On Wed, 6 Dec 2000, Paul (NCC/CS) wrote:

> I can't boot a sparcstation 1+ off the network.
> 
> using: boot le()netbsd -s
> I get: "Did not receive expected loopback packet"
> 
> Watching network activity on the NetBSD server I don't
> see any packets flying.
> Then if I try at ok prompt on sparc: ok test-net
> I get: "Internal loopback test ....
> did not receive expected loopback packet"
> 
> Now, I also get "IDPROM checksum is incorrect" just
> before the "did not receive expected loopback packet"
> error message.  But I don't know if this is the problem,
> because I also get this message before it boots sunos
> off a local disk, but in the case of the disk the machine
> STILL boots ok despite the error message. So originally
> I thought that the IDPROM error message was not
> important.
> 
> However maybe for the network boot it is VITAL?
> What do you guys say?
> 
> See I'm not sure but I think the NVRAM battery is
> stuffed and I get all ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff for the ethernet
> address and it's host id is 7fffffff when the machine
> boots. Booting off disk it seems to assign the ethernet
> address 00:00:00:00:00:00 and all seems to work ok.
> 
> Now, I don't know much about this NVRAM/ IDPROM
> problem. So is it necessary for me to fix this first to boot
> off the network? and if so what steps do I take to do this?
> Or other?

Yes, your NVRAM battery is dead, and it needs to be replaced. But, you can
survive without it, but then you have to reset some vital information
before you boot everytime the box looses power.

This just happened to my ss2, and I am waiting for a new chip from ELFA.
It should arrive any day soon.

I followed the procedure at:
http://www.squirrel.com/squirrel/sun-nvram-hostid.faq.html#GENERAL

and, I am now up and running it as a boot and DHCP server.

You will most certainly have to replace that chip, and that is explained
elsewhere on that page.

For future references, this page was found on the NetBSD/sparc
documentation pages.

I hope this will help you out!

Kjetil B.
mailto:kjetil@thomassen.priv.no
http://www.thomassen.priv.no/