Just joined the forums, and first post.

I am running Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 5.1.19.6. Please bear with me as I am more of a Windows guy that was tasked 3 years ago with building an ACAS server and now I need to update software on the server.

To update the ACAS software I need to run an .tar.gz that I got from the DoD Patch Repository and it is now on my external hard drive (HD). I plugged in my external HD into the RHEL laptop and the external HD is not being recognized.

The following are commands I've tried.

This outputs /dev/sda1, /dev/sda2 and /dev/sda3 but none, to my understanding, are my external HD.

The 4 outputs, to my understanding, are not my external HD.

Am I missing something for RHEL to recognize my external HD? Once it is finally recognized then I'll mount it and run the .tar.gz file.

Hi,

You may need to upgrade the server. The release date for RHEL 5.1 was about 2008 and RHEL 5 is due to go on extended support either very soon or has already, and then end of life in about 4-5 years.

As far as a .tar.gz file, you do not run that, you need to extract the contents of it. Please perform manual pages on gzip and tar and those will explain better the details of these zip and archive tools. The tar command will be able to extract the information, typical forms I use are:This first command will do a report and not really extract the files. What it will show you are the contents of the archive, so you can see how many files and the structure of the directories you'll get when you do extract it. Next change the "t" argument to be "x", "-xvf" and it will extract the file.

You may wish to see if there is a license and active support contract with RedHat since you mentioned in your introduction thread that you work in a DoD arena. I fully understand that they have legacy systems which haven't been changed due to needing to remain consistent and stable. RedHat support is likely available for your systems, and if it is not then you should be asking why it is not.

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First, thanks for providing details...seriously.

Second, as a "Windows guy", you may have a harder time than you think with what you need to do. RHEL 5.1 is ANCIENT....it has not been supported, and hit EOL several years ago. Red Hat will *NOT* give you any support/updates/fixes on that system. Don't know what it's doing, but you seriously need to upgrade and build out a new server with the latest versions of things. You are asking for trouble....would you try to update an application running on Windows XP at this point, to put it in perspective?

Your USB device may be the tip of an iceberg here...your OS may be so old, it doesn't recognize the hardware, and won't be able to. We don't know anything about said hardware, but it's a fairly safe assumption. Personally, if I was in your shoes, I'd use SCP or FTP to transfer the .tar.gz file over the network to the system, and get things done from there, and sidestep the USB drive problem.

That said...you do realize that you don't 'run' a tar.gz file, right?? That is a GZipped tar archive file. If you SCP the file into your home directory (if you have SSH access now, you have SCP capabilities), you can do this:
...assuming the file is in your home directory. That will 'explode' that file into the newly-created directory. What you do with it from there depends on what's in it. Typically, there will be instructions, either in the file, or provided by the author/company that you can reference.

Again, I can't stress enough that you *REALLY* need to be looking at a new system, soon. If the hardware is as old as the OS...you're on borrowed time.

1 members found this post helpful.

I do realize I don't "run" the tar.gz file. That was a poor choice of words; my bad! Probably comes from too much Windows.

Thank you for the quick replies. It is evident from those 2 replies that the server OS, RHEL 5.1, is extremely outdated and that needs to be my first fix and that possibly will resolve the USB problem. The DoD Patch Repository has a RHEL 6.7 Desktop ISO. From initial research, this seems to be a relevant version. If you agree, I will move forward with this and this thread can be closed.

That's probably a good starting idea. Please check the hardware specs, you may have very old hardware too which may be a problem.

Knowing the very large infrastructure you're part of, I'm sure there's tons of old stuff as well as current information which you have to search for or request so that you can perform effective upgrades.

For when you've completed your task, or at this point, you can use the Thread Tools menu within this LQ thread question page to mark your thread as solved.

lsusb is located in /sbin/ which is not in a regular users path environment. Try:
Since it is a DOD approved system has USB been disabled?

lsusb is not in /sbin/ either.

This is an offline/standalone system that is not on a DoD network.

See if the command is anywhere on the system:

I typed that command, the system sat for 15 seconds, and then returned no output.

Try tailing the dmesg log and then connect the external USB device

See if dmesg is picking anything up, else wise connect the USB up and use the dmesg command to view if it has added the device.

lsusb is part of the usbutils package in RHEL/CentOS, if that package isn't installed (which it probably isn't) then it won't be available. Notably usbutils is in the base repo and so any install media should have it...

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Yes, but a patch repository won't do you any good. You can't upgrade from 5.1 to 6.7. To meet your initial need, I wouldn't waste time with the USB hard drive at the moment...transfer the file over the network, using FTP or SCP, and run the software/application upgrade you need, and get that off your plate.

After that, this depends on your budget and environment. If you have a newer machine available, get the LATEST version of RHEL (if you're paying for it, mind you...if not, use CentOS instead), and do a fresh installation on it. Configure the software, test it, and roll it into production, powering off the old box in place for a few months.

If you can't do this, install the very easy-to-use Virtualbox software on a Windows machine, and load RHEL on it, to test/debug application and give you an upgrade path, so you at least know what you're dealing with with then upgrade time comes, and you can write up a doc set that tells you what to look for, how to import/export data, etc.
Probably, as is fairly standard practice with such systems, even if they're not network connected.

The lsusb command would be in /usr/sbin. It is part of the usbutils package, which you might not have installed.

Is this system completely disconnected from the internet? If it has an internet connection and a valid RHEL entitlement, you can update it to the current 5.11 by simply running "yum update". If you have an internet connection but no RHEL entitlement, migration from RHEL 5 to CentOS 5 is fairly simple. See https://wiki.centos.org/HowTos/MigrationGuide and skip down to the "Migration an existing system from RHEL5 to CentOS 5" section. There are just 4 simple steps there, though that final "yum update" is going to take a while.

I missed the RHEL 5 bit earlier. just to note, RHEL 5 is essentially going to be end of production as of March 31st: https://access.redhat.com/support/policy/updates/errata

It is definitely not recommended to use RHEL5 in any form past this date.

Exactly, but that's 5.11; the OP is on 5.1...5.2 went totally EOL/unsupported in 2010

Ouch, 2010. Regardless of the initial question in my original post, I am working on securing and loading 6.7 right now. Thank you guys for the help.