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Operating Systems Solaris Forcing OpenBoot: H/W Solution to no <BREAK> function on USB Serial Post 302203365 by HideawayStudio on Sunday 8th of June 2008 09:41:32 AM
Old 06-08-2008
Forcing OpenBoot: H/W Solution to no <BREAK> function on USB Serial

Please note: This solution does require some soldering ability.

If, like me today, you really really need to get into OpenBoot on a non booting Solaris machine (in my case an Ultra 5) but your USB dongle won't send <BREAK> then here is a -really- simple hardware hack that works a treat:

<BREAK> is not actually a valid character in RS232 - it's actually a hardware generated positive pulse which most USB to serial dongles can't produce.

It is really simple to build a lead that provides this pulse which forces the machine into its boot monitor. The user then simply reconnects the serial dongle and finds himself at the OpenBoot prompt.

Parts required:

9 volt PP3 battery
PP3 battery clip with red and black wires
1K resistor
9 Way male Sub D Connector
Preferably also a backshell for the connector

Solder one end of the resistor to pin 3 on the D connector
Solder the red lead of the PP3 clip to the other end of the resistor.
It is advisable to insulate the above connection with some electrical tape or some heat shrink sleaving.
Solder the black lead to pin 5 on the D connector.
Fit the backshell to the D connector to protect the cable

Its worth testing the lead using a multimeter if you have one:

Connect the battery, place the red multimeter probe on pin red and the black on pin 5. There should be around 8-9 volts.

To Use:

Start the Solaris machine up with the USB dongle connected using your preferred terminal program. Once it's clear the machine is starting up then unplug the serial lead from your USB dongle and plug in the battery lead for a 2-3 seconds. Unplug the battery lead and plug the serial dongle back in and after hitting return a couple of times you should be in OpenBoot.

The resistor is to prevent damage by drastically reducing the current - never simply wire the battery directly to pins 5 and 3.

This solution works a treat on all my older Sun kit. Smilie

USERS BUILD THIS LEAD AT THEIR OWN RISK - I TAKE NO RESPONSIBILITY FOR SMOKED SERIAL PORTS.

Dan.
 

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OPTIUPS(8)							    NUT Manual								OPTIUPS(8)

NAME
optiups - Driver for Opti-UPS (Viewsonic) UPS and Zinto D (ONLINE-USV) equipment NOTE
This man page only documents the hardware-specific features of the optiups driver. For information about the core driver, see nutupsdrv(8). SUPPORTED HARDWARE
optiups was originally written against a PowerES 280es in nut-0.45. It was revised for nut-2.0.1 and tested against a PowerES 420E. It is expected to work with at least the PowerES, PowerPS, and PowerVS models. This driver additionally supports a Zinto D from ONLINE USV-Systeme AG because of their very similar commands, but it is unknown if it also works with other UPS from them. This driver will not work with the PowerES stock serial cable. You will need to construct your own three conductor cable: UPS 6 -> PC 3 UPS 9 -> PC 2 UPS 4 -> PC 5 The cable for Online-USV uses pin UPS 7 (not UPS 4) -> PC 5. EXTRA ARGUMENTS
This driver supports the following optional settings in the ups.conf(5) file: status_only Only poll for critical status information. Without this, optiups (and all NUT drivers) poll all sorts of information from the UPS fairly often. It is probably not often enough to hurt anything, so this option probably is not very useful, unless you have a flaky serial connection or a highly loaded machine. nowarn_noimp Does not print warnings when the UPS reports that a variable is not implemented or not pollable. Without the option you will get a message sent to your system logs each time NUT polls the UPS. If you specify nowarn_noimp, this message will only be logged once. fake_lowbatt This forces the low battery flag true. Without it, if you want to test your UPS, you will have to unplug it and wait until the battery drops to a low/critical voltage level before NUT will respond and power down your system. With the flag, NUT should power down the system soon after you pull the plug. When you are done testing, you should remove this flag. For basic shutdown configuration testing, the command upsmon -c fsd is preferred. powerup Zinto D from ONLINE-USV cannot be identified when switched to standby. Set this flag to allow the driver to power-up your Zinto UPS. This will also power-up your equipment connected to the UPS! BUGS
On the 420E, ups.serial and ups.temperature are unsupported features. This is not a bug in NUT or the NUT driver, just the way things are with this UPS. AUTHOR
Russell Kroll, Scott Heavner, Matthias Goebl SEE ALSO
The core driver: nutupsdrv(8) Internet resources: The NUT (Network UPS Tools) home page: http://www.networkupstools.org/ Network UPS Tools 05/21/2012 OPTIUPS(8)
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