Install Solaris 10 on E450 ?
OK.... I'm totally new to Solaris. We just inherited a really nice E450 server with 2g of ram, 7 SCSI drives, and a SCSI CD Rom. All 7 drives were totally wiped before we received the machine. I have attached a keyboard/mouse and monitor. OpenBoot appears to start up, but hangs on the checking of the NIC. I do not have the NIC plugged into the network at the moment and even if I do I still get into a loop and never seem to get to an OK prompt to issue a boot command. Openboot appears to be expecting some type of ARP? signal when connected to the network. The "Stop" key on the keyboard does nothing. The 7 SCSI drives are installed in slot id's 5 - 11.... Any ideas are sincerely appreciated....
[710 byte] By [
greenwar] at [2007-11-26 7:28:30]
# 1
The E450's system documentation can be found through the Sun System Handbook (the "SSH" )
http://sunsolve.sun.com/handbook_pub/Systems/E450/E450.html
You'll need all those docs if you hope to become comfortable with the platform.
I would like to suggest that you populate your disk drives
from the bottom, then work your way upward as you go.
Start with positions 0, 1, 2, and 3 before you install any drives to upper slots.
The OBP hard-coded device path to the "disk" and to "disk0" aliases are position 0.
If you prefer that the computer boot from a different disk, you'll need to
create a device alias to the data path of that other disk location.
See the [url=http://docs.sun.com/app/docs/doc/806-1377-10?q=openboot+command+reference] OBP 3.x Reference Manual, (806-1377)[/url]
The behaviour you report seeing at bootup are absolutely normal.
The computer is trying to boot from a drive,
and when it cannot find a bootable disk,
it then tries to boot from the network.
Since your site doesn't have a remote boot server, you see the ARP/RARP text.
As far as interrupting the POST process to get to where you can get to the OBP ?
The STOP key has no function, all by itself, but is used with other keyboard keys.
First, make sure the front chassis key is in the Normal position, straight up/down.
... when you finally get to see the system boot far enough
that the computer is going through its RAM check,
represented by the baton twizzling around (as some call it ...),
you can hold the STOP key and tap the letter "A".
That should get you to the OK prompt.
If the chassis key is in the diagnostic position or the lock position, the keyboard is disabled.
