Here are a few tips I've gathered for working with Sun's Ultra 5, and indeed other Sun hardware in general. While many are familiar with the intimate details of the x86 BIOS system, and how to go about configuring a BIOS, dealing with a Sun system is very different.
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but very helpful 
, now i know how to take care of my own sparc, big thanks
typing help at the prompt can be rewarding
one in particular topic refers to redirecting input/output from keyboard/screen to ttya/ttyb
if you try the example given, there is no other option but to reset(!) the machine (provided it is already installed in the local ethernet, who could care less about ttys ..)
in pc solaris there is also a way to change the foreground/background colors in command line
> As far as I can tell, if your system is set to use the
> serial console, there's no way to switch it to
> keyboard/screen unless you plug in a serial console and
> change it with the ok> prompt or eeprom. The Sun documents
> I've searched don't seem to say anything about that
> particular scenario. If you know of a trick, shoot me an
> email.
Stop-N should work.
The diag mode (boot with stop-d or "setenv diag-switch? true") will put the system in diag mode. In diag mode the system will boot from the diag-device which is "net" by default. Most people don't expect the diag mode to do that.)
If you're using Solaris then you can try "boot -s" to boot in single user mode or "boot -r" to boot and reconfigure.
To see all variables just type "printenv"
Sun systems use one MAC address per system. (following the official Ethernet standard) Jus change local-mac-address? if you don't like that.
OBP's are really nice. Especially "boot net"
For Ultra5 & Ultra 10 the latest OBP is 3.31 (search on sunsolve.sun.com if you like to upgrade)
To turn the power off just enter "power-off"
yeah, "boot net" is really nice function.
you can install your Solaris from network
(e.g. in case that your SPARC box doesn't has a cd-rom)
just put the Solaris installation cd into any machine,
and run an install server.
the install server will broadcast its signal all over subnet.
when you boot another machine with "boot net"
it will grasp that signal and then start booting from network. (and you can also issue "boot net" command from other terminal program -- i.e. you do installation from machine A, the installation cd is in machine B, install to machine C)
very useful function
Wasn't there a similar article like this not to long ago? I remember everyone being Ultra 5 gitty and surfing Ebay non-stop for a few days =)
Intersting read nontheless!
- j
Yeah... Knowing the OpenBoot is a very important thing for every Sun administrator. I think that Sun doesn't put enough importance to this in their training.
Regards!
It should also be mentioned that this is an IEEE 1275 standard which is also used on Power Macs and IBM pSeries machines.
The Ultra 5 is a nice machine, but so are Alpha's, AMD64, and such. I have an Ultra 5, but I dont see it as a machine to write home about.
u5's are cheap IDE based machines which have a serious pci bug that can hang them. They were mass produced and sold. I agree with Bob that they are nothing to brag about. (maybe in some x86 only channels perhaps).
As for the article, I don't see a point to write anything about OBP when you can find all what you'll ever need to know on http://sunsolve.sun.com/handbook_pub/Systems/U5/U5.html"> and docs.sun.com
There should be better articles on Sun's on osnews and not just some OBP primer. If the author wanted to do justice, they should have compared it's specs, design and performance etc.
Thans for the Diag mode note. I set this on my ultra 10 the other day (forgot, and slightly paniced when it took the machine a while to come up 
) and wondered why it tried to boot from the network.
some of these open boot commands works in sun4m machines too.... and it supports some more booting commands, like
"boot floppy" or "boot tape"....
My old dds-scsi-tape drive works on my old sun4m engines flawlessly...and yes, they can boot the system!!
Some another commands for better control of that scsi devices..
probe-scsi
probe-scsi-all
BSDero
It should have been titled "An OpenBoot primer". Or is the author under any illusion that the OBP info he published, is in any way different on a SunFire V880 (for instance)?
Introduced in S10 (with the Sunblade 1000/2000, later extended to all destop systems from U5-SunBlade 2500), and at least partially backported to an S9 update is a neat feature called "Power Button Abort". Basically, instead of hitting L1-A, you hit the power button rapidly three times (i.e. in less than a second), and you're dropped to the OK prompt.
This is great if you work with a non-Sun keyboard, and is generally nifty. I know it's available in Solaris Express, I'm not sure how much made it into 9.
Apples have used open firmware for a while now, which is mostly the same as open boot, as it's an ieee standard... it's so good, there's a song about it!
<a href="HTTP://playground.sun.com:80/pub/p1275/misc/ofwsong.au">Song
Hi, all
i just got one used Ultra 5 but i could not get any scrren output from my pc (lcd) monitor connection. someone say monitor not match with ultra 5??
(i open the case , ATI rage2 + Dvd video chip on board--8 bit?)
please help,
thanks,
anthony