SUMMARY: can't access U60 - ttyA gives no response! help!

From: Adam Singer (regnis@worldnet.att.net)
Date: Sat Jan 16 1999 - 15:16:43 CST


My original post is at the end of this post. While I didn't get many
replies, Steve Turgeon fortunately gave me the correct answer:
> " Reconnect the keyboard and do an L1-N, (stop N) and this will reset
> the NVRAM to the defaults. You should then see a banner on the
> screen. Sorry I can't help with the other issues..... Steve"

Thanks Steve, that saved the day. I had forgotten about this
possibility which is also covered in the NVRAM faq. Using Stop-N
prompted me to see what other hand STOP key options there are. I
pulled the list off docs.sun.com (full url below):
Stop: Bypass POST. This command does not depend on security-mode.
(Note: some systems bypass POST as a default; in such cases, use
Stop-D to start POST.)
Stop-A: Abort.
Stop-D: Enter diagnostic mode (set diag-switch? to true).
Stop-F: Enter Forth on TTYA instead of probing. Use fexit to continue
with the initialization sequence. Useful if hardware is broken.
Stop-N: Reset NVRAM contents to default values.

By the way if you want to read up on this stuff yourself, here is the
very long url:
http://docs.sun.com:80/ab2/@LegacyPageView?toc=SUNWab_47_3:/safedir/space4/pkgs/addoldversion/ab1/SUNWaadm/toc/OPENBOOTCMDREF_3.x:1105;bt=OpenBoot+3%2Ex+Command+Reference+Manual;ps=ps/SUNWab_47_3/OPENBOOTCMDREF_3.x/C.Troubleshooting_Guide

thanks for the help,
Adam Singer

On Fri, 08 Jan 1999 14:44:42 GMT, regnis@worldnet.att.net (Adam
Singer) wrote:
>Dear Sun Managers,
>
>I am having a bit of a problem with an Ultra 60 of ours I was using to
>test our emergenyc dialup to administrer a system w/ a Livingston
>portmaster.
>
>Once I got the portmaster working such that I could dial in and
>connect to the right port, which gave me the "ttya login:" prompt, I
>figured all was well and that I would then try switching console and
>keyboard to ttyA AND set auto-boot? to false. I probably shouldn't
>have done the latter until I was sure my connection still worked with
>a Sun at the OK prompt.
>
>While I may have been hasty, I was trying to also test the use of the
>eeprom command so we can dynamically switch back and forth as all the
>Suns we are supporting in this way are remote.
>
>Anyhow to make a long story short, I now can't seem to connect to the
>serial port either via the portmaster or a simple Wyse terminal.
>Connecting either to the tty of a system which is up gives me the
>login prompt.
>
>Therefore I am fearful that the Sun when it is up does some pin/signal
>magic and that now that it is donw some pin needs to be looped or
>jumpered. Yet the Wyse is only Tx Rx and Ground (I think) so I am not
>sure what I am missing.
>
>So what I am hoping for help with is:
>1. how do I get the system to come back to screen/kyboard without
>accessing ttyA? I opened the U60, removed the power supply and popped
>the NVRAM chip and cradle that were under it, but I couldn't find
>where the battery was or if there is one, and popping that chip did
>nothing.
>
>2. What is the proper pin or cable or other magic to get the ttyA to
>work? I also tried putting another machine (the one where ttyA showed
>the login prompt when up) to the OK prompt and just doing a setenv
>output-device screen" and output still went to the graphics monitor.
>This leads me to believe something is new/changed with the Ultra 60
>as we have definitely done this before with other test machines
>(albeit older/funkier machines like the classic and a sparc 10).
>
>3. Any suggestions from people who have already set this up on how to
>be able to use the Portmaster to connect to the server either when it
>is up (and get the ttya login: prompt) or when it is down (and get the
>ok prompt).
>
>Thanks for any tips/advice. Email me and I let a few days pass for
>other opines to trickle in and then will post a summary.
>
>thanks in advance,
>
>Adam Singer
>
>email: regnis@worldnet.att.net

email: regnis@worldnet.att.net



This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.2 : Fri Sep 28 2001 - 23:13:14 CDT