http://www.crowsons.com/puters -> sparc.php
My SparcStation 4 is headless - no monitor, keyboard or mouse ... or power
It has been superceed by a SparcStation 5 [was my web server] - which is headless - no monitor, keyboard or mouse.
Unfortunately the SparcStation 5 died in Gibraltar - the BootProm never makes it past testing memory...
Resurrected my SprarcStation 4:
sparc:fred ~> date; dmesg|head -6
Wed Dec 2 21:39:17 GMT 2015
OpenBSD 5.8-current (GENERIC) #6: Mon Nov 2 19:59:44 GMT 2015
miod@tekumel.gentiane.org:/usr/src/sys/arch/sparc/compile/GENERIC
real mem = 167415808 (159MB)
avail mem = 159137792 (151MB)
mainbus0 at root: SUNW,SPARCstation-4
cpu0 at mainbus0: MB86904 @ 110 MHz, on-chip FPU
To get the SparcStaion 4 and 5 running OpenBSD I used a null modem cable to connect the serial port to a i386 machine running OpenBSD. Both machines will boot through the serial console if no keyboard and screen is connected to the system.
To set up a headless you machine you need to read diskless(8).
When the serial console arrived at the OpenPROM boot prompt type:
ok boot net
If everything is set up correctly as per diskless(8) you'll be able to start the OpenBSD installation. I had to use tcpdump to work out what to call the boot file that the SparcStation was requesting by tftp.
Bought an X1059A Sbus Fast Ethernet card off ebay. Installed in Sparc and then recieved incorrect DAD detected duplicate errors, between the new hme0 interface and the old le0 interface.
Google turned up the following link to the mail archives at: http://www.monkey.org/openbsd/archive/misc/0012/msg00278.html.
I rebooted the box using minicom and when it said Resetting did a Ctrl-A F to send a break which gave me an ok prompt so I typed:
ok setenv local-mac-address? true
local-mac-address? = true
ok boot
Once it had rebooted the problem had gone.
| Sun SPARCstations | ||
|---|---|---|
| SPARCstation 4 | SPARCstation 5 | |
| Names | sparc4 | sparc |
| OS's | [OpenBSD] | [OpenBSD] |
| CPU | SPARC 110 Mhz | SPARC 170 Mhz |
| RAM | 96 Mb | 128 Mb |
| Hard Disk | 4 Gb [1 Gb died] |
4 Gb |
| Info | dmesg dmesg 3.4 |
|
When using tip I had issues sending a BREAK using ~# however using a shutdown -h gives me access to the ok prompt from the OpenProm
Here are some useful links: [in no particular order]
