Re: port-vax/60478: releng testbed is busted on VAX

["Robert Elz via gnats" <gnats-admin%NetBSD.org@localhost>]

The following reply was made to PR port-vax/60478; it has been noted by GNATS.

From: Robert Elz <kre%munnari.OZ.AU@localhost>
To: Andreas Gustafsson <gson%gson.org@localhost>
Cc: gnats-bugs%netbsd.org@localhost, campbell+netbsd%mumble.net@localhost
Subject: Re: port-vax/60478: releng testbed is busted on VAX
Date: Sat, 25 Jul 2026 20:20:25 +0700

     Date:        Sat, 25 Jul 2026 10:29:58 +0300
     From:        Andreas Gustafsson <gson%gson.org@localhost>
     Message-ID:  <27236.26102.669249.622087%guava.gson.org@localhost>
 
   | As I see it, it was a failed test of the install :)
 
 OK!
 
   | These are not really even install failures, they are failures of the
   | boot process that happen when booting the install media (but may or
   | may not be limited to install media).
 
 Yes, very early indeed.
 
   | Anita does not run "on" the amd64/i386/vax system being tested;
 
 Yes, I understand that, I was just looking to see if any of the way
 it configs the guest systems vary between architectures.
 
   | the guest machines will also differ in
   | other ways such as the amount of memory and disk,
 
 Neither of those should matter, different kinds of consoles
 might though, do they (at least amd64 and i386) use the same
 generic type of console, say vga, or com, or do they differ
 in that area?   That kind of thing might explain some differences.
 
   | but they are all
   | executing the standard NetBSD boot process of their respective port.
 
 Unfortunately, x86 systems don't really have one "standard" boot process,
 it all depends upon how things are set up.
 
   | Anita does not itself run any shell commands on the guest machine as
   | part of the boot or install.
 
 That's fine, I didn't expect it would, but it does set up the environment
 in which the guest finds itself, and if there are material differences there,
 it might explain things - but if both i386 and amd64 are (say) booting and
 then just using the bios to access a VGA console, I'm finding it hard to
 see why one would act differently than the other.   Perhaps the difference
 is even between EFI and BIOS booting - but somewhere, there must be a
 difference (that would in some way affect what the shell when it starts
 sees as stdin/stderr).  I am fairly sure that nothing is passing odd args
 to the boot shell to make a difference that way.
 
   | PS.  I am replying to your NetBSD.org address because my mail server
   | 185.55.84.130 is unable to reach the munnari.oz.au mail server 202.29.151.3.
 
 You apparently live in a bad (network) neighbourhood.   The whole of 185/8
 was blocked (for everything) due to some (must have been fairly massive)
 bad behaviour.   I have whitelisted your specific addr now, so that should
 work, at least for now -- I need to make sure my manually added whitelists
 survive reboots (the blocks certainly do).   Fortunately munnari doesn't
 reboot very frequently.
 
 But kre%netbsd.org@localhost works just fine for avoiding that kind of problem, for
 e-mail.
 
 kre