Introduction (sun2-specific), Diskless NetBSD HOW-TO

Sun2 Firmware procedures

Which Sun2 machines can netboot

All sun2 workstations and servers are capable of booting over a network interface. A network boot-strap procedure can be started by entering the appropriate PROM command (see below).

Determining your ethernet hardware address

When you power on your machine, it will print out its MAC address.

Obtaining an IP address and first- and second-stage boot loaders via ND

When instructed to boot "over the net", your workstation will first try to acquire an IP address, download a first-stage boot loader, and then download a second-stage boot loader, all by using the Network Disk (or ND) protocol. Thus you need to run a ND server somewhere in the same network broadcast domain as your workstation. The ethernet address of the machine (needed when setting up the ND server) should be displayed in the banner when it is powered on or reset.

Naming the second-stage boot loader

When the ND server is configured normally, it will expect that the second-stage boot loader for a given client be named as follows:

The first eight characters are obtained by converting the four octets of the client's IP address into hexadecimal representation.
Then the machine's architectural class in uppercase is appended (`.SUN2').

For example, a sun2 machine which has been assigned IP address 192.168.1.10, will have its second-stage boot loader named `C0A8010A.SUN2'.

Normally, it is arranged on the ND server that this file is a symbolic link to the appropriate second-stage boot program, which should of course be located in a place where the ND daemon can find it (in case your ND daemon runs in a chroot'ed environment). You can find the second-stage boot program in installation/netboot/netboot in the NetBSD/sun2 distribution.

Obtaining an IP address (again) via RARP

After downloading the second-stage boot loader, your workstation will try to acquire an IP address again by using the Reverse ARP (or RARP) protocol. Thus you need to run a RARP server somewhere in the same network broadcast domain as your workstation. The ethernet address of the machine (needed when setting up the RARP server) should be displayed in the banner when it is powered on or reset.

Sometimes the arp entry gets corrupt on the rarpd server. If this happens, you may need to run (on the rarpd server):

# arp -s client.test.net CC:CC:CC:CC:CC:CC temp

Note: if the client doesn't detect a rarpd server, it will patiently wait for one and will not display any error messages (as described in the rarpd pages).

Firmware commands

Uses the following syntax to initiate a a boot-strap procedure on a network device:

`b xx()' where xx is a two-letter device specifier, e.g. `b ec(,,)' or `b ie(0,0,0)'

The complete syntax is:

`b [[!][[device([controller],[unit],[partition])pgm [arg1,...,arg7]]]/?]' Boot pgm[Although Sun2s force pgm to be vmunix] using a default boot sequence device, or a user-specified device or, view the list of available boot devices ?"). If argument '!' is present, the system won't be reset prior to booting. Up to seven optional arguments will then be passed to the booting program.
The (controller,unit,partition) arguments can be used to specify an ND server (???) [If anyone has more details on this, please let us know]

Begin setting things up (suggested order):

Get /usr/mdec/bootyy and /usr/mdec/netboot from base.tgz in the NetBSD distribution. These are the first- and second-stage boot loaders, respectively, that are sent by ND. Copy these files to /tftpboot, and make a symlink to netboot with a name as described above in the Naming the second-stage boot loader section.

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