On Wed, 6 Dec 2000, Paul (NCC/CS) wrote:

> "Kjetil B. Thomassen" wrote:
> 
> > On Wed, 6 Dec 2000, Paul (NCC/CS) wrote:
> >
> > > I can't boot a sparcstation 1+ off the network.
> >
> 
> SNIP
> 
> >
> > > Now, I don't know much about this NVRAM/ IDPROM
> > > problem. So is it necessary for me to fix this first to boot
> > > off the network? and if so what steps do I take to do this?
> > > Or other?
> >
> > Yes, your NVRAM battery is dead, and it needs to be replaced. But, you can
> > survive without it, but then you have to reset some vital information
> > before you boot everytime the box looses power.
> >
> > This just happened to my ss2, and I am waiting for a new chip from ELFA.
> > It should arrive any day soon.
> >
> > I followed the procedure at:
> > http://www.squirrel.com/squirrel/sun-nvram-hostid.faq.html#GENERAL
> >
> > and, I am now up and running it as a boot and DHCP server.
> >
> > You will most certainly have to replace that chip, and that is explained
> > elsewhere on that page.
> >
> > For future references, this page was found on the NetBSD/sparc
> > documentation pages.
> >
> > I hope this will help you out!
> 
> Thanks very much this is great.
> But could you confirm please, that this NVRAM problem
> is what is stopping the network boot from working?

Yes, it should be that.

> I just briefly wrote some crappy values to the NVRAM like
> the web page suggests and the IDPROM err msg went
> away. BUT the same network problem still exists. I probably
> need to read the page alot more carefully but I just wanted
> to confirm that I must fix this NVRAM problem in
> order to fix the network problem?  yey/ney?

You need to make sure that you have a valid Ethernet address, and you must
also reset the default values, as described later on. Specifically, you
need to:
setenv diag-switch? false
setenv boot-device net

More information about the NVRAM parameter can be found in the ss2 Field
Service Manual:
http://docs.sun.com/htmlcoll/coll.690.1/iso-8859-1/SS2FIELDSVC/index.html

in the section on Open Boot PROM:
http://docs.sun.com/htmlcoll/coll.690.1/iso-8859-1/SS2FIELDSVC/fsm.appendixd.html

Kjetil B.
mailto:kjetil@thomassen.priv.no
http://www.thomassen.priv.no/