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James Robinson | 27 Oct 2006 02:32
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(unknown)

Hello,
I just got my hands on 6 IRIS Indigo's and and Octane, The Indigo's are 
2 R3000, 3 R4000 and one R4400.
What  can I do with NetBSD on these boxes?
Does NetBSD support clustering?
I have an IBM NetVista running Fedora R5 to boot off of, but don't have 
a clue on how to get the boxes to boot let alone mount a NFS file 
systems.
I have seen from the archive that I have to play with the OSLoader and 
other var's, but there doesn't seem to be a good uHowTo on putting it 
all to in one spot.
Thanks,
James Robinson
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James Robinson | 27 Oct 2006 02:40
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Re: Newbee

Update,
I was able to get my IP20 (R4400) to netboot the aoutboot from my tftpd 
server. The problem I am having is that after the aoutboot starts, I 
keep getting an error when it then tries to find the netbsd files. does 
aoutboot tftp the netbsd file, or is it tring to use NFS?
Any Ideas?
James

On Oct 26, 2006, at 8:32 PM, James Robinson wrote:

> Hello,
> I just got my hands on 6 IRIS Indigo's and and Octane, The Indigo's 
> are 2 R3000, 3 R4000 and one R4400.
> What  can I do with NetBSD on these boxes?
> Does NetBSD support clustering?
> I have an IBM NetVista running Fedora R5 to boot off of, but don't 
> have a clue on how to get the boxes to boot let alone mount a NFS file 
> systems.
> I have seen from the archive that I have to play with the OSLoader and 
> other var's, but there doesn't seem to be a good uHowTo on putting it 
> all to in one spot.
> Thanks,
> James Robinson
>
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Stephen M. Rumble | 27 Oct 2006 04:11
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Re: Newbee

Quoting James Robinson <jmrobinson3 <at> verizon.net>:

> Update,
> I was able to get my IP20 (R4400) to netboot the aoutboot from my tftpd
> server. The problem I am having is that after the aoutboot starts, I
> keep getting an error when it then tries to find the netbsd files. does
> aoutboot tftp the netbsd file, or is it tring to use NFS?
> Any Ideas?

You need to netboot the kernel, not the bootloader. The bootloader  
will only boot the kernel from a local partition, which I imagine is  
what it's trying to do. Try netbooting the GENERIC32_IP2x kernel and  
see what happens. If you have a local disk and don't care about  
overwriting it, I think that you should be able to netboot an install  
kernel and get a system installed over the network.

Steve

> James
>
> On Oct 26, 2006, at 8:32 PM, James Robinson wrote:
>
>> Hello,
>> I just got my hands on 6 IRIS Indigo's and and Octane, The Indigo's  
>>  are 2 R3000, 3 R4000 and one R4400.
>> What  can I do with NetBSD on these boxes?
>> Does NetBSD support clustering?
>> I have an IBM NetVista running Fedora R5 to boot off of, but don't   
>> have a clue on how to get the boxes to boot let alone mount a NFS   
>> file systems.
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Stephen M. Rumble | 27 Oct 2006 04:21
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Re:

Quoting James Robinson <jmrobinson3 <at> verizon.net>:

> Hello,
> I just got my hands on 6 IRIS Indigo's and and Octane, The Indigo's are
> 2 R3000, 3 R4000 and one R4400.
> What  can I do with NetBSD on these boxes?

The Octane won't run NetBSD, but the Indigos can. However, there is a  
gotcha with the R4000 Revision 2.2 chips. They have some bugs that we  
do not work around and you'll experience significant instability in  
user mode. The R4400 chips aren't similarly broken, so far as I  
recall. 'hinv' (perhaps with additional flags) should tell you what  
revision you have, as will NetBSD when it boots.

The R3000's don't have a bootloader, but you could just make a large  
enough sgivol partition and squeeze a kernel into it. They seem to run  
well, or did at least the last time I tried, but you'll probably need  
to use the serial console.

The only framebuffer supported on Indigo machines is the GR2 series.  
Otherwise you'll have to live with the rather limited prom terminal,  
or better, use a serial console.

So, what can you do with it? Well, nothing in the realm of 3D  
graphics, but an Indigo would probably make a decent, albeit slow,  
server of some sort.

