Ultra Enterprise 450 install

Good evening,

I'm trying to install netbsd 3.0 on an E450 that I recently
acquired
from a dot.com which had to downsize it's server room. The
problem that
I'm having is that once the sparc64 cd boots up to NetBSD I
can no
longer send keystrokes to the machine. In other words, I
have:

     booted the machine
     pressed Stop-A to get to an ok prompt
     done setenv auto-boot? false
     done setenv boot-device cdrom

On boot the keyboard works. I can type boot after the system
comes up
to the ok prompt and it will read the NetBSD CD-ROM. On 3.0
When it
comes up to the install prompt where it is asking what kind
of
terminal I have pressing Enter (I have a Sun-6 keyboard and
a VGA
adapter) does nothing. Pressing Stop-A at this point brings
me to a
kernel debugger prompt.

I've had worse luck trying to get this to go from a serial
console
(xterm/kermit on my FreeBSD laptop in case anyone cares) In
this case
I cannot seem to send a break to the sun.

Any ideas? I'm hoping that this is just something silly
that I don't
understand about E450s.

Thank you
-- Chris

-- 
Chris Hilton                                  
chris-at-vindaloo-dot-com
------------------------------------------------------------
------------
                "All I was doing was trying to get
home from work!"
                                                 -- Rosa
Parks

On Sun, Apr 23, 2006 at 10:03:16PM -0400, Christopher Sean
Hilton wrote:
> Good evening,
> 
> I'm trying to install netbsd 3.0 on an E450 that I
recently acquired
> from a dot.com which had to downsize it's server room.
The problem that
> I'm having is that once the sparc64 cd boots up to
NetBSD I can no
> longer send keystrokes to the machine. In other words,
I have:
> 
>      booted the machine
>      pressed Stop-A to get to an ok prompt
>      done setenv auto-boot? false
>      done setenv boot-device cdrom

That wasn't all needed, you might want to start with a
'set-defaults'
and leave most of the PROM alone.  If you want to boot the
cdrom, just
'boot cdrom' from the OK> would be enough.

> On boot the keyboard works. I can type boot after the
system comes
> up to the ok prompt and it will read the NetBSD CD-ROM.
On 3.0 When
> it comes up to the install prompt where it is asking
what kind of
> terminal I have pressing Enter (I have a Sun-6 keyboard
and a VGA
> adapter) does nothing. Pressing Stop-A at this point
brings me to a
> kernel debugger prompt.
>
> I've had worse luck trying to get this to go from a
serial console
> (xterm/kermit on my FreeBSD laptop in case anyone
cares) In this case
> I cannot seem to send a break to the sun.

How are you sending the break?  Have you tried just using
'cu' instead?

> Any ideas? I'm hoping that this is just something
silly that I don't
> understand about E450s.

Not a whole lot to mis-understand at this point.

-- 
Michael Parson
mparsonbl.org

On Sun, Apr 23, 2006 at 10:03:16PM -0400, Christopher Sean
Hilton wrote:
> Any ideas? I'm hoping that this is just something
silly that I don't
> understand about E450s.

I've never seen such behaviour when using a keyboard
attached to a machine,
but perhaps that's because I almost always do installations
via serial
console.  I've seen the behaviour you describe, but only
when using an
incorrectly wired serial cable installing OpenBSD/hppa
(installation kernel
would boot, but the kernel wouldn't accept any serial
console input).

Perhaps give serial console another go - set your terminal
program to
96008N1 and you should be able to connect. I've had good
results using
minicom, but cu will also work fine.

-mj
-- 
Michael-John Turner | http://weblogs.turne
r.org.za/mj/
mjturner.org.za    | Open Source in WC ZA - http://www.clug.org.za/

On Apr 24, 2006, at 3:47 PM, Sean Caron wrote:
> I've never found a terminal emulator that could step
with the real 
> thing.. Go dig
>  a DEC VTxxx series out of your nearest dumpster and
you'll never have 
> console
>  problems again.

   Seconded.  Even the budget-constrained can have a good,
REAL terminal 
these days.

         -Dave

--
Dave McGuire
Cape Coral, FL

Christopher Sean Hilton <chiltonvindaloo.com> wrote:
> Good evening,
> 
> I'm trying to install netbsd 3.0 on an E450 that I
recently acquired
> from a dot.com which had to downsize it's server room.
The problem that
> I'm having is that once the sparc64 cd boots up to
NetBSD I can no
> longer send keystrokes to the machine. In other words,
I have:
> 
>      booted the machine
>      pressed Stop-A to get to an ok prompt
>      done setenv auto-boot? false
>      done setenv boot-device cdrom
> 
> On boot the keyboard works. I can type boot after the
system comes up
> to the ok prompt and it will read the NetBSD CD-ROM. On
3.0 When it
> comes up to the install prompt where it is asking what
kind of
> terminal I have pressing Enter (I have a Sun-6 keyboard
and a VGA
> adapter) does nothing. Pressing Stop-A at this point
brings me to a
> kernel debugger prompt.
> 
> I've had worse luck trying to get this to go from a
serial console
> (xterm/kermit on my FreeBSD laptop in case anyone
cares) In this case
> I cannot seem to send a break to the sun.
> 
> Any ideas? I'm hoping that this is just something
silly that I don't
> understand about E450s.


