Re: VAX hanging (during boot?) with current on SIMH

["Jeffrey S. Worley" <technoid6502%gmail.com@localhost>]

I can speak for NetBSD 10.1 on VAXstation 4000/60, so the software
works.  The key generation takes a gooooood looooong time.  Is is
possible that your emulator is similarly taxed?

If you need access to the VAXstation, it is up and running for you. 
Just email and ask for an account.  I'm happy to see it put to good
use.

best,

Jeff

On Sun, 2026-11-01 at 22:27 +0100, Jan-Benedict Glaw wrote:
> Hi!
> 
> I neglected automated testing of the ISO images for some months now,
> focusing to actually extend my setup quite a lot. When I now started
> to clean up my expect script to install a fresh SIMH VM, I noticed
> that it ran into a timeout during boot while waiting for SSH keys
> being created on the first start. (I'm used to use a readily prepared
> disk images with writeable overlays as easily spawnable throw-away
> instances.)  Booting the disk/VM manually to finalize the SSH hostkey
> setup, it seems to be hanging again after:
> 
> Clearing temporary files.
> Checking quotas: done.
> Setting securelevel: kern.securelevel: 0 -> 1
> swapctl: setting dump device to /dev/ra0b
> Starting virecover.
> Checking for core dump...
> savecore: no core dump
> Starting local daemons:.
> Updating motd.
> Starting ntpd.
> 
> 
> I cannot remember seeing instability when running under SIMH in the
> time before...  Config is like this:
> 
> 	SHOW    VERSION
> 	SET     CPU     512m
> 	SET     CPU     SIMHALT
> 	SET     CPU     idle=netbsd
> 	SET     RQ0     FORMAT=VHD
> 	SET     RQ0     rauser
> 	ATTACH  RQ0     disk.vhd
> 	SET     XQ      mac=08-00-2b-72-b0-43
> 	ATTACH  XQ      tap:t_08002b72b043
> 	ATTACH  nvr     nvram.bin
> 	DEP     BDR     0
> 	SHOW    CONFIG
> 	
> 	BOOT    CPU
> 	EXIT
> 
> SIMH didn't see many commits recently (and those seem to be really
> out of reach
> for hanging a simulated VAX), so I guess something in NetBSD broke.
> Has anybody
> experienced the same thing for current?  Unfortunately, having thrown
> away
> older build artifacts and logs, I cannot easily deduce a "good" point
> in recent
> history. So I'd probably just bisect through the last six to nine
> months or the
> like.
> 
>   (The current effort to revive fresh SIMH VMs being installed is due
> to my effort to look at the ~ 30 open port-vax tickets, trying to get
> as many as possible solved, analyzed, or closed due to being outdated
> by now.)
> 
> MfG, JBG