> Does NetBSD support clustering?

There's nothing in the base system for this, so far as I'm aware, but
(Continue reading)

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Pierre Letouzey | 30 Oct 2006 18:50
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Some feedback about netbsd on indigo --> part I: a kernel panic


Hi all

*** Some context: ***

I'm currently teaching in a compiler course where practical sessions
are based on mips assembly. We normally use various emulators (mainly 
spim, but also gxemul), but for the fun of it I recently searched and
found some real mips hardware: a sgi indigo (IP20) and an indigo 2 
(IP22). I'm now running netbsd 3.0.1 on both, after quite some fight 
(well, I'm new to netbsd...). In the process I've encountered some 
issues I would like to share with you: 

1) a kernel panic when trying to play with syscalls in a non-PIC way
2) a keyboard that isn't working on the IP20 ... until a kernel panic
3) some unstability when testing netbsd 3.1-RC4 on the IP22 (not IP20)

I'll give some details concerning points 2) and 3) in two separate
emails, meanwhile let's describe point 1): 

*** The issue: ***

On both IP20 and IP22 machines, with netbsd 3.0.1, kernel
GENERIC32_IP2x (ecoff flavour), I obtain a kernel crash when running
an application test_triv obtained from the following file ...

------------------ test_triv.s ------------------------
        .text
        .align 2
        .globl  __start
(Continue reading)

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Pierre Letouzey | 30 Oct 2006 19:14
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Some feedback about netbsd on indigo --> part II: keyboard and IP20


Hi all (again)

This mail describes a second issue encountered when playing with netbsd on 
an Indigo (IP20). More information about the general context of what
I'm doing in my first mail (the one about a kernel panic). 

This second issue isn't a big deal, but it's quite annoying
nonetheless: as soon as the netbsd kernel (version 3.0.1) has started
to boot, the keyboard isn't working anymore. By using another machine
with a working keyboard (an IP22 indigo 2), I've managed to prepare a
nfs filesystem that doesn't need any keystroke to boot and launch an
ssh daemon. This way I can connect to my IP20 box. But that isn't
perfect: if something gets wrong during a later boot, I'll be back in
trouble. I'm currently looking for a console serial cable to see if it
helps. Btw, I've also tried a 3.1-RC4 kernel without more success. 

Final remark: stangely enough, when I manage to panic the kernel (see
my previous post), the keyboard starts working again, and I can play
with the kernel debugger...

Any suggestion ? 

Best regards, 
Pierre Letouzey

PS: please CC me your answers

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Details on the hardware (more on demand):
(Continue reading)

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Pierre Letouzey | 30 Oct 2006 19:39
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Some feedback about netbsd on indigo --> part III: boot freeze with IP22 and 3.1-RC4


Hi all (again :-)

Last mail of my group of 3. More details about what I'm doing in the
first one (the one about a kernel freeze).  The last issue I've
encountered with playing with these two indigos 1 and 2 concerns the
indigo 2 (IP22) and netbsd 3.1-RC4: I systematically get a freeze
during the init phase of the boot, at locations that may vary from one
attempt to the other. Most of the time, after "Mounting all
filesystems", a single "O" appears on the following line and nothing
more. Another time I've reached the sshd launch, and try to ssh the
netbsd box and get a "passwd:" prompt, but nothing more happens when I
type my passwd.  A third time, I've seen the end of the rc phase
(prompt of a second date), and a lonely "N" appears (the "N" of NetBSD
above the login prompt ?). After a freeze, machine answers to ping,
but not to ssh.

Kernel used is the GENERIC one (ecoff flavour). In comparison, Netbsd
3.0.1 is working smoothly on this machine.

Best regards, 
Pierre Letouzey

PS: please CC me follow-ups ...

