Hi,
I got a SunFire V100 and following its manual on how to establish a connection to this server, I connected to it via HyperTerminal. However, I am stuck at the login prompt.
When powered on, this workstation goes through the regular cycle of OS banner and version printout, checking the filesystems and then offering the login prompt. And this is where I am stuck: is there any way of bypassing this or logging in to this server WITHOUT having to do total wipeout? Like a default username and password?
Please check the model. I am not familiar with a model "V100". From your description it sounds like you have a Solaris login prompt, not an ALOM prompt. Have just tried logging in as root?
To get to ALOM first type a carriage return, then type
#.
If you can login to ALOM the "console" gets you back to talking with the OS. The default ALOM login is admin with a password of admin. If you can't or don't login to ALOM it will timeout and go back to console mode. But getting into ALOM will not help if you don't know the root password. We have a faq article on dealing with lost root passwords.
Oh, so it's not much different than solving the problem of lost root password on a linux machine. And finally it is clear that I am presented with a console login, not ALOM.
Editing the /etc/shadow file is something I did couple of times on Ubuntu, so I am familiar with root pass recovery. However, in this case I don't think it is going to be THAT straightforward. I have a CD-ROM on the V100 machine and no floppy, and my outdated lab computers aren't able to burn a LiveCD image for me since both have DVD-ROM's. And no USB boot capability on my V100 either, since OpenBoot firmware is older than the recommended version.
Network installation of a LiveCD to the rescue? Is it possible to network boot a LiveCD without ANY intervention on the client? Is it possible to use a Windows machine as a boot server that will host the LiveCD image? I can't get past the console login screen let alone edit files on the V100 machine...
P.S. I found an OpenSolaris LiveCD image for SPARC machines and I hope it'll work for me.
You need a Solaris installation CD (or DVD). Boot it in single user mode.
I have the iso image but I can't burn it since all I have are DVD-ROM (not DVD-RW).
Network boot guides that I read all talk about editing files on clients, but I don't have access to anything beyond login prompt. So network boot isn't an option then?
Get someone else to burn it then. You need the DVD.
I think the SunFire V100's shipped with a CDROM drive only.
Correct. V100 has CD-ROM. No DVD-ROM and no floppy. I am looking into using my SUSE laptop as a boot server that would serve the LiveCD image to V100 from where I would eventually be able to edit /etc/shadow file. The laptop however has SLED and not SLES on it. In lieu of that, I'd try serving the boot image via virtualized Solaris (VirtualBox) within Windows host.
Any suggestions beside getting the ISO burned on CD are warmly welcomed 
If you have the ISO image, you can mount it and then share it:
# mount -F hsfs -o ro `lofiadm -a /path/to/your/image.iso` /mnt
# share /mnt
HTH