Hi,

I've just bought an Ultra 60 running solaris 9 (or so I've been led to believe). When I start up, it looks for a (presumably) domain/network to hook up to and the following messages are displayed:

Boot device: net file and args:
Network link setup failed
Please check cable and try again
Timeout waiting for ARP/RARP packet

Now I've seen a sys admin sort a similar problem out by pressing Stop and A, getting to the OK prompt and then editing some file or other that contains (presumably again) the instruction to look for a network. Is anyone out there familiar with this process and problem?

I'm an utter unix newbie, so any spoon feeding for this problem will be much appreciated! Thanks for any help you are able to offer.

Sounds like it's trying to boot off the network instead of the hard drive.

First, at the ok prompt (you get there by holding the Stop key and hitting 'a')

Use the printenv command to see how it's set up right now - note what the boot-device is.
Try the following boot command
ok boot disk

You might have to change your default boot-device if it's set to just net

Check out these links:
Solaris - basics of using the boot command
Solaris - how to set an alternative boot

Thanks RTM. I had a look at those docs and found some more info on setting the boot device to cdrom, - which I did - and lo-and-behold I can install solaris 9 from scratch, which is where I wanted to be.

Thanks for the help!

you could of hit stop - a upon boot to get to your ok prompt.


then as stated above use printenv to show settings.

Is the system in diagnostic mode?

check diag-switch? (it should respond with false...)

if not: setenv diag-switch? false

Your machine was trying to boot from the net and this is the default setting for diag-switch=true. By changing it to diag-switch=false, default would be the disk. (maybe not the correct disk e.g. (disk0, disk1, etc) then edit boot-device disk0 or whatever disk #.


e.g setenv boot-device disk? (where ? is a #, disk = disk0 = scsi id 3)

The following link (sun manuals for ultra 60) willl have most of your answers.

http://www.sun.com/products-n-soluti..._60/index.html

Hope this helps for future references....