Subject: Re: PROM Pass: ?
To: Rick Copeland <rickgc@calweb.com>
From: Greg A. Woods <woods@most.weird.com>
List: port-sparc
Date: 11/05/1998 12:46:31
[ On Thu, November 5, 1998 at 08:41:00 (-0800), Rick Copeland wrote: ]
> Subject: Re: PROM Pass: ?
>
> Sorry about the loud text! I feel that a lot of people are not really
> listening. I can't get to the monitor. After the system checks, the 4/110
> tries to boot from sd(0,0,0) then bounces to the PROM:pass requirement. I
> have tried to access via ttya in diagnostics mode but after system checks I
> get locked out there as well (clever little PROM).
Ah ha. That's what I was wondering about....
> I do not have the
> original disk drive that was with the system and so I can't boot into it
> and enter as root to change the eeprom that way. I have tried to boot a
> disk with Solaris on it I made on my Sparc 2 but it will not boot for some
> reason.
It's probably trying to boot a different filename, perhaps "/vmunix" if
it was running SunOS-4 previously. I'm pretty sure SunOS-5 will try to
boot "/ufsboot" instead. You'll have to get the right OS, or at least
the right filename, to match what the PROM is trying to load.
> I may end up de soldering the chip extracting the data, writing it
> to another (sans the password) and reinstalling it (of course I would put a
> socket in there just in case).
You'll have a heck of a time extracting the data unless you can mimic
the boot environment it expects regardless of what machine it's plugged
into. You could build a little circuit to attach the chip to a computer
interface of some sort. I suppose if you're a real cowboy you might try
to swap the chip into an already running system and then use the
"eeprom" command to reprogram it. Pretty risky though.
However since the Sun 4/1xx machines don't keep the host-id and the MAC
address in the PROM you may as well just toast the whole chip and put in
a brand new one. It'll be quite easy to re-construct the configuration
information by hand -- far easier than trying to read it from the old
chip.
--
Greg A. Woods
+1 416 218-0098 VE3TCP <gwoods@acm.org> <robohack!woods>
Planix, Inc. <woods@planix.com>; Secrets of the Weird <woods@weird.com>