 Check the input and output devices in the Openboot PROM,
like so from the
 "ok" prompt:

printenv input-device
printenv output-device

 For the Sun keyboard port on the machine, input-device
should be
 "keyboard".  For the graphical frame buffer, it
should be "screen".

other useful options are "ttya" and
"ttyb" for the two serial ports.


 Is this a third party video card?  I'm not sure, but that
could be the
cause of some display problems.

  You obviously already know how to set variables.  If you
are going to
use the serial ports, you want both the input and output
devices to be
either "ttya" or "ttyb", depending
on which port you are using.

 I haven't worked with an E450 in about 6 years, but i
don't recall
anything funky with their serial ports.

 You may also want to check the ttya and ttyb port settings.
 The Openboot
 PROM variables begin with "ttya" or
"ttyb" and look like this by default, usually:

ttyb-rts-dtr-off=false
ttyb-ignore-cd=true
ttya-rts-dtr-off=false
ttya-ignore-cd=true
ttyb-mode=9600,8,n,1,-
ttya-mode=9600,8,n,1,-


 You probably know this, but if you are connecting over the
serial ports,
you will need a null modem adapter, not just a
"straight" serial cable.
(RX and TX need to be crossed so that signal gets to the
correct pins on
either end.)  You can also do this with a cable built to
cross these,
rather than putting a null modem adapter in the series.

 It's possible that someone changed them and they are
causing the problems
on the serial ports.

 -johan

On Mon, 2006-04-24 at 21:44 +0200, Michael-John Turner
wrote:
> On Sun, Apr 23, 2006 at 10:03:16PM -0400, Christopher
Sean Hilton wrote:
> > Any ideas? I'm hoping that this is just something
silly that I don't
> > understand about E450s.
> 
> I've never seen such behaviour when using a keyboard
attached to a machine,
> but perhaps that's because I almost always do
installations via serial
> console.  I've seen the behaviour you describe, but
only when using an
> incorrectly wired serial cable installing OpenBSD/hppa
(installation kernel
> would boot, but the kernel wouldn't accept any serial
console input).
> 
> Perhaps give serial console another go - set your
terminal program to
> 96008N1 and you should be able to connect. I've had
good results using
> minicom, but cu will also work fine.

I used both kermit and cu as terminal emulators. This E450
already has
solaris of some kind on it. I got farthest with the Sun
Keyboard
attached though. With the terminal emulator I couldn't get
the machine
to respond at all. Is/was there some protection switch that
you could
set on the PROM to keep the E450 from listening to the
keyboard until
after the operating system has booted. I'm wondering if the
people who
owned this box before set some ultra high security setting
on the box.

-- Chris


-- 
Chris Hilton                                  
chris-at-vindaloo-dot-com
------------------------------------------------------------
------------
                "All I was doing was trying to get
home from work!"
                                                 -- Rosa
Parks

On Mon, 24 Apr 2006, Christopher Sean Hilton wrote:
> I used both kermit and cu as terminal emulators. This
E450 already has
> solaris of some kind on it. I got farthest with the Sun
Keyboard
> attached though. With the terminal emulator I couldn't
get the machine
> to respond at all. Is/was there some protection switch
that you could
> set on the PROM to keep the E450 from listening to the
keyboard until
> after the operating system has booted. I'm wondering
if the people who
> owned this box before set some ultra high security
setting on the box.

Oh, you just reminded me of something. There are 4 positions
for
the "power key" (top-right corner), one of which
does something
like you mention. I have an E450, currently running FreeBSD,
as
my main home web/email server.

--
Vicky Staubly       http://www.steeds.com/vi
cky/        vickysteeds.com

> I used both kermit and cu as terminal emulators. This
E450 already has
> solaris of some kind on it. I got farthest with the Sun
Keyboard
> attached though. With the terminal emulator I couldn't
get the machine
> to respond at all.

This is a normal behaviour for imho all Sun Sparc systems.
if you plug
a keyboard. At least the input over the com is disabled. You
have to
use the keyboard instead.
you can force via openPROM with setenv
I don't remeber the variable and I'm currently not at
home, you can
get a list with printenv.

Best Regards
Stephan

On Sat, Apr 29, 2006 at 07:40:31AM +0200, Doom Warrior
wrote:
> >I used both kermit and cu as terminal emulators.
This E450 already has
> >solaris of some kind on it. I got farthest with the
Sun Keyboard
> >attached though. With the terminal emulator I
couldn't get the machine
> >to respond at all.
> 
> This is a normal behaviour for imho all Sun Sparc
systems. if you plug
> a keyboard. At least the input over the com is
disabled. You have to
> use the keyboard instead.
> you can force via openPROM with setenv
> I don't remeber the variable and I'm currently not at
home, you can
> get a list with printenv.

Should be: setenv input-device ttya

At least, that's what it is on my older (netra t1 105 and
earlier) systems.

HTH,
Sean