<whining>
Ugh, this is not so easy.
First of all, I am able to write the Solaris and OpenBSD bootblocks. I
could not find any documentation on saving/restoring them, but I could find
how to set them to a specified set. It's not difficult. You boot the Solaris
CD and like /blah/installboot /blah/`uname -i`/blah/bootblk blah
And when you are done, to get OpenBSD back, boot the openBSD CD and like:
mount /dev/wd0 /mnt /mnt/mdec/blah/installboot /mnt/mdec/bootblk
/dev/rwd0
Actually I got an error so out of paranoia I did more like:
mount /dev/wd0 /mnt cp /mnt/mdec/blah/* /tmp umount /mnt
/tmp/installboot /tmp/bootblk /dev/rwd0
It took me a little while to find the OpenBSD installboot, buried in "mdec"
instead of any of /usr/bin, /usr/sbin, /bin, /sbin..even thought to check
/stand. (damn there are too many of these directories! I know people like
to fragment up
their hard drives into multiple partitions in order to make it harder to
decide how large
to make the partitions, and so then there is /bin and /usr/bin,
but must we have sbin too?, and on a single partition system, can't they all
just
be in /bin and /usr/bin a symlink to /bin, and on a multi partition system,
put them
where they are "needed" and then fill the others with symlinks? I realize
that's wasteful
of storage and $path search...I know these are not great suggestions, but
I do often wish it was all just in /bin.)
find is not present in the shell when you boot the OpenBSD CD, and the one
in /mnt/blah crashes.
All that, and the Solaris boot blocks won't boot the flash updater either.
They say something like "file just loaded does not appear to be an executable"
or somesuch. This is surprising to me. I really thought this would work.
Ok, so let's try the net boot approach.
Well, there's a step "edit /etc/hosts in the usual way". The usual way? I
always use dhcp. The usual way is not at all. So I tried my usual way..
At first I forgot to switch the Sun back from wireless to wired. After some
timeout, it sort of proceeded, to the next level of recieving nothing.
Ok, switch it to wired. Remember the MAC address changes (since I had gotten
it from my router/dhcpd instead of .enet-addr,
it was that of the wireless). It is timing out indefinitely. At least that
gives me a chance to fix the tftp server.
Over on the tftp server I get: warning: cannot find jay-sun1 on
192.168.2.0, or maybe the other way around.
I don't know where this .0 came from. I relented then and edited /etc/hosts.
First I used a 192.168 range. But then I wonder, hm, maybe that conflicts with
the dhcp on the router? Maybe I should use a 10.* or such number. So I tried
that.
I still get the warning about 192.168.2.0, and the Sun is still just
sitting timing out.
I don't know where this address is coming from. Maybe it is a reference to
a "group"
or "mask" of addresses -- 192.168.2.*?
I have run pkill -1 inetd after every edit.
So maybe I should reboot. Well, it's a newly installed slow machine, I
had tar xfz ports,src,xenocara.tgz running. Kill those before rebooting.
mv away /usr/src, /usr/ports to /usr/delete so I will delete them after
the reboot. This triggers the not as dead as I meant tar to spew warning
after warning after warning unable to set file times, to a slow console
(MacPPC G3 iBook). There seems to be no way for me to stop it. My
router shows no IP address -- I'd ssh in. Can't control-c or fg/control-c,
it's "detatched", stupid me. It's still going. I'll leave it go and then
try again later. ok, i finally finished.
Ugh. Flashing the BIOS is a big pain. On Windows, you just run the app,
it runs within Windows, and then it reboots.
