C H A P T E R

C H A P T E R 6

OpenBoot Emergency Procedures

The introduction of USB keyboards with the newest Sun desktop systems has made it necessary to change some of the OpenBoot trademark emergency procedures. Specifically, the Stop-N, Stop-D, and Stop-F commands that are available on systems with standard (non-USB) keyboards are not supported on systems that have USB keyboards. The following sections describe the OpenBoot emergency procedures for systems with standard keyboards and for newer systems with USB keyboards.

OpenBoot Emergency Procedures for Systems with Standard (non-USB) Keyboards

When issuing any of these commands, press the keys immediately after turning on the power to your system, and hold the keys down for a few seconds until the keyboard LEDs flash.

Command	Description
Stop	Bypass POST. This command does not depend on security mode. (Note: Some systems bypass POST as a default. In such cases, use Stop-D to start POST).
Stop-A	Abort.
Stop-D	Enter the diagnostic mode (set `diag-switch?` to `true` ).
Stop-F	Enter Forth on TTYA instead of probing. Use `fexit` to continue with the initialization sequence. Useful if hardware is broken.
Stop-N	Reset NVRAM contents to default values.

OpenBoot Emergency Procedures for Systems with USB Keyboards

The following paragraphs describe how to perform the functions of the Stop commands on systems that have USB keyboards.

Stop-A

Stop-A (Abort) works the same as it does on systems with standard keyboards, except that it does not work during the first few seconds after the machine is reset.

Stop-N Equivalent

1. After turning on the power to your system, wait until the front panel power button LED begins to blink and you hear an audible beep.

2. Quickly press the front panel power button twice (similar to the way you would double-click a mouse).

A screen similar to the following is displayed to indicate that you have successfully reset the NVRAM contents to the default values:

Sun Blade 1000 (2 X UltraSPARC-III) , Keyboard Present

OpenBoot 4.0, 256 MB memory installed, Serial #12134241.

Ethernet address 8:0:20:b9:27:61, Host ID: 80b92761.

Safe NVRAM mode, the following nvram configuration variables have

been overridden:

  `diag-switch?' is true

  `use-nvramrc?' is false

  `input-device', `output-device' are defaulted

  `ttya-mode', `ttyb-mode' are defaulted

These changes are temporary and the original values will be restored

after the next hardware or software reset.

ok

Note that some NVRAM configuration parameters are reset to their defaults. They include parameters that are more likely to cause problems, such as TTYA settings. These NVRAM settings are only reset to the defaults for this power cycle. If you do nothing other than reset the machine at this point, the values are not permanently changed. Only settings that you change manually at this point become permanent. All other customized NVRAM settings are retained.

Typing set-defaults discards any customized NVRAM values and permanently restores the default settings for all NVRAM configuration parameters.

Note Note - Once the power button LED stops blinking and stays lit, pressing the power button again will power off the system.

Stop-F Functionality

The Stop-F functionality is not available in systems with USB keyboards.

Stop-D Functionality

The Stop-D (diags) key sequence is not supported on systems with USB keyboards, however, the Stop-D functionality can be closely emulated by using the power button double-tap (see Stop-N Functionality), since this temporarily sets diag-switch? to true . If you want the diagnostic mode turned on permanently, type:

ok setenv diag-switch? true