More... Re: VS4000 hardware questions

From: Michael Schneider <ms_at_silke.rt.schwaben.de>
Date: Mon Dec 24 16:40:27 2001

Hello,

Just my 2 cents:

It's only the 4000/9x that gets so confused by the NetBSD booter that it
won't boot unattended anymore. It will throw a "SYS"-error (0200).

My 4000/60 is happy with NetBSD, booting all the way to whatever OS i
throw at it. Just don't POWER DOWN your terminal while connected.
This will be interpreted as a break on the console line, which throws
you into the console monitor, just like a HALT.
Disconnect your terminal.
As a proof, this email is sent to the list via my 4000/60, running
NetBSD without a console terminal attached. (Some proof, i know ... 8-)
The 4000/vlc works just as well.

To get the 4000/60 autobooting you have to have

        SET BOOT dka0 (or whatever your system disk is)
        SET HALT 1
        SET BFLG 0

Most NetBSD's up to 1.5.2 garble the "HALT" setting on shutdown, so you
should check this ("SHOW HALT"). Valid values are:

        3: Machine halts on powerup (Manual boot)
        2: Automatic reboot
        1: Automatic restart
        0: same as 2

"Automatic restart" is usually the default, since it tells the VAX to
try to quickly recover from e.g. a power failure. Try 0 or 2 as well.

If all this does not help, you might have a dead battery. But you should
get some error on powerup then.

Hope this helps

Michael Schneider (ms)



On Mon, 2001-12-24 at 20:36, Robert Schaefer wrote:
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Doc" <doc_at_mdrconsult.com>
> To: <classiccmp_at_classiccmp.org>
> Sent: Monday, December 24, 2001 01:52 PM
> Subject: Re: More... Re: VS4000 hardware questions
>
>
> >
> > It looks like you're saying that, having booted NetBSD, I can no longer
> > run the VS4000 headless? Right now, set to serial console, it won't even
> > post until I power up the serial terminal. And on this box, powering
> > down the VT420 is a guaranteed halt. Have I misconfigured something, or
> > am I stuck with this?
> > The 3100 m38 autoboots NetBSD quite happily with no console attached.
> > Since the hardware notes at NetBSD didn't give any warnings, I sort
> > ofexpected the same.
>
> >From what I have heard, seen, and possibly mis-remembered or -understood,
> having once run NetBSD on a VaxStation 4000-90 (and possibly similar models
> such as the -60 an -vlc) you will need to manually enter 'boot' at the >>>
> console prompt, as the SYS subsystem fails a minor (possibly checksum) test.
> I haven't experimented with this much at all, other than a test-boot of VMS
> to see if it would correct whatever might be wrong. I have not attempted to
> set any kind of automatic boot/halt/whatever flag to see if it really *does*
> halt the boot process. Chuck McManis may have a better idea of what is
> going on, ISTR he was looking into it. There are a number of knowlegable
> people on port-vax_at_netbsd.org who will have better answers than I.
>
> I'm nearly in a position to bring my VAX cluster online (VAX 6000-320,
> VAXstation 4000-90, VAXstation 3100-40, & soon a VAX 4000-200) so I will be
> more interested in making the m90 boot headless in the Not Too Distant
> future, and I'll probably take a look at the code myself. Not that this is
> any indication of my programming skills (or lack thereof!), but more eyes
> can't hurt anything.
>
> >
> > Doc
>
> Bob
>
>
-- 
Michael Schneider                       email: ms_at_silke.rt.schwaben.de
Germany                                  http://www.vaxcluster.de
            People disagree with me.  I just ignore them.
                         (Linus Torvalds)
Received on Mon Dec 24 2001 - 16:40:27 GMT

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