miniroot inst woes (O200, remote distribution directory, 6.5)

At this point, the system has only a single disk, and no CD-ROM drive. The
first thing I did was to create a set of distribution directories on another
of our SGI systems (an O2000, running IRIX 6.4), copying the contents of the
6.5 CDs into the appropriate places.

The problem I'm having is that when I power the system up, and tell it that
I want to install software, it gets part way through starting up a miniroot
installation session, then hangs. Specifically ...

| Copying installation program to disk.
| ......... 10% ......... 20% ......... 30% ......... 40% ......... 50%
| ......... 60% ......... 70% ......... 80% ......... 90% ......... 100%
|
| Copy complete
| IRIX Release 6.5 IP27 Version 05190109 System V - 64 Bit
| Copyright 1987-1998 Silicon Graphics, Inc.
| All Rights Reserved.
|
| Setting rbaud to 19200

Now the first time I did this, the console port's speed had been 9600 (in
other words, that's the speed the system was preconfigured to use on that
port), so when the "Setting rbaud to 19200" message showed up, it didn't
seem surprising that things seemed dead: I just assumed that the console
was now talking at 19200, while I was trying to talk to it at 9600. But
unfortunately, reconnecting at 19200 didn't make things seem less dead.

A reboot made it clear that, yes, the system now felt that 19200 was the
speed it should be using on the console port (all of the power-up chatter
now get spewed out at 19200 rather than 9600), so I went through the same
procedure again, this time starting with everything set to 19200. Exact
same problem.

For what it's worth, here's what I see if I gaze at the transmit/receive
LEDs on the 100BaseTX port while all this is happening:

-- Lots of activity (as one would expect) while the miniroot is loading.

-- About a ten second delay between the "Copy complete" message and the
"IRIX Release 6.5 ..." message.

-- After the "Setting rbaud to 19200" message, about twenty seconds of
no activity.

-- And then, a huge amount of ethernet traffic (both the transmit and
receive LEDs on almost constantly) for about fifteen seconds.

-- Following that, nothing.

At the moment, things seem in at least a partially-hosed (and probably
totally-hosed) state, in the sense that none of the available options
("Start System", "Recover System", or the "Install Software" options to
"fix miniroot install state") seem to recover from previous failures, a
"reload the miniroot" just gets back into the same hung state, and the
"continue booting the old miniroot with no state fixup" choice gets me
into sash, but not in a mode in which I seem to be able to do anything
useful.

So ... Any clues as to why I seem to be able to get part way through
starting up an installation from a remote distribution directory, only
to have things hang?

And just what is going on, exactly, during that fifteen-second flurry of
ethernet traffic that starts about twenty seconds following the "Setting
rbaud to 19200" message?

Many thanks in advance ...

Mark Bartelt 626 395 2522
Center for Advanced Computing Research ma...@cacr.caltech.edu
California Institute of Technology http://www.cacr.caltech.edu/~mark

"Nur eine Waffel taugt!" -- Parsifal, in an Eggo commercial

Don't worry about the rbaud rate for now; 19200 should be ok. I was
connected to my O200 with a 9600 baud cu connection, and it was fine.

Best regards,
Neil

In article <71laas$h...@gap.cco.caltech.edu>,

>> boot miniroot (and IRIX proper) from IRIX 6.5.1 [ ... ]

Bingo! That's it! Many, many thanks. Happy camper, now.

PS: Is this documented anywhere? (I looked through everything that came
with this system, and I can't find anything which suggests that one can't
boot the inst tools from the vanilla 6.5 CD, but that one has to use the
6.5.1 one instead.)

I just went through the same mess. The problem is that 6.5 will not boot on
an O200. What you
need to do is boot from the 6.5.1 overlay, then proceed to install from the 6.5
distribution. At the
end install from the 6.5.1 distribution. I spent two weeks with Tech Support
people to find out
a bug existed on 6.5 that prevents bootup on O200. Good luck!

Todd.

Trying to boot standalone fx, I have the exact opposite problem, namely
that I can boot the copy from the 6.5 CD, but not from the 6.5.1 CD:

>> boot -f bootp()A.B.C.D:/path/to/6.5.1/stuff/stand/fx.64 --x
Obtaining /path/to/6.5.1/stuff/stand/fx.64 from server A.B.C.D
2112+116836+29141+10680
Cannot load bootp()A.B.C.D/path/to/6.5.1/stuff/stand/fx.64.
Relocation failed.
[ followed by "Unable to execute" and "Unable to load" messages,
both complaining about an "execute format error" ]

But booting standalone fx works just fine:

>> boot -f bootp()A.B.C.D:/path/to/6.5/stuff/stand/fx.64 --x
Obtaining /path/to/6.5/stuff/stand/fx.64 from server A.B.C.D
2112+115940+28805+10680 entry: 0xa800000001047eac
SGI Version 6.5 ARCS BE64 Apr 30, 1998
fx: "device-name" = (dksc)

Is this a known problem with the standalone fx on the 6.5.1 CD? It does
make one wonder whether anybody actually bothered to try it ...

You'll want to ask your SGI support representative about bug 647881.
I just ran into this yesterday, as a matter of fact.

--
Michael J. O'Connor | WWW: http://dojo.mi.org/~mjo/ | Email: m...@dojo.mi.org
InterNIC WHOIS: MJO | (has my PGP & Geek Code info) | Phone: +1 248-848-4481

No it's not. The statement is false, as written.

The latest o200 hardware was released *after* irix 6.5, and some last minute
changes in the hardware required changes that came out in 6.5 (and
in a special o200 miniroot patch for 6.5). So, *IF* you have a brand
new o200 (e.g., 225QC), then the docs that came with it will have
mentioned this. Obviously the 6.5 docs couldn't mention it, because
the issue didn't exist at that time.
--

Dave Olson, Silicon Graphics
http://reality.sgi.com/olson ol...@sgi.com