Workaround for ERR_SSL_VERSION_OR_CIPHER_MISMATCH problem for Sparc NAS (4.1.x firmware)

Thank you SamirD.

You are very kind with your detailed reply.  It's a shame you are so far away. 

I tend to run tech until i have burnt through at least one power supply and a failed hard disc!  Just, at work, it can be a bit painful.  When my server went down with my Active Director Domain Controller and the backup did not kick in, it was a it desperate.  So, at work, I do have to replace for productivity.  Although the factory is still on 2008 hardware.  It leads me back to reliance on Windows and not Linux.  They get so slow. 

I was asking myself if running a cloud would let me run tech until it broke.  Then I could just add another node using old tech. 

I will give Proxmox a look at.  Thank you for the tip and your support. 

You're welcome.  It is a shame, but I know there's always people that think as we do about tech and you're bound to find someone locally.  If not, international freight rates aren't too bad.

I pretty much do the same thing, and then I will get back to the broken machine years later and fix it and put it back in service.  Kind of a continuous task, but that's anything IT ime.

Ouch that  sounded like a bit of a nightmare at a factory!  There are certain servers for us that are mission critical like, but we made them modular--the server and the storage are easily separated and distributed to other systems on the network.  And there's physical redundancy on the storage so we can even remove part of the storage and connect it to another system and be back up and running 100% in short order.

What's interesting about virtualizing hardware and high availability/clustering setups is that you can take bare metal hardware into the virtual world and then make the old hardware as part of the whole cluster.  And then when the hardware finally fails, you can simply not use it in the cluster or repair it and put it back in place--while all the while the virtual machines just keep working.  This is what I want to do with all of our stuff eventually.  We even have all the hardware to do it--it's just time to configure and test out everything before fully switching over.  And this applies to linux too so you can use that side by side with windows on the same hardware.

Proxmox seems to be the most popular free hypervisor environment out there right now.  I haven't played with it much myself, but have read the docs cover to cover in preparation for our inevitable switch to virtualization.  I would really be interested in what you think of it once you've played with it.

The ReadyNAS hardware is really quite robust, IMHO.  Many have and use units from before Infrant was bought by Netgear.  But technology is a fickle thing.  It seems that "everyone" wants the latest, greatest thing, and that requires more and more capable hardware, making the old hardware obsolete.  I personally think there are a lot of folks who really don't want that and that the developers say they do only to justify updates that add functions (whether useful or not) and then require better hardware to run it.  But the security aspects certainly do have to be kept up to date, which can drive hardware requirements.

Infrant/Netgear's choice to use Debian Linux as the core of the ReadyNAS OS (less customized than most other NAS developers, too) is a two-edged sword.  It made it easier to create and for users to utilize existing apps.  But it also meant that they relied on somebody else for updates and maintenance of old versions.  And it took away their control of the hardware needed to run the latest version.   Their very restrictive stance on apps specific to the ReadyNAS (not embracing Docker, for example) was definitely a misstep.  I believe it was one of the factors that reduced their market share.  And with their sales model not including charging for OS updates, their entire business model relied on the sale of new hardware.  With reduced market share and old hardware just keeping on working, it was not a workable business model.  Add to that that security updates were a must if they didn't want to open themselves up to liability issues, and "cut and run" becomes the exit path of least resistance, especially to the current class of typical CEOs and board members who really know little about their own technology.  Decisions are based on stock price and how it will be affected, not technical merit.

I would love to see Netgear release the OS and the source code of their proprietary portion, but I can see that if doing so led someone to discover a back door, that would be a huge legal problem for them; so I don't see it happening.

Oh how I would love to see somebody (the old Infrant "Jedi" come to mind) buy the rights to the ReadyNAS OS.  I would gladly pay for an updated OS to keep the hardware going.  While I'm now using rack-mount units and could install an open source OS on them, most don't have that option.  And I do like the idea of a "plug and play" OS rather than something I have to keep up to date myself.

WhoCares_ is working on a replacement for all, but he's got a ways to go before it's ready for prime time.  And he's doing it relying only on the Linux base and reverse engineering of ReadyNASOS instead of having any assistance from Netgear.