Re: Sun Fire V215 ALOM troubles

Hi,

I fortunately have a little experience with this as I have a similar
machine (a V440, a little bit older)

The ALOM has both serial and web access, so that apache you're seeing could
actually be the web access for the alom card - you might be plugged into
the wrong network port.
I see you've connected to the ALOM via serial and are getting messages
there, when the login times out there it is passing you through to the
hosts serial console. It could have been redirected to another serial port
as others have mentioned.

These machines don't automatically power-up as far as I know. When you
connect them to power the indicator lights that come on are all linked to
the ALOM. When the main host powers up it is generally pretty loud as there
are some high speed fans in these ultrasparc machines, the ALOM also
announces on its serial port when the host is powered up/off or reset.

Generally I connect mine up to power and serial, wait for the ALOM timeout
so I can see console messages, then press the main power button to power up
the system. The boot time will depend on how it's configured, if the
diagnostic is enabled it can take quite a while before it attempts to boot
from a disk (like 15 minutes - seriously). Either way there should be
plenty of messages on the serial console telling you what's happening. I
think you can send a break through the serial console to be the equivalent
of hitting stop+A on a sun keyboard.

hope you figure it out.


On Fri, 6 Jun 2025 at 04:07, Paolo Vincenzo Olivo <[email protected]> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I recently acquired a Sun Fire V215 at a very convenient price, from a
> local business which had already decommissioned it long ago (local
> pickup on eBay). Nobody at this business knows the whereabouts of this
> machine, aside from the fact that 'it powers on regularly'.
>
> Long story short, once connected to power supply, it powered on and
> booted straight to hard-disk, probably running an Apache server on
> Solaris 10 (what I could tell from a nmap scan).
>
> Attached a serial cable to the SERIAL MGT RJ45 port, opened a serial
> console. Upon boot I get:
>
> ```
> ALOM BOOTMON v1.6.8
> ALOM Build Release: 001
> Reset register: e0000000 EHRS ESRS LLRS
>
>
> ALOM POST 1.0
>
>
> Dual Port Memory Test, PASSED.
>
> TTY External - Internal Loopback Test
> TTY External - Internal Loopback Test, PASSED.
>
> TTYC - Internal Loopback Test
> TTYC - Internal Loopback Test, PASSED.
>
> TTYD - Internal Loopback Test
> TTYD - Internal Loopback Test, PASSED.
>
> Memory Data Lines Test
> Memory Data Lines Test, PASSED.
>
> Memory Address Lines Test
>   Slide address bits to test open address lines
>   Test for shorted address lines
> Memory Address Lines Test, PASSED.
>
> Boot Sector FLASH CRC Test
> Boot Sector FLASH CRC Test, PASSED.
>
>
>
> Return to Boot Monitor for Handshake
> ALOM POST 1.0
>    Status = 00007fff
>
> Returned from Boot Monitor and Handshake
>
>
>
> Loading the runtime image...
>
> Sun(tm) Advanced Lights Out Manager 1.6.8 (sunacslsb)
>
>
>
> Full VxDiag Tests
>
> BASIC TOD TEST
>   Read the TOD Clock:        THU JUN 05 15:41:50 2025
>   Wait, 1 - 3 seconds
>   Read the TOD Clock:        THU JUN 05 15:41:52 2025
> BASIC TOD TEST, PASSED
>
> ETHERNET CPU LOOPBACK TEST
>   50 BYTE PACKET   - a 0 in field of 1's.
>   50 BYTE PACKET   - a 1 in field of 0's.
>   900 BYTE PACKET  - pseudo-random data.
> ETHERNET CPU LOOPBACK TEST, PASSED
>
> Full VxDiag Tests - PASSED
>
>
>
>     Status summary  -  Status = 7FFF
>
>        VxDiag    -          -  PASSED
>        POST      -          -  PASSED
>        LOOPBACK  -          -  PASSED
>
>        I2C       -          -  PASSED
>        EPROM     -          -  PASSED
>        FRU PROM  -          -  PASSED
>
>        ETHERNET  -          -  PASSED
>        MAIN CRC  -          -  PASSED
>        BOOT CRC  -          -  PASSED
>
>        TTYD      -          -  PASSED
>        TTYC      -          -  PASSED
>        MEMORY    -          -  PASSED
>        MPC885    -          -  PASSED
>
> ```
>
> Then it asks me to login into the ALOM+. According to the V215 manual,
> the default password for admin should correspond to the last 8
> characters of the chassis serial number. Unfortunately, this is rejected
> (tried also full number, lowercase, and other combinations). Other
> default password found in earlier Sun boxes ('admin1', 'changeme') also
> don't work. Most likely, it has been changed.
>
> I couldn't get more info about the running system, as the OPROM/kernel
> buffer is not redirected to the serial console by default.
>
> Now, looking online I found different ways to workaround the problem,
> but none applied to my case, and I feel like I'm running out of options:
>
> * This version of *LOM doesn't allow to erase NVRAM, as described in
>   thread:
> https://mail-index.netbsd.org/port-sparc64/2013/09/30/msg002024.html
> * Later Sun server do not have a discrete LOM card (can't unplug it), but
> a chip
>   integrated in the mainboard. I read somewhere that there's a jumper
>   you can play with, but haven't find more detailed information.
> * I CAN'T get to an ok> prompt, so I can't boot a Solaris ISO from the
>   optical drive. CTRL + Break at the ALOM login timeout does not work.
>   (apparently, the combination can be disabled from Solaris). All I get
>   is the login prompt, and the timeout message after few minutes, asking
>   to press the '#.' escape sequence to return to ALOM...
>
> ```
>   Enter #. to return to ALOM.
>
>
> Copyright 2008 Sun Microsystems, Inc.  All rights reserved.
> Use is subject to license terms.
>
>
> Sun(tm) Advanced Lights Out Manager 1.6.8 (sunacslsb)
>
> Please login:
> ```
>
>
> Any ideas? Should I give up on this and sell it for parts?
>
> Regards,
> Polo
>
>
>
>
>
>