From owner-freebsd-hardware@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Dec 9 08:12:13 2003 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-hardware@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2A66216A4CE; Tue, 9 Dec 2003 08:12:13 -0800 (PST) Received: from nico.goepp.net (nico.goepp.net [66.6.65.152]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id A65E743D2F; Tue, 9 Dec 2003 08:12:11 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from freebsd@goepp.com) Received: from goepp.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by nico.goepp.net (Postfix) with SMTP id C78E0273; Tue, 9 Dec 2003 11:12:12 -0500 (EST) Received: from h004005613eac.ne.client2.attbi.com ([24.62.116.53]) (SquirrelMail authenticated user freebsd) by goepp.com with HTTP; Tue, 9 Dec 2003 11:12:12 -0500 (EST) Message-ID: <63948.24.62.116.53.1070986332.squirrel@goepp.com> Date: Tue, 9 Dec 2003 11:12:12 -0500 (EST) From: "Daniel Goepp" To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org, freebsd-hardware@freebsd.org User-Agent: SquirrelMail/1.4.2 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain;charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Priority: 3 Importance: Normal Subject: Set boot loader to boot off CD manually X-BeenThere: freebsd-hardware@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: General discussion of FreeBSD hardware List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 09 Dec 2003 16:12:13 -0000 Hi all, I was banging my head against the wall too long yesterday, so I have broken down, and have to ask. Any help on this matter is greatly appreciated. Here is what I'm trying to do. I have two computers, both running 4.8, clean, minimal installs. They have two serial cables connected to each other to act as serial consoles, and -Dh has been added to /boot.config, along with ttys having been updated. The console bit works great. What I want to be able to do, is completely rebuild one of the machines remotely. So I log into one, serial over to the other, and reboot it. Then, when the loader comes up, I stop it, and break to the "ok" prompt. I unload the kernel that was starting to load, and at this point, want to boot off CD, to rebuild the system, as though I had gone into the BIOS, and set the CD as the first boot device. However, I don't have remote access to the BIOS, so I can't do this. Here is some information about the systems, and what I have tried so far: They are identical computers, that I built myself, very default machines. IDE everything. atapci0: port 0xff00-0xff0f at device 2.5 on pci0 ata0: at 0x1f0 irq 14 on atapci0 ata1: at 0x170 irq 15 on atapci0 ata1-slave: ATAPI identify retries exceeded ad0: 38166MB [77545/16/63] at ata0-master UDMA100 acd0: CDROM at ata1-master PIO4 I have tried all combinations of load that I can think of. And I have tried setting loaddev and root_disk_unit to all sorts of things. Here is the output from a lsdev: cd @ 0xff5c disk @ 0xef68 disk0: BIOS drive A: disk1: BIOS drive C: disk1s1a: FFS disk1s1b: swap disk1s1e: FFS disk1s1f: FFS disk1s1g: FFS pxe @ 0xd6d8 I have also tried just doing an ls on the device, by setting currdev to all sorts of things...like cd9660:cd, just 'cd' and the BIOS physical addresses in the form X:acd(Y,Z) [0-4]:acd([0-4],[a-c]) No joy. I have also tried booting with the -C option, and here is the tail end of that attempt: acd0: CDROM at ata1-master PIO4 Mounting root from cd9660:cd0a no such device 'cd' setrootbyname failed iso_mountroot: can't find rootvp Root mount failed: 6 Mounting root from cd9660:acd0a cd9660: RockRidge Extension init: not found in path /sbin/init:/sbin/oinit:/sbin/init.bak:/stand/sysinstall panic: no init No joy. I'm trying to think what other information might be useful. As I see it, the problem is, that once a version of FreeBSD has been installed, and the loader loads off the HD, it doesn't want to have anything to do with the CD any more... I realize I have other options, like PXE or FTP, or having an "install partition", to hold an install of BSD, just to install to the other partition. I really don't want to go down these roads right now, since I want to be able to have someone pop in a new CD, to switch around versions of BSD running on these boxes. Help anyone!? Thanks! -dg