Subject: What's with this SS1 anyway?
To: None <port-sparc@NetBSD.ORG>
From: None <kpneal@eos.ncsu.edu>
List: port-sparc
Date: 02/18/1998 09:58:25
Morning all.

I'm sitting here in NCSU's Operating Systems Laboratory attempting
to netboot a pile of SPARCstation 1s. They've got 16 megs of RAM
each, no video card, no drive, no keyboard. I'm using a serial line
running into a SPARCstation 5 running SunOS 4.1.4 for the console.

I'm attempting to net boot off of the 5 (hushpuppy.csc) and am having
no luck. 

I have a 1+ that netboots just fine (oyster.csc). I'm pretty sure that
I've got all the config files configured correctly because I can get
the 1+ to boot. I've got /etc/ethers fixed, the machines are resolvable
via DNS, the boot program is sitting in /tftpboot, and it doesn't work.

The error I'm getting right after 'boot net' is:
Got error packet: Error Code 1 Message: File not found

It doesn't seem to load the boot program at all.

I'm not even sure the machine is rarp'ing. How can I check (don't even
say tcpdump). Just because this lab is used for the OS classes and some
of the networking classes doesn't mean that tcpdumping the network is an
option available to me. *grumblegrumble*

I've tried every combination of extension and no extension on the boot
file sitting in /tftpboot with no joy. The extension ".SUN4C" works
just fine for the 1+, I assume the 1 uses the same extension? 

These 1's have boot prom version 1.0. Is there some special magic to get
these old machines working?

One additional note: The 1+ says 'no keyboard' in the banner it prints
on power on. The 1s (both of them) don't say 'no keyboard', they don't
have anything in that space. If I hook up a real honest-to-God Type 5
keyboard and poweron then they print 'Type 4 keyboard'. Huh? Shouldn't
the 1 and 1+ behave the same way?

Thanks for the help.
--
XCOMM Kevin P. Neal: Junior, CSC, NCSU   http://www.pobox.com/~kpn/ 
XCOMM Raleigh, NC    mailto:kpneal@pobox.com    kpneal@eos.ncsu.edu
XCOMM "Now that networking is becoming commonplace,..." NWG/RFC 425
XCOMM    --- Bob Bressler  (Bolt, Beranek, and Newman),    Dec 1972