On 28/02/2021 19:27, Frank Scheiner wrote:
Hi Mark,
On 24.02.21 14:01, Mark Cave-Ayland wrote:
On 24/02/2021 12:29, Frank Scheiner wrote:
On 24.02.21 12:14, Mark Cave-Ayland wrote:
Next time you have the U450 fired up, I'd be interested to find out if
it is possible to boot directly from the latest debian ports CDROM for
comparison.
So I fetched her from (cold) storage this morning and let her warm up in
the morning sun. When ready I booted with the latest image I did find
yesterday evening ([1]) and...
[1]:
https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/ports/snapshots/2021-02-02/debian-10.0.0-sparc64-NETINST-1.iso
...it worked through until the first screen of the rescue mode is shown.
No crashes, no nothing.
Here is the start of the syslog - I didn't have any storage at hand so
copied it from screen directly:
```
Feb 28 10:21:24 syslogd started: BusyBox v1.30.1
Feb 28 10:21:24 kernel: klogd started: BusyBox v1.30.1 (Debian 1:1.30.1-4)
Feb 28 10:21:24 kernel: [ 0.000145] PROMLIB: Sun IEEE Boot Prom 'OBP
3.30.0 2003/11/11 10:41'
Feb 28 10:21:24 kernel: [ 0.000232] PROMLIB: Root node compatible: sun4u
Feb 28 10:21:24 kernel: [ 0.000527] Linux version 5.10.0-3-sparc64
(debian-kernel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx) (gcc-10 (Debian 10.2.1-6) 10.2.1
20210110, GNU ld (GNU Binutils for Debian) 2.35.1) #1 Debian 5.10.12-1
(2021-01-30)
Feb 28 10:21:24 kernel: [ 0.000721] Unknown boot switch (--)
Feb 28 10:21:24 kernel: [ 0.000730] Unknown boot switch (--)
Feb 28 10:21:24 kernel: [ 0.000905] printk: bootconsole [earlyprom0]
enabled
Feb 28 10:21:24 kernel: [ 0.000914] ARCH: SUN4U
Feb 28 10:21:24 kernel: [ 0.001033] Ethernet address: 08:00:20:a7:5e:0a
Feb 28 10:21:24 kernel: [ 0.001073] MM: PAGE_OFFSET is
0xfffff80000000000 (max_phys_bits == 40)
Feb 28 10:21:24 kernel: [ 0.001084] MM: VMALLOC [0x0000000100000000
--> 0x0000060000000000]
Feb 28 10:21:24 kernel: [ 0.001095] MM: VMEMMAP [0x0000060000000000
--> 0x00000c0000000000]
Feb 28 10:21:24 kernel: [ 0.005132] Kernel: Using 4 locked TLB
entries for main kernel image.
Feb 28 10:21:24 kernel: [ 0.005189] Remapping the kernel...
Feb 28 10:21:24 kernel: [ 0.052850] done.
Feb 28 10:21:24 kernel: [ 1.098314] OF stdout device is:
/pci@1f,4000/ebus@1/
/se@14,400000:a
Feb 28 10:21:24 kernel: [ 1.098327] PROM: Built device tree with
139414 bytes of memory.
Feb 28 10:21:24 kernel: [ 1.098734] Top of RAM: 0xffea2000, Total
RAM: 0xffe96000
Feb 28 10:21:24 kernel: [ 1.098744] Memory hole size: 0MB
Feb 28 10:21:24 kernel: [ 1.124511] Allocated 16384 bytes for kernel
page tables.
Feb 28 10:21:24 kernel: [ 1.124575] Zone ranges:
Feb 28 10:21:24 kernel: [ 1.124586] Normal [mem
0x0000000000000000-0x00000000ffea1fff]
Feb 28 10:21:24 kernel: [ 1.124608] Movable zone start for each node
Feb 28 10:21:24 kernel: [ 1.124616] Early memory node ranges
Feb 28 10:21:24 kernel: [ 1.124628] node 0: [mem
0x0000000000000000-0x00000000ffdfdfff]
Feb 28 10:21:24 kernel: [ 1.124644] node 0: [mem
0x00000000ffe00000-0x00000000ffe81fff]
Feb 28 10:21:24 kernel: [ 1.124656] node 0: [mem
0x00000000ffe8c000-0x00000000ffea1fff]
Feb 28 10:21:24 kernel: [ 1.124746] Zeroed struct page in unavailable
ranges: 181 pages
Feb 28 10:21:24 kernel: [ 1.124760] Initmem setup node 0 [mem
0x0000000000000000-0x00000000ffea1fff]
Feb 28 10:21:24 kernel: [ 1.124777] On node 0 totalpages: 524107
Feb 28 10:21:24 kernel: [ 1.124790] Normal zone: 4607 pages used
for memmap
Feb 28 10:21:24 kernel: [ 1.124801] Normal zone: 0 pages reserved
Feb 28 10:21:24 kernel: [ 1.124814] Normal zone: 524107 pages, LIFO
batch:31
Feb 28 10:21:24 kernel: [ 1.289565] Booting
Linux...
