Solaris installation on a Sparc Clasic from a Debian server

[Jerome Walter]

Hello,

I'm actually trying to install a Solaris 2.6 on a Sparc Classic.
Having no floppy nor Cd-rom, i have to install it from network.

I already achieved to install a Debian on this and have rarp,dhcp
and tftp server working on an other machine under Linux.

Unfortunately, i didn't manage to find any bootable file that the
sparc could download via tftp while netbooting. Is there a way to do
it ?
Furthermore, i read that there is compatibility problems with both
Linux and Solaris NFS. Is it right, is there a way to go through it
too ?
Finally, and to avoid it, doeas Solaris has an option to download
files via http/ftp servers during the installation, like Debian
does, or need i to do it through NFS ?

Any information, link or previous thread ID would be helpful
(English as well as French).

TIA,

Best regards,
Jerome Walter

XPost: comp.sys.sun.misc,comp.unix.solaris
FU2: comp.sys.sun.misc

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Jérôme Walter - Ecole Francaise d'Electronique et Informatique|
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[Shawn Laemmrich]

Jerome Walter (wal...@efrei.fr) Said something like:
: Hello,

: Furthermore, i read that there is compatibility problems with both

: Linux and Solaris NFS. Is it right, is there a way to go through it
: too ?

Yes, I believe there are some, but I've actually never run into
any. We routinely mount a solaris filesystem from a linux box, and
read/write files to/from it without any problems.

: Finally, and to avoid it, doeas Solaris has an option to download

: files via http/ftp servers during the installation, like Debian
: does, or need i to do it through NFS ?

I dont' believe so.

[Darren Dunham]

In comp.unix.solaris Jerome Walter <wal...@efrei.fr> wrote:
> Hello,

> I'm actually trying to install a Solaris 2.6 on a Sparc Classic.
> Having no floppy nor Cd-rom, i have to install it from network.

> I already achieved to install a Debian on this and have rarp,dhcp
> and tftp server working on an other machine under Linux.

> Unfortunately, i didn't manage to find any bootable file that the
> sparc could download via tftp while netbooting. Is there a way to do
> it ?

The file is 'inetboot'. It is architecture specific, so you want the
one in /usr/platform/sun4m/lib/fs/nfs/inetboot.

Link it in /tftpboot to the IP address in hex (caps and no punctuation),
and to the same with a .SUN4M. You can probably just use tcpdump and
see what it's asking for..

IP 128.96.5.169 => 806005A9 and 806005A9.SUN4M

> Furthermore, i read that there is compatibility problems with both
> Linux and Solaris NFS. Is it right, is there a way to go through it
> too ?

Most older versions of Linux NFS did not support everything needed for
boot. My recollection is that when the client started loading the
devices from root (like /dev/null), it hung up. I've heard that newer
versions (2.4 kernels?) do work.

> Finally, and to avoid it, doeas Solaris has an option to download
> files via http/ftp servers during the installation, like Debian
> does, or need i to do it through NFS ?

No.

You need (in order) either..

A)
RARP
TFTP
rpc.booprams
NFS

or
B)
DHCP
NFS

Plus, there are some other bits. I know the client tends to do some
ICMPs to determine network configuration. I believe that 2.2 kernels do
not support those ICMPs at all.

--
Darren Dunham ddu...@taos.com
Unix System Administrator Taos - The SysAdmin Company
Got some Dr Pepper? San Francisco, CA bay area
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