>Number:         15863
>Category:       port-mvme68k
>Synopsis:       mvme68k INSTALL notes improvement
>Confidential:   no
>Severity:       serious
>Priority:       medium
>Responsible:    port-mvme68k-maintainer
>State:          open
>Class:          change-request
>Submitter-Id:   net
>Arrival-Date:   Sun Mar 10 18:07:00 PST 2002
>Closed-Date:
>Last-Modified:
>Originator:     
>Release:        NetBSD 1.5.2
>Organization:
>Environment:
System: NetBSD malbolge 1.5.2 NetBSD 1.5.2 (GENERIC) #1: Sun Aug 19 23:31:28 BST 2001 steve@fatbob.mctavish.co.uk:/usr/src/sys/arch/mvme68k/compile/GENERIC mvme68k


>Description:
The installation notes for port-mvme68k should provide a section on checking
and configuring the NVRAM area that is used by NetBSD. This area describes
the VME RAM available to the kernel and, if this area is not configured
correctly, will likely cause the kernel to crash when it attempts a VMEbus
access to the RAM it believes to be present.

>How-To-Repeat:
Put random data in the first several long words of the NVRAM area and boot
a kernel. 

>Fix:
Something along these lines in the INSTALL notes:

The NetBSD kernel reads the first two long words of the onboard NVRAM to
determine the starting and ending address of any VMEbus RAM that should be
used by the system. You should verify that this area is set properly for
your configuration.

If you have no VMEbus RAM boards, the values should be set to zero (0).

For an MVME-167 board, at the "167-Bug>" prompt:

167-Bug> mm fffc0000 ;l
fffc0000: xxxxxxxx? 0   <-- you type 0
fffc0004: xxxxxxxx? 0   <-- you type 0
fffc0008: xxxxxxxx? .   <-- you type .
167-Bug>

For an MVME-147 board, at the "147Bug" prompt:

147Bug> mm fffe0764 ;l
FFFE0764: xxxxxxxx? 0   <-- you type 0
FFFE0768: xxxxxxxx? 0   <-- you type 0
FFFE076c: xxxxxxxx? .   <-- you type .
147Bug>

If you do have VMEbus RAM available and want NetBSD to use it, the first
long word should be set to the starting address of this RAM and the
second long word should be set to the ending address.

If you have more than one VMEbus RAM board installed, the starting and
ending addresses must be contiguous from one board to the next.

Also note that, for various reasons beyond the scope of this document,
VMEbus RAM should be configured in A32 address space.
>Release-Note:
>Audit-Trail:
>Unformatted: