Oliver Fromme <oliver.fromme@heim3.tu-clausthal.de> writes:

> Hello,
> 
> I've got a JavaStation (the old brick model, sometimes referred
> to as ``Mr. Coffee'' I think) and I'm trying to netboot NetBSD
> on it.  Without success so far.  It has OpenBoot 3.11.1 and
> 32 Mbyte of RAM (2 SIMMs à 16 Mbyte).

Now all javastations I have access to have OpenBoot 2.11. Things may
be different.

> First of all -- contrary to the docs at netbsd.org -- it does
> not do RARP.  It does DHCP to optain its IP address.  This was

Are you sure your OpenBoot uses DHCP/BOOTP?

Mine uses RARP/TFTP like a normal SPARC, then JavaOS itself uses
DHCP/BOOTP. (ofcourse sun *might* have changed this in newer
Javastaton OpenBoot to make it easyer for customers...)

> surprising, but not a problem.  I set up an ISC-DHCP on a
> FreeBSD (i386) box, then installed a current NetBSD snapshot
> under /usr/rootfs and copied its usr/mdec/boot.net to /tftpboot
> (making a symlink to <IP>.SUN4M).
> 
> Now when I switch on the JavaStation, it requests its IP
> address and boot filename via DHCP, then loads the boot loader
> via TFTP, and then -- it reboots.  :-(   There are no messages

The javastation have the boot-file (kernel) variable set to "/kona" or
someting similary stupid.

> or anything, just a black screen.  It does not even try to load
> the kernel or anything else.  The acknowledgement for the last
> TFTP packet of the boot loader is the last packet that hits the
> network (I can provide tcpdump logs if that's helpful).
> 
> I tried with OpenBSD's boot.net -- same result.
> 
> When searching the net I found a Linux PROM loader for the
> JavaStation (called ``PROLL'') and a Linux kernel with simple
> rootfs built-in.  These worked fine, so it's most probably not
> a hardware-related problem (I can provide the dmesg of the

The Linux-port to the javastation does not deal with OpenBoot at
all. This makes the port almost useless.

> Linux boot if that's helpful).  I don't want to run Linux on
> this box, though.  I tried to load the NetBSD kernel with
> PROLL, but it complained that it's not a.out (no surprise, the
> NetBSD kernel is ELF).  Then I tried loading NetBSD's boot.net
> (which is a.out) with PROLL, but it just hangs after loading.
> 
> Doea anyone have an idea what's happening here?  What else
> could I try?  I'd appreciate any help or hint.

You _do_ know how to access OpenBoot on tha javastation? (I have
talked to people that have been working/hacking with Linux or NetBSD
javastation for a _long_time_ without knowing this, so it should
probably be written down in a FAQ or something. I discovered it merely
by accident. Again this is OpenBoot 2.11-stuff, please tell how this
works on your system.)

To access the OpenBoot you need to use the serial console. The default
settings in OpenBoot is:

output-device=screen
input-device=ttya

This means that the output will be on the monitor, but the input comes
from the serial console. Use

setenv output-device ttya

to get a pure serial console. I have found no way of using the
keyboard from OpenBoot, nor from NetBSD.

	Steinar