Help - getting an Octane onto my network

[rmpfyf]

Hi there, haven't used an SGI since uni 20+ years ago, now someone's given me an Octane and 20+ hard disks of data to get onto some modern medium.

It seems whatever hard disk was in it is not cooperative about life moving forwards, as I get messages saying it can't find the partition. I'm prepared to netboot it back into life and have been following instructions here http://techpubs.spinlocksolutions.com/irix/remote-irix-6.5-installation-from-linux.html ... I can only access Command Monitor.

So, the problem:

I can't get it onto my network. (Mikrotik router). To simplify things I've a spare router with a cellular modem, my main Ubuntu machine and this Octane only.

The PHY seems to be working. It autonegotiates to 100Mbps full duplex, which I'm assuming is correct. Cable tests OK.

I seem to have a software issue likely caused by User Ineptitude. I've setenv netaddr to a local address. Came up briefly on ARP, then hasn't since. Packet sniffing the router's network interface shows up a bunch of broadcast from the router, but nothing - complete silence! - from the Octane. Even at boot.

Am I missing something?

Seems a nice-ish machine asides - hinv suggests it's dual R10k, 225MHz ea, 255MB RAM, dual ESI.

There's some form of Ethernet PCI card (XTALKPCI) in there that I assume isn't alive when we're fiddling around in the Command Monitor.

Any help appreciated.

 

[rbz]

How far have you gotten into the netboot? If you are just setting the netaddr that wont do much, once you have your remote server setup with bootp and tftp you can run the commands to netboot the installer or disk partitioner. I am not sure if you will see any real traffic before that point.

If you are looking for an easy way to do a remote install you can use Booterizer https://github.com/unxmaal/booterizer http://booterizer.com/ however you may run into issues if your home network is on 192.168.1.x but that can be worked around.

But if you already have the images and bootp and tftp setup on your ubuntu machine you shouldn't need to use booterizer or anything.

I found this PDF/guide helpful when I did my first irix net install before finding out about Booterizer. http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~sedwards/presentations/2019-vcf-netboot.pdf

Good Luck!

 

[rmpfyf]

How far have you gotten into the netboot? If you are just setting the netaddr that wont do much, once you have your remote server setup with bootp and tftp you can run the commands to netboot the installer or disk partitioner. I am not sure if you will see any real traffic before that point.

If you are looking for an easy way to do a remote install you can use Booterizer https://github.com/unxmaal/booterizer http://booterizer.com/ however you may run into issues if your home network is on 192.168.1.x but that can be worked around.

But if you already have the images and bootp and tftp setup on your ubuntu machine you shouldn't need to use booterizer or anything.

I found this PDF/guide helpful when I did my first irix net install before finding out about Booterizer. http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~sedwards/presentations/2019-vcf-netboot.pdf

Good Luck!

Thank you. You were right, it did indeed come up with bootp/tftp. Quite a joy of a thing to see.

Managed to partition the main drive OK.

Trying to work out why I'm getting a CPU reset when I install now - "WARNING: odsy_earlyinit re-entered. Init code probably paniced!", "vfs_mountroot: no root found" (though it'll get the file OK).

IDE tests suggest it's feeling OK. Wondering if a network thing. Booterizer looks great - downloading now and trying to find a spare RasPi 3

 

[rbz]

The VPro video cards are known as Odyssey, wonder if there is some sort of issue? Did you say it had dual cards in it? Maybe it doesn't like that for install (no idea, just throwing out ideas) so maybe one should be removed?

 

[rmpfyf]

The VPro video cards are known as Odyssey, wonder if there is some sort of issue? Did you say it had dual cards in it? Maybe it doesn't like that for install (no idea, just throwing out ideas) so maybe one should be removed?

After much hair-pulling I tried a different HDD. Works fine (and a lot faster).

Seems an unhappy spinny thing caused our grief. She's logged in, root reset, now to get it on the network and start copying data off it!

 

[rmpfyf]

Wow, it's actually quite a fast machine, quicker than I remember (there's a ~20 year memory for you).

Got to get NFS working now and we'll be sweet. Thanks for your help, @rbz

 

[rbz]

Glad to hear ya got it working!

 

[rmpfyf]

I'm still having issues getting IRIX installed. I can access install media over the network just fine: bootp and the rest of it work fine.

I keep getting errors with install media, particularly on 6.5.30 overlay 1:

WARNING: Invalid filetype "X" at at line xxxx of eoe_6530.idb where xxx changes. In the end I get a bunch of conflicts and can't install.

The images I've dl'd from irixnet.org and I get the same issue with images on internet archive, so I'm thinking it's a case of Operator Error here.

Am I missing something obvious?

Cheers

 

[rmpfyf]

Sorry team ignore that - installed patches, seems to be installing without a million conflicts now

 

[rmpfyf]

Nope, scratch that, booted to a desktop with a root login, a console and nothing else.

Tried the booterizer discs and no, nothing else.

Any help appreciated.

 

[Elf]

I can't say I've seen similar before... usually an IRIX install is quite straightforward for me, but unfortunately that doesn't leave me much troubleshooting experience. You might try the #software or #booterizer channels on the Discord chat to see if anyone else has encountered this?

 

[rmpfyf]

I can't say I've seen similar before... usually an IRIX install is quite straightforward for me, but unfortunately that doesn't leave me much troubleshooting experience. You might try the #software or #booterizer channels on the Discord chat to see if anyone else has encountered this?

Tried the Booterizer images - same end.

Then went from 6.5.2 to 6.5.16 to 6.5.22... that seemed to work! Weird.