will reveal the new firmware with the GUI prefix.

Ultra2/root$ utquery -d 192.168.2.68
terminalID=0803ba269f92
terminalIPA=192.168.2.68
...
currentFW=GUI4.2_77_2009.10.19.17.01
...

The desktop unit is now ready to be leveraged across a WAN.