Have you set the domainname on the sgi box - a while back I was
	netbooting my IPX from an sgi and bootparamd would not work
	without a domainname set. I did not have the 'domainname' binary
	on the sgi box for some reason, though it should be on the irix
	CD. If not the following might be useful:

main(int argc,char **argv)
    {
    if( argc<2 )
        {
        puts("Need domain name");
        exit(3);
        }
    if( setdomainname(argv[1],strlen(argv[1])+1) )
        perror("Failed");
    }

	    Good luck!	

                   David/abs             (david@mono.org)

.---- I've been too drunk to love ----.--- I've been too drunk to remember -.
|          Too drunk to care          |     The hell of the night before    |
|  Looked like death, felt like Hell  |    I've been drinking myself blind  |
`------ Been the worse for wear ------'--- And still I'll drink some more --'

On Thu, 8 Aug 1996, Jeff Foster wrote:

> hi all,
> 
> thanks very much for all the suggestions. Currently I am trying to netboot a
> 3/50 from an sgi machine. I have both the netboot 1.2e and a SunNetboot program
> that almost work. After the tftp transfer I get a bootparamd : whoami call
> fail.
> 
> here a snip from the SYSLOG on the sgi server:
> 
> Aug  8 16:54:56 6D:backson tftpd[3106]: cage.corp.sgi.com: read request for
> /usr/local/boot/C06691F3: success
> Aug  8 16:54:57 3D:backson rpc.bootparamd[3034]: receive request 1
> Aug  8 16:54:57 3D:backson rpc.bootparamd[3034]: bp_getclntent for
> cage.corp.sgi.com failed.
> 
> the netbsd netboot program says boot: netbsd-rd: Input/output error
> and returns a boot prompt.
> 
> What am I missing?
> 
> here is my /etc/bootparams
> 
> Entries for "cage"
> cage    root=backson.corp.sgi.com:/var/tmp/netboot \
> ( maybe not the best place, but ...)
> I also turn yp off when I am trying to boot, because out NIS server trys to
> respond and does not have the Sun entry in its /etc/ethers file.
> 
> 
> thanks again for allthe pointers and help,
> 
> Jeff
> 
> -- 
> Jeff Foster                            System Administrator/TLC, ISAC
> Silicon Graphics, Inc.
> jmfoster@corp.sgi.com   415.933.6284   jmfoster_p@sgi.com (text pager)
>              
>