ok, my status so far:

i was delivered 3 360's, each with 8 or 16 meg ram, color monitor, keyboard,
mouse, digitizer tablet (46088A).

also included were a 7946 disk/tape and a 7959B disk.  the disk in the 7946
appears to be dead.

goal:

- take two units and netboot them as diskless X terminals (ie. boots off of
  NFS mounted root/swap).
- take remaining unit and make a stand alone X terminal (ie. runs off the
  functioning 7959B).

status:

- boots SYS_INST from an existing NetBSD/sun3 host via rbootd.
- attempted to use SYS_INST to install on disk, applied disklabel, but
  miniroot load hangs/failed.
- attempted to swap physical disks between 7946 and 7959B, such that i could
  create a boot tape and boot/install from tape.  disk swap seems to be
  incompatible, will return disk drives to the original cabinets tomorrow.

- boots SYS_NBOOT from an existing NetBSD/sun3 host via rbootd.
  (ie. bet the NetBSD boot: prompt)
- attempted to use multiple configurations of eiher sunos or NetBSD rarpd,
  bootparamd and nfsd, all appear to hang after getfile root.  no appearance
  of getfile swap when using "rpc.bootparamd -d".
- i've read through the mailing list and attempted to cover off the things
  about having a /tftpboot/<hex-IP-address> file, and such.
- before disklabel'ing the disk, used HP-UX to ping the nfs server, so that
  much works, although i can't verify that the machine can nfs mount the
  hp300 distribution i've placed on the nfs server.  it looks like it is
  configured appropriately.

problems:

- with SYS_INST, after applying the disklabel, i run "miniroot", i plug in
  the appropriate ip address, netmask, gateway, nfs server and directory.
  it hangs when it should be slurping it down.  "netstat -an" on the nfs
  server does not show a connection from the hp300.

- with SYS_NBOOT, i have unpacked the miniroot into a directory which is
  exported to the ipaddress/name of the hp300.  i have used the appropriate
  "cpio if=/dev/null" command to create a 16 meg swap file, which is also
  nfs exported.

- the /etc/ethers file reads:
     08:00:20:06:B3:62 skink
     08:00:09:01:86:D9 moloch

- booting via SYS_NBOOT shows that rarp seems to be doing hte right thing.

- the bootparams file reads:
     skink.reptiles.org        root=iguana:/export/root/Xkernel.sun3
     moloch.reptiles.org       root=tuatara:/var/.hp300 \
                               swap=tuatara:/var/.hp300/.swap

- the skink entry works fine for booting a diskless sunos machine.

- the exports file on the nfs server includes:
     /var/.hp300     -maproot=root  moloch

- /var/.hp300 is all of the files from then inst-11.fs filesystem.

given the above, does anyone have any idea's where i might have gone wrong?

it would be nice to have a concise, step-by-step, inclusive guide to:

- using SYS_INST to load off of a sunos 4.1.x machine
- using SYS_NBOOT to boot a file system from a sunos 4.1.x machine

also, similar using NetBSD (sun3 or otherwise).

the existing documentation seems a little vague in some area's.
("man diskless" and the INSTALL file from the NetBSD/hp300 directory)

-- 
[ Jim Mercer   Reptilian Research  merce@iguana.reptiles.org  +1 416 410-5633 ]
[ "Therefore, Your Honour, my client was entirely justified in battering the  ]
[  defendant with a large lime-flavoured Jell-O, as it was the correct time   ]
[  and place for it."   - as stated by Tuxedo in IRC                          ]