PPS: ... and I almost forgot to thank you all for the great job of
supporting such original hardware in a free way. My reports are only
there to help improving things. Cheers

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
(Continue reading)

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Stephen M. Rumble | 30 Oct 2006 23:11
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Re: Some feedback about netbsd on indigo --> part II: keyboard and IP20

Quoting Pierre Letouzey <Pierre.Letouzey <at> pps.jussieu.fr>:

>
> Hi all (again)
>
> This mail describes a second issue encountered when playing with netbsd on
> an Indigo (IP20). More information about the general context of what
> I'm doing in my first mail (the one about a kernel panic).
>
> This second issue isn't a big deal, but it's quite annoying
> nonetheless: as soon as the netbsd kernel (version 3.0.1) has started
> to boot, the keyboard isn't working anymore. By using another machine
> with a working keyboard (an IP22 indigo 2), I've managed to prepare a
> nfs filesystem that doesn't need any keystroke to boot and launch an
> ssh daemon. This way I can connect to my IP20 box. But that isn't
> perfect: if something gets wrong during a later boot, I'll be back in
> trouble. I'm currently looking for a console serial cable to see if it
> helps. Btw, I've also tried a 3.1-RC4 kernel without more success.

Interesting. I don't have my personal tree handy to verify that we've  
neglected to commit something somewhere, but it looks like the zskbd  
driver is never being set as the console input in  
src/sys/arch/sgimips/sgimips/console.c. I can't remember if Sekiya-san  
said it was unnecessary for some reason.

My guess is that by attaching zskbd0, we're handling the keyboard  
interrupts that were previously being handled by the ARCBIOS prom.  
Since they're not associated with the console, you're seeing no  
output. I suppose that when you panic, the kernel is polling ARCBIOS  
for input, which it is now able to succeed with since we're no longer
(Continue reading)

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Stephen M. Rumble | 30 Oct 2006 23:22
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Re: Some feedback about netbsd on indigo --> part I: a kernel panic

Quoting Pierre Letouzey <Pierre.Letouzey <at> pps.jussieu.fr>:

> *** The issue: ***
>
> On both IP20 and IP22 machines, with netbsd 3.0.1, kernel
> GENERIC32_IP2x (ecoff flavour), I obtain a kernel crash when running
> an application test_triv obtained from the following file ...
>
> ------------------ test_triv.s ------------------------
>         .text
>         .align 2
>         .globl  __start
>
> __start:
>         li $2,1    # $v0 = 1 i.e. syscall exit
>         syscall
> --------------------------------------------------------
>
> ... and compiled in the following way:
>
>   gcc -nostdlib -mno-abicalls -fno-pic -static -o test_triv test_triv.s
>
> Here is the displayed messages when the crash occurs:
>
> TLB miss (load or instr. fetch) in kernel mode
> status=0xff23, cause=0x20000008, epc=0x0, vaddr=0x0
> pid=447 cmd=test_triv usp=0x7fffde10 ksp=0xc41b7e78
> Stopped in pid 447.1 (test_triv) at     0:     invalid address.

Ick. Can you get a backtrace ('bt' command)? I don't have the
(Continue reading)

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Stephen M. Rumble | 30 Oct 2006 23:40
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Re: Some feedback about netbsd on indigo --> part III: boot freeze with IP22 and 3.1-RC4

Quoting Pierre Letouzey <Pierre.Letouzey <at> pps.jussieu.fr>:

>
> Hi all (again :-)

Hi again, Pierre.

> Last mail of my group of 3. More details about what I'm doing in the
> first one (the one about a kernel freeze).  The last issue I've
> encountered with playing with these two indigos 1 and 2 concerns the
> indigo 2 (IP22) and netbsd 3.1-RC4: I systematically get a freeze
> during the init phase of the boot, at locations that may vary from one
> attempt to the other. Most of the time, after "Mounting all
> filesystems", a single "O" appears on the following line and nothing
> more. Another time I've reached the sshd launch, and try to ssh the
> netbsd box and get a "passwd:" prompt, but nothing more happens when I
> type my passwd.  A third time, I've seen the end of the rc phase
> (prompt of a second date), and a lonely "N" appears (the "N" of NetBSD
> above the login prompt ?). After a freeze, machine answers to ping,
> but not to ssh.

I cannot offer any advice on this problem, as I've never encountered  
it myself. Perhaps others will be able to give you a better place to  
start. However, I would recommend trying to run a more recent version  
of NetBSD. A fair bit may have changed since the 3.x stable branch,  
and most of the people who actually use NetBSD/sgimips are probably  
running something closer to -current.

> Kernel used is the GENERIC one (ecoff flavour). In comparison, Netbsd
> 3.0.1 is working smoothly on this machine.
(Continue reading)

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