SUMMARY: URGENT: I am unable to boot a Sun V280 server ...

From: Syed Zaeem Hosain (Syed.Hosain_at_aeris.net) <(Syed.Hosain_at_aeris.net)>
Date: Tue May 04 2010 - 18:55:47 EDT
Hi, all.

Thanks to all the people who sent in a solution. Too many people to list here
... sorry about that!

Some specific possibilities were recommended, one worked well enough for me to
get the "ok> prompt" to come out the TTY A serial port rather than the RSC
serial port.

1. Turn the key-switch to the debug position and reboot. This forces the
console input and output to get directed to the TTY A port. From what I can
tell from reading various Sun manuals, this only works if the environment
variables of input-device and output-device are _not_ set to the RSC console
output. But I am not certain of this, since I tried the next recommendation
first!

2. Remove the RSC card and reboot ... makes console interaction come out the
TTY A serial port. Then you can set the environment variables input-device (to
"keyboard") and output-device (to "screen") to force all console messages to
come to the TTY A serial port even if the RSC card is re-installed. This
worked for me! I did not bother resetting the RSC password after this worked,
since all console interaction is now on the serial port A.

3. Install the RSC in another system (that does boot) and change the password.
I did not try this.

What did not work for me (although it could have!):

1. Execute rscadm and fix the password. Unfortunately, the system could not
boot and I could not get to this executable (a separate issue). When I did
eventually get the boot problem fixed, I discovered that some previous system
admin had deleted the RSC files after installing the RSC firmware during the
original installation. Argh! Anyway, based on my reading of the Sun docs,
rscadm ought to work to set the password.

2. Get a new RSC from Sun. Not possible for me - this system is not covered
under a maintenance agreement unfortunately.

Good advice:

1. "Never lock down a system to the point where someone with physical access
can't boot the system up".

I heartily agree! Our systems are all in locked-down server rooms, and if you
have physical access, installing an RSC password is a meaningless false sense
of security, IMO.

Thanks again to all!

Z

-----Original Message-----
From: Syed Zaeem Hosain (Syed.Hosain@aeris.net)
Sent: Monday, May 03, 2010 11:12 AM
To: Sun Managers
Subject: URGENT: I am unable to boot a Sun V280 server ...

... and no one has the password for the RSC console port to get to the ok
prompt to get to reboot.

1. A hard power-cycle does not start an automatic reboot.
2. I am assuming that the RSC port username is "admin" (could it be
different?).
3. The password is not anything that I can figure out (and a blank enter does
not work either).

Is there a way around this, please? Maybe some way to get to reboot
automatically without getting into the RSC?

Thanks in advance,

Z
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Received on Tue May 4 18:57:21 2010

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