Feb 28 10:21:24 kernel: [ 1.289591] CPU CAPS:
[flush,stbar,swap,muldiv,v9,mul32,div32,v8plus]
Feb 28 10:21:24 kernel: [ 1.289674] CPU CAPS: [vis]
Feb 28 10:21:24 kernel: [ 1.302223] pcpu-alloc: s0 r0 d32768 u32768
alloc=1*32768
Feb 28 10:21:24 kernel: [ 1.302239] pcpu-alloc: [0] 0
Feb 28 10:21:24 kernel: [ 1.308282] Built 1 zonelists, mobility
grouping on. Total pages: 519500
Feb 28 10:21:24 kernel: [ 1.308299] Kernel command line:
BOOT_IMAGE=/install/vmlinux rescue/enable=true --- quiet
Feb 28 10:21:24 kernel: [ 1.333950] Dentry cache hash table entries:
524288 (order: 9, 4194304 bytes, linear)
Feb 28 10:21:24 kernel: [ 1.343863] Inode-cache hash table entries:
262144 (order: 8, 2097152 bytes, linear)
Feb 28 10:21:24 kernel: [ 1.343878] Sorting __ex_table...
Feb 28 10:21:24 kernel: [ 1.346444] mem auto-init: stack:off, heap
alloc:on, heap free:off
Feb 28 10:21:24 kernel: [ 1.531560] Memory: 4114688K/4192856K
available (8081K kernel code, 1417K rwdata, 2152K rodata, 496K init,
405K bss, 78168K reserved, ,
0K cma-reserved)
[...]
```
For referenced my machine has four US II running at 400 MHz and 16 x 256
MiB memory modules installed:
```
~ # cat /proc/cpuinfo
cpu : TI UltraSparc II (BlackBird)
fpu : UltraSparc II integrated FPU
pmu : ultra12
prom : OBP 3.30.0 2003/11/11 10:41
type : sun4u
ncpus probed : 4
ncpus active : 1
D$ parity tl1 : 0
I$ parity tl1 : 0
Cpu0ClkTck : 0000000017d78400
cpucaps : flush,stbar,swap,muldiv,v9,mul32,div32,v8plus,vis
MMU Type : Spitfire
MMU PGSZs : 8K,64K,512K,4MB
```
...and there also was a graphics card installed, but I used the machine
via serial console.
I can't say where our two machines differ (maybe OBP version?), but it
could be interesting to see, if your client's machine can boot
successfully from a Solaris 10 CDROM. Maybe even before trying that, I
would run the whole hardware with the diag key position enabled and log
and follow that output via the serial console. Maybe some memory modules
need re-seating or are defective or something is wrong with the
processors - though I never saw something like the latter within all the
various US II powered machines I own. In addition I remember that not
all processor modules were recommended or maybe compatible with all
machines they could be fitted in. So it could be an idea to also check
that (i.e. the `501-[...]` number and what's recommended in a Sun System
Handbook).
Hi Frank,
Thanks so much for testing this and your comments above re: the U450. I passed on
your queries and have had some more information back about the hardware:
- The CDROM is known to be working fine (the machine is used to test product installers)
- The U450 spends most of its time running Solaris 7 (there is no recent memory test,
but it is stable in day-to-day use)
- The U450 has 2 UII CPUs and 256Mb RAM
I also confirmed that the ISO used for the first rescue attempt was a slightly
different one than the one you linked to above: it used the "current" ISO at
https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/ports/current/debian-10.0.0-sparc64-NETINST-1.iso
rather than the "snapshot" ISO, but I can't see this would make a difference here.
So I must admit I'm scratching my head a little bit here. I remember a while back
that the minimum amount of RAM required to boot the debian ISOs in
qemu-system-sparc64 jumped from 128Mb to 256Mb so I'm wondering if something similar
has happened here i.e. due to alignment changes the minimum RAM requirement for the
debian ISOs on real U450 hardware has increased from 256Mb to 512Mb?
I did ask if there was an extra 256Mb SIMM available to test this theory, but
unfortunately there isn't :(
ATB,
Mark.
