sunsparc.md (3251B)
1 ### How I installed Debian on a Sun Ultra 10 from the network 2 3 First of all, the first thing I tried is to replace the long-dead CD-ROM 4 drive with a newer IDE DVD-RW and install the latest OpenBSD release. 5 This worked as expected. I need, however, to also run Linux on an 6 UltraSPARC processor for development and the choice was Debian stable. 7 The bootable CD installer from Debian always hangs at a seemingly random 8 phase of the package installation process. The system has 256 MB of 9 memory and a 10 GB Western Digital disk. After many tries, and not 10 having identified the problem, I decided to try the network boot 11 installer and see what happens. This also failed, but I will document 12 the process of booting the installer from the network here. 13 14 I connected back-to-back the Ultra 10 with my laptop that is running OpenBSD. 15 The laptop will host the boot image on its TFTP server. Downloaded the 16 `boot.img` for SPARC from the Debian website and put it into my 17 TFTP server root: 18 19 # mkdir /tftpboot 20 # cp boot.img /tftpboot/ 21 # /etc/rc.d/tftpd -f start 22 23 Next found out the MAC address the Ultra 10 has (it is written on the 24 top on the OpenBoot initial screen), and configured an IP address 25 mapping for RevARP: 26 27 # echo 'de:ad:ba:be:de:ad snoopy' >> /etc/ethers 28 # echo '192.168.1.2 snoopy' >> /etc/hosts 29 # ifconfig em0 inet 192.168.1.1 30 # /etc/rc.d/rarpd -f start 31 32 By default the machine will ask for a file named after the hex 33 representation of its IP address: 34 35 # echo 192.168.1.2 | awk -F . \ 36 '{ printf "%02X%02X%02X%02X\n", $1, $2, $3, $4 }' 37 # cd /tftpboot 38 # ln -s boot.img C0A80102 39 40 Now boot the Ultra 10 and press <kbd>Stop-A</kbd> to get to the `ok ` 41 prompt; here type `boot net`. I also used `tcpdump` on my wired 42 interface to monitor all requests this whole time, and kept PF disabled 43 while offline. When the installer loaded, I plugged "the other" network 44 cable to do DHCP business as usual. 45 46 47 ### Installing OpenBSD on a Sun Blade 100 using network boot 48 49 In this case again I used my OpenBSD laptop to serve the boot image files. 50 Edit the following configuration files to enable RevARP, BOOTP, and NFS 51 services on the server. 52 53 /etc/ethers: 54 55 de:ad:ba:be:be:ef blade 56 57 /etc/hosts: 58 59 192.168.1.3 blade 60 61 /etc/bootparams: 62 63 blade root=192.168.1.1:/export 64 65 /etc/exports: 66 67 /export -alldirs -ro -network 192.168.1 -mask 255.255.255.0 68 69 70 Get the bootloader and ramdisk files. Again, create a symlink named 71 after the hex representation of the IP address `192.168.1.3`. 72 73 # mkdir /tftpboot 74 # cd /tftpboot 75 # ftp $MIRROR/OpenBSD/5.4/sparc64/ofwboot.net 76 # ln -s ofwboot.net C0A80103 77 # cd /export 78 # ftp $MIRROR/OpenBSD/5.4/sparc64/bsd.rd 79 80 81 Connect the machines back-to-back and configure the network. 82 83 # ifconfig em0 inet 192.168.1.1 84 # /etc/rc.d/tftpd -f start 85 # /etc/rc.d/rarpd -f start 86 # /etc/rc.d/bootparamd -f start 87 # /etc/rc.d/portmap -f start 88 # /etc/rc.d/mountd -f start 89 # /etc/rc.d/nfsd -f start 90 91 Boot the client machine and on the `ok ` prompt write `boot net bsd.rd`. 92 To get to the `ok ` prompt press <kbd>Stop-A</kbd>. If you do not have a Sun 93 keyboard press the power button two times while booting OpenBoot. 94 95 Get cracking! 96 97 lostd@