Sun Fire V215 ALOM troubles

[Paolo Vincenzo Olivo <vins%NetBSD.org@localhost>]

Hi,

I recently acquired a Sun Fire V215 at a very convenient price, from a
local business which had already decommissioned it long ago (local
pickup on eBay). Nobody at this business knows the whereabouts of this
machine, aside from the fact that 'it powers on regularly'. 

Long story short, once connected to power supply, it powered on and
booted straight to hard-disk, probably running an Apache server on
Solaris 10 (what I could tell from a nmap scan). 

Attached a serial cable to the SERIAL MGT RJ45 port, opened a serial
console. Upon boot I get:

```
ALOM BOOTMON v1.6.8
ALOM Build Release: 001
Reset register: e0000000 EHRS ESRS LLRS


ALOM POST 1.0


Dual Port Memory Test, PASSED.

TTY External - Internal Loopback Test
TTY External - Internal Loopback Test, PASSED.

TTYC - Internal Loopback Test
TTYC - Internal Loopback Test, PASSED.

TTYD - Internal Loopback Test
TTYD - Internal Loopback Test, PASSED.

Memory Data Lines Test
Memory Data Lines Test, PASSED.

Memory Address Lines Test
  Slide address bits to test open address lines
  Test for shorted address lines
Memory Address Lines Test, PASSED.

Boot Sector FLASH CRC Test
Boot Sector FLASH CRC Test, PASSED.



Return to Boot Monitor for Handshake
ALOM POST 1.0
   Status = 00007fff

Returned from Boot Monitor and Handshake



Loading the runtime image...

Sun(tm) Advanced Lights Out Manager 1.6.8 (sunacslsb)



Full VxDiag Tests

BASIC TOD TEST
  Read the TOD Clock:        THU JUN 05 15:41:50 2025
  Wait, 1 - 3 seconds
  Read the TOD Clock:        THU JUN 05 15:41:52 2025
BASIC TOD TEST, PASSED

ETHERNET CPU LOOPBACK TEST
  50 BYTE PACKET   - a 0 in field of 1's.
  50 BYTE PACKET   - a 1 in field of 0's.
  900 BYTE PACKET  - pseudo-random data.
ETHERNET CPU LOOPBACK TEST, PASSED

Full VxDiag Tests - PASSED



    Status summary  -  Status = 7FFF

       VxDiag    -          -  PASSED
       POST      -          -  PASSED
       LOOPBACK  -          -  PASSED

       I2C       -          -  PASSED
       EPROM     -          -  PASSED
       FRU PROM  -          -  PASSED

       ETHERNET  -          -  PASSED
       MAIN CRC  -          -  PASSED
       BOOT CRC  -          -  PASSED

       TTYD      -          -  PASSED
       TTYC      -          -  PASSED
       MEMORY    -          -  PASSED
       MPC885    -          -  PASSED

```

Then it asks me to login into the ALOM+. According to the V215 manual,
the default password for admin should correspond to the last 8
characters of the chassis serial number. Unfortunately, this is rejected
(tried also full number, lowercase, and other combinations). Other
default password found in earlier Sun boxes ('admin1', 'changeme') also
don't work. Most likely, it has been changed.

I couldn't get more info about the running system, as the OPROM/kernel
buffer is not redirected to the serial console by default. 

Now, looking online I found different ways to workaround the problem,
but none applied to my case, and I feel like I'm running out of options:

* This version of *LOM doesn't allow to erase NVRAM, as described in
  thread: https://mail-index.netbsd.org/port-sparc64/2013/09/30/msg002024.html
* Later Sun server do not have a discrete LOM card (can't unplug it), but a chip
  integrated in the mainboard. I read somewhere that there's a jumper
  you can play with, but haven't find more detailed information.
* I CAN'T get to an ok> prompt, so I can't boot a Solaris ISO from the
  optical drive. CTRL + Break at the ALOM login timeout does not work.
  (apparently, the combination can be disabled from Solaris). All I get
  is the login prompt, and the timeout message after few minutes, asking
  to press the '#.' escape sequence to return to ALOM...

```
  Enter #. to return to ALOM.


Copyright 2008 Sun Microsystems, Inc.  All rights reserved.
Use is subject to license terms.


Sun(tm) Advanced Lights Out Manager 1.6.8 (sunacslsb)

Please login:
```


Any ideas? Should I give up on this and sell it for parts?

Regards,
Polo