BOOT_SPARC(8)       OpenBSD System Manager's Manual (SPARC)      BOOT_SPARC(8)

NAME
     boot - sparc-specific system bootstrapping procedures

DESCRIPTION
   Power fail and crash recovery
     Normally, the system will reboot itself at power-up or after crashes.  An
     automatic consistency check of the file systems will be performed (as de-
     scribed in fsck(8)), and unless this fails, the system will resume multi-
     user operations.

   Cold starts
     System boot blocks are installed near the start of the boot disk using
     the procedure described in installboot(8). The boot program attempts to
     load the kernel from partition ``a'' of the boot device, which must cur-
     rently be an ``sd'', ``xd'' or ``xy'' disk.

     The -s flag to the bootloader will bring the system up in single-user
     mode.  The -a flag instructs the system to prompt for the location of the
     root filesystem and the primary swap partition.  The -c flag instructs
     the system to enter the ``User Kernel Config'' mode upon startup (see
     boot_config(8)). Other flags are currently ignored.

     The SPARC boot ROM comes in two flavours: an ``old-style'' ROM is used in
     sun4 machines, while a ``new-style'' ROM can be found on sun4c and sun4m
     models.  The ``new-style'' SPARC boot ROM is a full-featured Forth system
     with emacs key bindings.  It can be put in ``old-style'' user-interface
     compatibility mode (in which case it shows a simple ``>'' prompt), but
     this is essentially useless.  However, by default the ROM runs in old-
     mode; to enter new-mode type ``n''. The ROM then shows a Forth-style
     ``ok'' prompt.  It is recommended to have the ROM always start in its na-
     tive ``new-style'' mode.  Utter the following incantation in new-mode to
     force the ROM to always start in new-mode:

          ok setenv sunmon-compat? false

   Old-style PROM operation
     By default, the old ROM will poll for boot devices, unless the eeprom
     settings are set to specify a particular boot device.  The OpenBSD boot-
     loader will then look for a kernel named ``bsd'' by default, unless a
     different filename has been specified in the boot command.

     Refer to the ``PROM User's Manual'' for more information.

   OpenBoot PROM version 1 operation
     Older OpenBOOT PROM, as well as hybrid (dual-mode) versions operating in
     compatibility mode (with the variable ``version2?'' set to false) will
     look for a bootloader and kernel filename as specified by the ``boot-
     from'' variable.  To change the default so that OpenBSD will be loaded,
     type the following:

          ok setenv boot-from sd(0,0,0)bsd

     Replace ``sd(0,0,0)'' with the appropriate boot device if necessary.

   OpenBoot PROM version 2 operation
     Version 2 OpenBOOT PROM will look for a bootloader on the device speci-
     fied by the ``boot-device'' variable.  The OpenBSD bootloader will then
     look for a kernel named ``bsd'' by default, unless the ``boot-file'' en-
     vironment variable is set, or a different filename has been specified in
     the boot command.  To reset this variable to its default, empty, value,
     type the following:

          ok set-default boot-file
   Accessing the PROM during runtime
     If the sysctl(8) variable ddb.console is enabled, at any time you can
     break back to the ROM by pressing the ``L1'' and ``a'' keys at the same
     time (if the console is a serial port the same is achieved by sending a
     ``break''). If you do this accidentally you can continue whatever was in
     progress by typing ``go''.

FILES
     /bsd    system code
     /boot   system bootstrap

SEE ALSO
     boot_config(8), crash(8), disklabel(8), fsck(8), halt(8), init(8),
     installboot(8), rc(8), shutdown(8), syslogd(8)

OpenBSD 3.0                     April 19, 1994                               2
