# sun/oracle sparc64 T4-1  boot woes



## lentilwallop (Jan 3, 2019)

"getting pretty good at the openboot..."  --famous last words.

So... I've tried to boot the ISO files burned to cdrom on my sparc64 in several several ways.  no dice.
(iso's burned from linux w/ brasero & wodim)
As far as I can tell, the t4-1 niagara seems to be supported, (or at least not blacklisted).
The Machine is stock. I am trying from `ssh -e root@ip.ip.ip.ip`  to the net management port, then doing a start /SYS start /HOST/console
I have the autoboot off and get the {0} ok just fine. I have tried resetting the nvram to defaults also.

No matter what I always get   (I can boot other iso's of other OS's fine)
"The file just loaded does not appear to be executable."  

Interesting things did occur when I changed the load-base to 0x8000(32768) instead of the default 0x4000(16384)  thinking that was a good idea from looking at the hexdump of the iso file.
I then changed it back.
Comparing hexdumps to other iso files that are known booters,
it seems like the freebsd bootloader is either very tiny or missing.   (what address should openboot load?)
Q1; does openboot know how to look into a cdrom image(actual disk) and locate a file by name, and thus not actually need a boot.0 style loader?  
assumed answer: yes?

So then I tried many combinations of:    (yes I tried boot cdrom initially:-D

```
{0} ok  boot cdrom
{0} ok  boot cdrom:a
{0} ok  boot cdrom:a,\boot\boot1
{0} ok  boot cdrom:a,\boot\zfsboot
{0} ok  boot cdrom:a,\boot\zfsloader
{0} ok  boot cdrom:a,\boot\loader   (0bytes?)
{0} ok  boot cdrom:a,\boot\kernel\kernel
```
all ending in
"The file just loaded does not appear to be executable." 
Or something like it, but it does seem like it is trying something for a few secs.
I think I am going to cold boot the computer to see if it is still there, but I am sure I will still be nowhere.

This doesn't look like FreeBSD output!    Q2: should "{0} ok boot cdrom /boot/kernel/kernel"  normally boot a freebsd sparc64 cdrom?



```
{0} ok boot cdrom /boot/kernel/kernel
cpu cpu cpu cpu cpu cpu cpu cpu cpu cpu cpu cpu cpu cpu cpu cpu cpu cpu cpu cpu cpu cpu cpu cpu cpu cpu cpu cpu cpu cpu cpu cpu cpu cpu cpu cpu cpu cpu cpu cpu cpu cpu cpu cpu cpu cpu cpu cpu cpu cpu cpu cpu cpu cpu cpu cpu cpu cpu cpu cpu cpu cpu cpu cpu Device: pci
Device: niu
Device: pci-performance-counters
/pci@400: Device 1 pci
/pci@400/pci@1: Device 0 pci
/pci@400/pci@1/pci@0: Device 0 pci
/pci@400/pci@1/pci@0/pci@0: Device 0 Nothing there
/pci@400/pci@1/pci@0: Device 4 pci
/pci@400/pci@1/pci@0/pci@4: Device 0 scsi tape disk
/pci@400/pci@1/pci@0: Device 6 pci
/pci@400/pci@1/pci@0/pci@6: Device 0 Nothing there
/pci@400/pci@1/pci@0: Device 8 pci
/pci@400/pci@1/pci@0/pci@8: Device 0 Nothing there
/pci@400: Device 2 pci
/pci@400/pci@2: Device 0 pci
/pci@400/pci@2/pci@0: Device 0 pci
/pci@400/pci@2/pci@0/pci@0: Device 0 pci
/pci@400/pci@2/pci@0/pci@0/pci@0: Device 0 display
/pci@400/pci@2/pci@0: Device 4 pci
/pci@400/pci@2/pci@0/pci@4: Device 0 scsi tape disk
/pci@400/pci@2/pci@0: Device 6 pci
/pci@400/pci@2/pci@0/pci@6: Device 0 network network
/pci@400/pci@2/pci@0: Device 7 pci
/pci@400/pci@2/pci@0/pci@7: Device 0 network network
/pci@400/pci@2/pci@0: Device 8 pci
/pci@400/pci@2/pci@0/pci@8: Device 0 Nothing there
/pci@400/pci@2/pci@0: Device a pci
/pci@400/pci@2/pci@0/pci@a: Device 0 Nothing there
/pci@400/pci@2/pci@0: Device c pci
/pci@400/pci@2/pci@0/pci@c: Device 0 Nothing there
/pci@400/pci@2/pci@0: Device f pci
/pci@400/pci@2/pci@0/pci@f: Device 0 pci
/pci@400/pci@2/pci@0/pci@f/pci@0: Device 0 usb usb usb
hub hub storage disk device network network device keyboard mouse hub

SPARC T4-1, No Keyboard
Copyright (c) 1998, 2012, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
OpenBoot 4.34.0, 32256 MB memory available, Serial #101mooomooo.
Ethernet address 0:10dogcatd:4, Host ID: 86meow.



Boot device: /pci@400/pci@2/pci@0/pci@4/scsi@0/disk@p6  File and args: /boot/kernel/kernel
The file just loaded does not appear to be executable.
[/code


beuler, beuler, fry, fry?
```


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## yuripv (Jan 3, 2019)

AFAIK, only sun4u is supported, sun4v (and above) isn't.  At least, I'm seeing something similar trying to boot on Sparc Enterprise T5220 (sun4v), while it works on Sunfire V215 (sun4u), which is somewhat useless to me, so turned off.


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## lentilwallop (Jan 3, 2019)

gosh dangit.   I was looking at the openbsd page linked to by the https://www.freebsd.org/platforms/sparc.html  page. 
How different could the kernels be in the very early boot stages  anyways.... (maybe it didnt even get to the kernel!)

edit>  p.s.    postfix notaion in openfirmware


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## lentilwallop (Jan 3, 2019)

OH YEA>.....  nowhere did i see anything about cdrom:f  versus just cdrom  (emphisis  :f )  except in the boot loader .C code on github where code is to put an :a for the kernel after the :f was used to boot.    https://github.com/freebsd/freebsd/blob/master/stand/sparc64/loader/main.c 

The sun4v that I have apparently does not want to try to boot :f automagicly,  is this a coding error or documentation error?


aside:  https://github.com/freebsd/freebsd/...-BFKXb_oTNVeAloL7MM7dRkcDGJnz99-zW7B6gEv-NLT0     <--- lovely  B-)


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