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).

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
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
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
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.

Unfortunately, I don't have a Sparc workstation available for
NetBSD, so I can't compile NetBSD/Sparc binaries.  This limits
my options to downloading prebuilt binaries.
(If absolutely necessary, I could temporarily replace Solaris
with NetBSD on a Sparc box here, but that would be a nuisance
which I'd prefer to avoid, if possible.)

Best regards
   Oliver Fromme

PS:  The JavaStation does not have a mouse connected to it
(yet), just a standard PC keyboard.  I don't think this has
any relation to the problem, though, because the bootloader
should not need a mouse (linux boots fine without, and the
keyboard works).

PPS:  Just in case, this is the URL for PROLL:
http://www.metabyte.com/~zaitcev/linux
And this is the Linux kernel & rootfs that I could boot:
http://people.redhat.com/pjones/krups/vmlinux.js.initrd.aout.bz2

-- 
Oliver Fromme, Leibnizstr. 18/61, 38678 Clausthal, Germany
(Info: finger userinfo:olli@dorifer.heim3.tu-clausthal.de)

"In jedem Stück Kohle wartet ein Diamant auf seine Geburt"
                                         (Terry Pratchett)