[9fans] no disk; none at all

[9fans] no disk; none at all

[erik quanstrom]

or, a spruced-up authentication server.

due to a failed cx4 switch, i've been updating a number of machines
to spf+.

in the process, it seemed easier to replace the authentication server
than to just slap a new nic in it.

since cinap's iplfat gives one the ability to boot from usb, and usb
drives are much cheeper than small ssds, i thought it might be worth
doing it that way.  in theory they're just as easy to swap out as a
ssd.

one problem.  ipl lacks menus.  so i spent a bit of time adding them
yesterday.  the syntax is a little different due to the need to keep
ipl as small as possible.

while at it, it was easy to update to the 64-bit kernel.  and—bonus—
it turned out the new box had a e3-v2 cpu which supports the rdrnd
instruction.  it's possible with rdrand to generate random numbers
at several gigabytes/s.  nix's k10 kernel can use rdrand to generate
/dev/random randomness.  and this saves a lot of cpu time.
(~2000 cpu minutes/week).

that sounds like a bit of trivia, but the bottom line is
a 64-bit usb-booting auth server with no 9load in sight.

that almost feels like progress.

- erik