I wish to set up my Sun3/60 to run NetBSD, diskless.  I wish to use my
SPARC/Solaris 2.5 to serve it in all the necessary ways.

I've never set up a tft/bootparam/etc server before, and I've never
run NetBSD before.

I downloaded the binary and install directories.  Curt sent me the
diskless(8) manpage (very useful), and I'm staring at "INSTALLATION
NOTES for NetBSD/sun3 1.2".

I've managed to get my Sun3 to tftp the loader (install/netboot).

I've gotten stuck the same place as Chris Davis (described in his
message of March 28): the NetBSD netboot says that it can't get
bootparam/whoami to work.  The actual messages are:

>b le0
Using IP Address [correct client IP address] = [same in hex]
Boot: le(0,0,0)le0
Booting from tftp server at [correct server IP address] = [same in hex]
Downloaded 14336 bytes from tftp server.

>> NetBSD netboot [$Revision: 1.5 $]
Using IP Address [correct client IP address] = [same in hex]
boot: client addr: [correct client IP address]
netif_get: timeout; resetting
netif_get: timeout; resetting
netif_get: timeout; resetting
netif_get: timeout; resetting
bootparamd: 'whoami' call failed
net_open: bootparam/whoami RPC failed
boot: le0: Input/output error
boot:

The natural thing to do would be to blame the server's bootparamd
(/usr/sbin/rpc.bootparam).  I manually ran it with the -d (debug)
flag, and got silence.  I then ran it under truss (the System Vr4
syscall tracer).  There was *no* action when the Sun3 was trying to
talk to it.

I have a /etc/bootparams file.  It contains:
	redvax	root=redline:/export/home/redvaxnetbsd/root swap=redline:/export/home/redvaxnetbsd/swap
redvax is the client.  redline is the server.  Both are described in
/etc/hosts.  /etc/nsswitch.conf selects "files" for everything.

I have not "share"ed /export/home/redvaxnetbsd/root (as yet empty) or
/export/home/redvaxnetbsd/swap (16 megs of zeros), but I have "share"ed
/export/home.  Is this good enough?  Solaris won't let me share a
subtree of something already shared.

Can anyone suggest why bootparamd can't seem to do the whoami?

Hugh Redelmeier
hugh@mimosa.com  voice: +1 416 482-8253