Tag: sparc

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Installing Solaris 8 for Sparc using qemu

Following on from a previous post on installing Solaris on an emulated Spacrstation using QEMU, I’ve been attempting to install on a Sun Ultra 5 with a flakey cdrom drive, and wanted to step through the install steps first on an emulated machine (since the life of the used cdrom drive I picked up from ebay may be limited).

qemu-system-sparc -M SS-20 -m 128 -drive file=sparc_sol8_2.qcow2,bus=0,unit=0,media=disk -drive file=../solaris8_sparc_disk1.iso,bus=0,unit=1,media=cdrom,readonly=on

Adding -nographics option to the above command makes things little easier, since we don’t really need the graphical installer at this point, and this more closely mirrors what I’m seeing with my attempted install on the actual Ultra 5 which I’m installing over a text terminal connected to the serial port.

After reaching the openbios prompt, booting with boot cdrom:d -vs gets you to a Single User prompt where you can continue the required steps to format the disk first, before rebooting and continuing without the -vs option.

After boot:d :

Skipped a few steps, confirming network config.

This is the step I’m interested in using as a workaround for the flakey cdrom drive. Can I mount an NFS drive containing the content of the install cdrom and install from the network? (I’ve already gone down the path of trying to setup a jumpstart/netboot config and couldn’t get the machine to find a netboot host, so that din’t turn out to be a workable option) :

I couldn’t get this to connect to my NFS share on another Solaris 10 VM, so not sure this was as useful as I thought it might be, but I could continue and complete the install anyway.

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Setting/resetting a MAC address on a Sun workstation with dead NVRAM battery using OBP (Open Boot PROM)

I had this post in draft since 2019 when I picked up a Sun Ultra 60 from ebay and needed to reset it’s MAC address because the NVAM battery had died. I never posted it apparently, probably because I only had to do it once and then forgot about it.

I had to give up the Ultra 60 when we moved from the US back to the UK – if you’ve every come across one of these you’ll know how heavy they are and I couldn’t justify the shipping costs (besides, I already had a Power Mac G5 and a Mac Pro 3,1 going in the container, which were heavy enough).

I saw a FB post recently that someone had a palette of Sun Ultra 5 ‘s for £50, so after working out some shipping, I now have an Ultra 5.

I previously followed instructions I bookmarked here but looks like that article is not up anymore, but it is archived on Wayback Machine here.

The relevant part I needed were the steps at the Open Boot Prompt to reset the MAC and System address:

01 0 mkp
80 1 mkp  < = System type.  For sun4u arch 80.  For sun4m arch - 72
08 2 mkp  <= Sun AUI is is always 08:00:20, which are the next three values for MAC
0  3 mkp
20 4 mkp
01 5 mkp <= 01:02:03 next values to append for your MAC, e.g. to generate 08:00:20:01:02:03 as MAC
02 6 mkp
03 7 mkp
0 8 mkp
0 9 mkp
0 a mkp
0 b mkp
c0 c mkp <= next 2 values are your System ID, e.g. c0:ff:ee
ff d mkp
ee e mkp
0 f 0 do i idprom@ xor loop f mkp  <= Calculates the checksum

The Gentoo wiki also has a great reference for OBP prompt commands here.

Notes on setting the MAC address also here and here.

I don’t have VGA monitor for the Ultra 5 yet, or a Sun keyboard or mouse, so I’m booting via a serial terminal right now (using my VT132) – first two steps scrolled off the screen:

After the above steps, reset-all, then your boot command depending where you are booting from,

boot disk

or 

boot net
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For no particular reason, a Sparc workstation is on it’s way – part 2: it arrived!

It arrived a couple of days earlier than expected, ahead of the other multiple parts that I needed (keyboard, mouse, scsi disk etc).

It’s a bit grubby and scratched up, but not that bad for an older machine:

It’s incredibly heavy though, wow, it must way at least 60 pounds.

Inside looks like there is the Creator 3D graphics card, and a SunPCI card (more on that later).

I have a Sun5c keyboard and mouse, so plugging them in, attaching a monitor and powering on …. nothing.

Uh oh.

I started to go down the path of running the diags over the serial connection, and using my Atari ST as a terminal, but before I got to far with that I though I should check basics and make sure everything is well seated.

Turns out both cards were only half in their slots. One more try, but still nothing. Next, pulled the CPU board out and gave it a blow and then reinserted…. power on, fans running, diags run and we have a banner:

Next up, waiting until Monday for my SCSI disk to arrive with disk sled, and then we’ll start a Solaris install!

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For no particular reason, a Sparc workstation is on it’s way

I was shopping for one of these on ebay:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPARCstation_20

By Caroline Ford – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1504020

But then got caught up on the idea that an Ultra 5 with IDE disk support might be a better idea:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra_5/10

By Liftarn – https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2094130

After a lively discussion in the Facebook Vintage Unix Machines group about the pros and cons of older Sparcstations, Ultra 1 and 2, vs Ultra 5/10, I decided to shop for an Ultra 1 or 2. I made an offer on one but didn’t get it. And then I decided to go for an Ultra 60 since it was cheaper than anything else I could find, although in a unknown working condition, other than ‘it powers on’. So when it turns up it will be a learning experience to see if it’s actually in working condition or not.

I believe from photos from the ebay listing that there’s a SunPCI card in there, so that will be interesting to play with, and also the Creator 3D graphics card.

On my shopping list of needed parts:

  • a Sun Type 5 keyboard and mouse (with Sun mini DIN connector)
  • a 13W3 video to VGA adapter
  • an SCA SCSI disk
  • possible future purchase, a SCSI2SD adapter

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