..Jay
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]: [EMAIL PROTECTED]: [EMAIL PROTECTED];
[EMAIL PROTECTED]: RE: geom network driver times out on sparc 4.2?Date:
Sat, 17 May 2008 08:44:53 +0000
Agreed. "something" is "boot blocks" and they are "installed" by "the OS".The
flash-update is a 32bit ELF file and I imagine the OpenBSD/sparc64 boot blocks
only like 64bit ELF. (Per my other unrelated question -- I was wrong,
OpenBSD/sparc64 is pure 64 bit, gcc -m32 doesn't "work" (from a certain point
of view, yes I realize it does exactly what it is meant to do, and it is
arguably superior this way, rather than open a can of worms as to just what is
"the architecture" of "the OS", some hard to pin down hybrid, or simply only
SPARC64.) It is probably possible and not difficult to temporarily install the
Solaris boot blocks (such as from the environment booting the Solaris install
CD gives you), boot the flash-update, and then put back the OpenBSD boot
blocks. I haven't really tried yet. It might even be possible, like, to say
boot cdrom /blahblah/ or boot floppy /blahblahblah where /blahblahblah is, you
know, normally just like bsd or /update-flash, the kernel or the program to
run, relative to the device, but maybe you can use a "device path" there at
the start and have the boot blocks on one device read the "kernel" (or rather
update-flash) from another device. The flash-update is also 1.4something meg
in size, which I thought therefore might fit on a floppy and be bootable
completely from there, but I didn't have luck with that. The floppy drive
wasn't working from OpenBSD and the floppy I produced on NT doesn't work. The
size is maybe just a coincidence, and heck maybe I misread the number of
digits, it was 14<something>. I was too lazy to determine the actual value of
1.44meg -- LAZY of me, so easy to have done... I'll experiment later. I blew
away my Linux/macppc and started OpenBSD/macppc install so I can try the
netboot (which is something I want to try anyway). I know those directions
aren't specific to macppc, or even OpenBSD, but I have no other OpenBSD
machines currently, the Mac was a good candidate, and I might as well not risk
Linux or MacOSX varying in an area I'm not confident in. btw, those
instructions were good, but the man page looks quite good as well, maybe
identical. Thanks again, I'll report back later (in case anyone cares..hey the
mailing list is "misc", not "dev-important".. :) ) - Jay
> Date: Sat, 17 May 2008 09:42:20 +0200> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]> To:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]> CC: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; misc@openbsd.org> Subject: Re:
geom network driver times out on sparc 4.2?> > Hi,> > I was unable to get the
obp upgrade to boot when put on a openbsd disk. I guess,> but don't know for
sure, that the sequence is:> > - obp starts> - obp reads "something"> -
something starts> - something reads the rest of the command line and reads the
kernel.> > This "something" doesn't read the obp upgrade.> > If you compare
the upgrade OBP with netboot to the diskless man page, the thing> loaded
across the network via tftp when openbsd boots is ofwboot.net. The thing>
loaded with tftp is the actuall upgrade program of obp in that case.> > >
cheers> > bruce> > On Fri, May 16, 2008 at 09:03:40PM +0000, Jay wrote:> >
well, of course OB can read the file system.It loads the kernel after all.The>
> instructions are encouraging:> > OB> boot disk /flash-update> > Cool, like,
the flash-update is a kernel?Well, not that, but a program> > runnable as if
it is a kernel?> > But it looks like "the OS", er, the OS installer, is
between OB and the> > kernel;Specifically there are some "boot blocks"
installed by the OS, and the> > OpenBSD ones don't recognize the file format
of the flash-update.> > Darn.> > Maybe there is a way?> > - Jay> > > > > >
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]:> >
[EMAIL PROTECTED]: RE: geom network driver times out on sparc 4.2?Date:>
> Fri, 16 May 2008 20:17:26 +0000> > > > > > Awesome, thanks!Normally I would
have said "I have never netbooted; it seems> > too hard to setup" but those
look like great instructions.And I was almost> > right in my paranoia about
needing Solaris.I still wonder though -- if> > OpenBSD's UFS is the same
format as Solaris's, or if OpenBSD can create a> > Solaris format of file
system, then I think OpenBoot can read the files. And> > if not, not. I
think.Mitigating factors: I got 4.3 in the mail that> > supposedly fixes this.
The wireless networking is working fine. The OPB> > isn't even known to fix
this, but hopefully. But yeah, running old OBP/BIOS> > not great. - Jay> > > >
> Date: Fri, 16 May 2008 21:21:46 +0200> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]> To:> >
[EMAIL PROTECTED]> CC: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; misc@openbsd.org> Subject:
Re:> > geom network driver times out on sparc 4.2?> > So, just as I say this,
the> > page is at:> > http://www.SMTPS.net/netboot_flash_obp.html> > I did an
Ultra> > 10 this way with no problems. I may have done> an Ultra2 as well.> >
cheers> >> > bruce> > On Thu, May 15, 2008 at 07:59:48AM +0100, Sevan / >
Venture37 >> > wrote:> > > And dumb me, I didn't consider OBP as helping the
install too.> >> > > So the questions remain if I can install OBP without
Solaris, and if I'll> >> > have to crack open the case.> > > I'll see...> > >
> From the OBP update> > page:> > "Note 1: This utility is *not* OS-dependent.
The list of releases> > shown under> > the> > "Solaris Release" and "SunOS
Release" sections may not> > be complete:> > The> > absence of a valid Solaris
Release or SunOS Release> > from the lists> > above> > does not preclude the
installation of this patch> > against the> > hardware."> > > > > > > >> >
_________________________________________________________________> > Be a
Hero> > and Win with Iron Man> >> >
http://clk.atdmt.com/UKM/go/msnnkmgl0010000009ukm/direct/01/> >> >
