Trying to boot Vaxstation using mopd

[Greg Stark <stark%mit.edu@localhost>]

Hi,

I have obtained a real physical Vaxstation and I'm trying to follow
the instructions from
https://www.netbsd.org/docs/network/netboot/mop.html

I've copied the boot loader from
http://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/NetBSD-7.0.1/vax/installation/netboot/boot

mopd seems to respond to download requests and doesn't show any errors
but just repeatedly gets download requests and serves up the same file
repeatedly:

May 31 15:32:24 zzz mopd[14917]: 8:0:2b:29:e2:2d (2) Do you have
08002b29e22d? (Yes)
May 31 15:32:24 zzz mopd[14917]: 8:0:2b:29:e2:2d (2) Do you have
08002b29e22d? (Yes)
May 31 15:32:24 zzz mopd[14917]: 8:0:2b:29:e2:2d Send me 08002b29e22d
May 31 15:32:24 zzz mopd[14917]: 8:0:2b:29:e2:2d Send me 08002b29e22d
May 31 15:32:24 zzz mopd[14917]: hostname: [ipc] len: 3
May 31 15:32:24 zzz mopd[14917]: 8:0:2b:29:e2:2d Load completed
May 31 15:32:27 zzz mopd[14917]: 8:0:2b:29:e2:2d (2) Do you have
08002b29e22d? (Yes)
May 31 15:32:27 zzz mopd[14917]: 8:0:2b:29:e2:2d (2) Do you have
08002b29e22d? (Yes)
May 31 15:32:27 zzz mopd[14917]: 8:0:2b:29:e2:2d Send me 08002b29e22d
May 31 15:32:27 zzz mopd[14917]: 8:0:2b:29:e2:2d Send me 08002b29e22d
May 31 15:32:27 zzz mopd[14917]: hostname: [ipc] len: 3
May 31 15:32:27 zzz mopd[14917]: 8:0:2b:29:e2:2d Load completed
May 31 15:32:30 zzz mopd[14917]: 8:0:2b:29:e2:2d (2) Do you have
08002b29e22d? (Yes)
May 31 15:32:30 zzz mopd[14917]: 8:0:2b:29:e2:2d (2) Do you have
08002b29e22d? (Yes)
May 31 15:32:30 zzz mopd[14917]: 8:0:2b:29:e2:2d Send me 08002b29e22d
May 31 15:32:30 zzz mopd[14917]: 8:0:2b:29:e2:2d Send me 08002b29e22d
May 31 15:32:30 zzz mopd[14917]: hostname: [ipc] len: 3


I never see any bootp requests in tcpdump from the Vax mac address so
I'm thinking the bootloader isn't actually executing. Perhaps it's not
being recognized by the Vax?


I don't have a serial console -- it turns out I don't have a single
working machine with a real serial port and I'm now waiting for one of
those silly usb-serial adapters to arrive from China. I thought it was
possible to get a remote serial console from the moprc from latd but
that doesn't seem to work. Is there a mop remote console client around
or a trick I'm missing to get moprc to work?

I'm not sure if I've missed a step. Or maybe there's a better boot
loader around I could try?

-- 
greg