Re: modifying kernel boot parameters

[Malcolm Herbert <mjch%mjch.net@localhost>]

On Sat, Oct 31, 2009 at 11:28:49PM +0000, Patrick Welche wrote:
|On Sat, Oct 31, 2009 at 10:40:50PM +1100, Malcolm Herbert wrote:
|> I'm able to boot a Soekris net4801 but I can't progress much
|> further as the net4801 has no video card - I need to modify the
|> INSTALL_FLOPPY kernel I have to use the serial port ...
|>
|> I seem to recall that one could modify an uncompressed kernel to a
|> certain extent to change these boot parameters, although I can't
|> recall where I saw that - can anyone give me some pointers?
|
|I wonder whether you mean installboot(8), cf -o console=com0 ? don't
|I known anything about soekris but assume it runs NetBSD/i386?

yes it does, I have a few here running NetBSD which I installed via PXE
but annoyingly can't recall the details about how I did that now ...

|Then at the boot prompt, you can type consdev com0 for the same effect?

Unfortunately, if I boot using PXE I don't get a chance to type anything
at the PXE bootloader prompt, as it fails to boot if I interrupt it at
all ... for example, from powerup I see the following:

|POST: 012345689bcefghipsajklnopqr,,,tvwxy
|
|comBIOS ver. 1.33  20080103  Copyright (C) 2000-2007 Soekris Engineering.
|
|net4801
|
|0256 Mbyte Memory                        CPU Geode SC1100 267 Mhz 
|
|Pri Mas  ST9160821A                      LBA Xlt 1024-255-63  134 Gbyte
|
|Slot   Vend Dev  ClassRev Cmd  Stat CL LT HT  Base1    Base2   Int 
|-------------------------------------------------------------------
|0:00:0 1078 0001 06000000 0107 0280 00 00 00 00000000 00000000 
|0:06:0 100B 0020 02000000 0107 0290 00 3F 00 0000E101 A0000000 10
|0:07:0 100B 0020 02000000 0107 0290 00 3F 00 0000E201 A0001000 10
|0:08:0 100B 0020 02000000 0107 0290 00 3F 00 0000E301 A0002000 10
|0:18:2 100B 0502 01018001 0005 0280 00 00 00 00000000 00000000 
|0:19:0 0E11 A0F8 0C031008 0117 0280 08 38 00 A0003000 00000000 11
|
| 1 Seconds to automatic boot.   Press Ctrl-P for entering Monitor.
|
|NSC DP83815/DP83816 Fast Ethernet UNDI, v1.03                                  
|Copyright (C) 2002, 2003 National Semiconductor Corporation
|All rights reserved.
|
|Pre-boot eXecution Environment  PXE-2.0 (build 082)
|Copyright (C) 1997-2000  Intel Corporation
|
|CLIENT MAC ADDR: 00 00 24 CA 64 48  
|CLIENT IP: 10.0.0.148  MASK: 255.255.255.0  DHCP IP: 10.0.0.254                
|GATEWAY IP: 10.0.0.254 
:
[ the host pauses here for around 90sec or so ]
:
|>> NetBSD/i386 PXE Boot, Revision 1.1
|>> (builds@wb34, Sat Dec 15 23:18:30 PST 2007)
|>> Memory: 582/261120 k
|Press return to boot now, any other key for boot menu
|Starting in 0 
|PXE BIOS Version 2.1
|Using PCI device at bus 0 device 6 function 0
|Ethernet address 00:00:24:ca:64:48
|net_open: client addr: 10.0.0.148
|net_open: subnet mask: 255.255.255.0
|net_open: net gateway: 10.0.0.254
|net_open: server addr: 10.0.0.1
|net_open: server path: /data/export/netbsd
|net_open: file name: pxeboot_ia32.bin
|3688456+5237460+446920 [303600+286324]=0x9821e4
:
[ no further output ]

so, my assumption is that I should be seeing a sysinst screen, but it's
on the video console I don't have ...

If I try to modify consdev to be the serial port, the following happens:

[ picked up from 90s pause ]
:
|>> NetBSD/i386 PXE Boot, Revision 1.1
|>> (builds@wb34, Sat Dec 15 23:18:30 PST 2007)
|>> Memory: 582/261120 k
|Press return to boot now, any other key for boot menu
|Starting in 0 
|type "?" or "help" for help.
|> consdev com0
|
|>> NetBSD/i386 PXE Boot, Revision 1.1
|>> (builds@wb34, Sat Dec 15 23:18:30 PST 2007)
|>> Memory: 582/261120 k
|> boot
|PXE BIOS Version 2.1
|Using PCI device at bus 0 device 6 function 0
|Ethernet address 00:00:24:ca:64:48
|net_open: client addr: 10.0.0.148
|net_open: subnet mask: 255.255.255.0
|net_open: net gateway: 10.0.0.254
|net_open: server addr: 10.0.0.1
|net_open: server path: /data/export/netbsd
|net_open: file name: pxeboot_ia32.bin
|read header failed: Input/output error
|boot: Input/output error
|> 

Any ideas why I can't specify consdev as above? This looks to me to be a
bug ...

I did attempt to modify the INSTALL_FLOPPY config to use com0 as the
console and recompiled it, however that doesn't seem to have made any
difference ...

Regards,
Malcolm

-- 
Malcolm Herbert                                This brain intentionally
mjch%mjch.net@localhost                                                left 
blank