Re: [9fans] NVRAM

[zfolkerts@starcenter.tn.org]

Hi,
I am booting my cpu servers using a floppy formatted like the following:
term% disk/format -db /386/pbs /dev/fd0disk /386/9load plan9.ini

with a plan9.ini that looks like:
ether0=type=elnk3
nvr=fd!0!plan9.nvr
bootfile=ether0!amaranth!/386/9pccpu
bootargs=tcp

In order to recieve an IP from DHCP (assuming that is what you are doing) you will need an entry in /lib/ndb/local containing the ethernet address, an IP address, and optionally some other info about the host. An example would be:

ip=172.16.1.20 sys=node0 ether=0060971baec1
	dom=node0.yourdom.dom

You obviously have to have an ethernet card supported by 9load for this to work.  The first boot you have to enter the authentication information (host owner, authdom, etc) as usual, but after that, the machine should just come up as a cpu server with no prompts.

I am curious however, as to how you would get a plan9.ini and plan9.nvr if you booted with 9pxeload. I have 3 machines with PXE cards that boot 9pxeload, but in order to have a plan9.ini or nvram, I am currently leaving a floppy in the drive and disabling boot from floppy. This works since 9load checks the floppy for a plan9.ini first, but I would like to eliminate the floppies on these machines if possible.

Zack Folkerts

On Wed, Aug 27, 2003 at 06:17:28AM +0900, Kenji Arisawa wrote:

> Hello 9fans,
>
> My CPU server equips a HDD for only 512B NVRAM.
> I feel that is silly.
> How are you doing?
>
> Kenji Arisawa