Solaris boot issues

i'm having 2 problems.

  1. the system will always look to boot from the net. i've changed the prom settings so that it boots from the disk, by entering "setenv boot-device disk0:3", but the system still seems to want to boot from the net.

  2. i replaced my creator3d with an elitem6 and i did the "boot disk0:3 -r" boot option, but the system wasn't able to load the drivers for the device. anyone know what the command is to do the install once you are logged into the system as root?

Regarding the first question, you need to do a reset or a power cycle to make the change take effect. From the ok prompt, just type "reset".

I never heard of creator3d or elitem6, so I'll pass on question 2.

i did the power cycling. when i doa printenv, it shows that the boot setting is disk0:3... which is even more frustating because it still tries to boot from the net.

seriously... you've never heard of Creator3D or EliteM3/M6 cards? do you do most of your work on server class machines?

Normally the eeprom is set to boot from disk and then net. If it doesn't find disk, then it attempts to boot from the net.

% eeprom|grep boot
reboot-flag=false
reboot-posc=4294549504
reboot-posl=0
reboot-cmd=boot
boot-command=boot
auto-boot?=true
auto-boot-on-error?=false
watchdog-reboot?=false
boot-file: data not available.
boot-device=disk net

The last entry, boot-device, set to disk net.

At the boot prom, insure disk is a bootable disk (use the devalias command).

As far as your card, see this Info Doc at Sunsolve

Actually, I do 100% of my work on server class systems. And yes, I promise that your post for the first time that I heard of Creator3D or Elite3M/6M. Cards, huh? I was guessing tape drives.

I may be of more use on question #1 though. My next guess is that you have diag-switch? set to "true". This does very extensive diagnostics on power up. But then it boots from diag-device rather than from boot-device. In addition to the obvious:
setenv diag-switch? true
command. It also says here "You can also force diag-switch? to true by using the Stop-D key sequence during power-on." (OpenBoot Command Reference Manual) I can't do that, we don't have any servers with a "graphics head". But I'm guessing that you can. So be careful, that may be what caused this.

So check your diag-switch? and diag-device settings and see if that is your problem.

thanks... but remember, in my first post, i stated i changed this default option.

Perderabo, you are so the man right now. while the issue with the graphics card still hasn't been fully resolved (odd, considering the solaris text states a 'boot -r' will load the drivers for any newly added hardware) you were right on the spot with the 'diag-switch' recommendation. my system was infact set to do extensive post diagnostics. i changed it, and things are booting much more smoothly right now.

now, only to figure out how to install these EliteM6 drivers. :confused:

See if this FAQ helps with your other question. Especially question 23.