Re: MicroVax 4000/200

[Mr Ian Primus <ian_primus%yahoo.com@localhost>]

--- On Sun, 6/22/08, Jan Prunk <janprunk%gmail.com@localhost> wrote:

> I have been reading this thread for the last few days, and
> I am very
> happy to hear that someone managed to put NetBSD to a drive
> in
> Microvax. I was thinking of replacing VMS version 5 with a
> NetBSD 4.0.
> but I wasn't sure if it is going to work on my MicroVax
> 4000/200 ? I
> would like to see a step by step instructions of the
> succesfull installation,
> if someone cares to write it somehwere, it would be very
> usefull also
> for the others.
> I would like to proceed with netboot serving MOP from a
> linux server, however I
> couldn't find any MOP related software for Debian,
> which will act as my stream
> server.

Well, I just did this on my MicroVax 3900, so I'll list what I did...

I used a Sun Ultra 2 running Debian Linux as a boot server. To boot the Vax via 
MOP, you need:
A MOP server running on the Linux box
The boot.mop file from NetBSD 1.5.3
The NetBSD 4.0/Vax distribution
bootparamd server running on the Linux box
NFS server running on the linux box

Vax with Ethernet

Both computers connected to an ethernet hub - best to keep it separate from the 
rest of the network for now.

-Install the mopd server on the Linux box (in Debian, apt-get install mopd)
-create a directory /tftpboot/mop, and copy boot.mop from the NetBSD 1.5.3 
distro there, naming it xxxxxxxxxxxx.SYS, where the x's are the hardware MAC 
address of the ethernet card in your VAX (find this by typing SHOW DEV on the 
VAX, or reading the tag on the board itself)
-install the NFS kernel server support on your Linux box (in Debian, apt-get 
install nfs-kernel-server)
-create directory for the NFS load of the NetBSD distro, and copy the distro 
there (I used /export/netbsd)
-export this directory by editing /etc/exports to include it, add a line 
"/export/netbsd   192.168.0.200(rw,no_root_squash)" where 192.168.0.200 is the 
IP you're going to give the vax in the next steps.
-export the above by typing "exportfs -ra"
-install the bootparams server on the Linux box. (in Debian, apt-get install 
bootparamd)
-Configure bootparamd - edit /etc/bootparams to add an entry for your Vax, I 
entered two lines, one by hostname, and one by IP, for example, "192.168.0.200  
 root=192.168.0.77:/export/netbsd" and "microvax   root=192.168.0.77". (Where 
192.168.0.77 is the address of the Linux box) I also edited /etc/hosts to add a 
line for "microvax". I also installed and configured dhcpd, and set it's range 
to include only 192.168.0.200, the address I want the Vax to have.

Connect the Vax to an ethernet hub along with the above computer.

On the Linux box, you need to put the ethernet interface ito promiscuous mode. 
Quick and dirty way to do this, is to run tcpdump on another virtual console, 
or run it, and put it in the background (control Z). But, it's handy to watch 
while you're messing with this.

Start mopd by typing "mopd -a -f", this starts it on all interfaces, in the 
foreground so you can see what's going on.

Fire up the Vax (being careful not to blow fuses...). Once it gets to the 
chevron prompt, type boot xqa0 (assuming xqa0 is your ethernet board, might 
have to run show dev to find out).

Cross your fingers.

If all goes well, it should find the MOP server, download the file, and start 
loading the NetBSD loader. It should then say "Trying BOOTP", then it will use 
bootparams and should pick up your bootparams server, and get an IP address, as 
well as the location of your exported distro. If it has problems mounting the 
NFS share, you'll have to play with permissions a bit (look in 
/var/log/messages for clues). I ended up clearing the root password on this 
box, setting it to nothing in trying to work out NFS permissions. I don't know 
what incantation got it to mount, but I did get it to work.

At this point, if all went well, you can run the NetBSD installer, partition 
and format disks, and install. If you want to install the rest of the distro 
from the internet, you can patch your hub into the 'net at this time.

I got this all to work, and it took me a couple days of fiddleing to figure out 
all the steps, and my documentation here is created from that memory. So, it 
might not be 100% accurate, and there may be extra steps, the NFS setup is 
really insecure, and running a box with no root password is silly (keep it off 
the 'net when it's like that!) But, that's roughly what I did. A word of 
warning, if your Vax has RA90's, they draw a lot of power, so be sure you have 
enough juice...

Happy NetBSD-ing.

-Ian