The OK prompt

The "ok" prompt is the PROM (Programmable Read-Only Memory) Monitor that is part of the OpenBoot PROM used in Sparc-based computers. It provides a very basic interface to testing and managing the system hardware and boot-up parameters, using the FORTH language.

90% of the time, you really don't need to know much beyond the "boot" command.

There is a "help" command that will offer some very basic help.

You can enter "words" to see all the commands and arguments that it understands.

The Sun support website (http://sunsolve.sun.com) has a number of OpenBoot Command Reference manuals available for online viewing and download. Get the one appropriate to your OpenBoot version (at the "ok" prompt, enter ".version")

I do appreciate the assistance however I am told that without a support agreement there is not much on sunsolve.  I am also told that without a support agreement there is a lot out there at sunsolve.  

We have hundreds of sun boxes but no support agreement.

I looked at sunsolve and could not find much about this without a support contract.  Am I not looking at the right place.  If you find this, how did you find this ?

Pepsicop:

I agree on the need.  A  company that just let go 75 thousand people might be running on a shoe string.  Two people admin 650 systems including
solaris, redhat, desktops, Active directory and HPUX.  This includes builds and backups.

Just to make it intresting there is one full time person and one rotating contractor position that is limited to 40 hours.

 

I think that a subscription to SunManagers list is a must for a Solaris admin (http://www.sunmanagers.org/). For several reasons:

- There are very many knowledgeable people on the list, who are eager to help, and the help comes fast
- The list's policy encourages everyone to post a solution to the problem - look for [SUMMARY] in the subject
- archives are searcheable

This is, of course, is not a substitution for the documentation, but it will give you a nice overall picture of the issues.

Pepsicop?

Just let go 75k people? You work at Lucent? :-)

I have subscribed

Thank you

Nortel let 3/4 of their work force go and the last 1/4 had to do as much as they all did before

I allready have a small stack of sun boxes !

This guy was just running flat out and I had to ask questions like how to slice up a box with four drives.

The market is not good.  The jobs are still out there, it is just that people in america are not doing them.

Westly:  You have been a very great help to me. I appriciate you more than you know.

All you have been great.  

I have been ripping up sun boxes for the past 2 days.


Regards;

Dave

Dave,

Thanks for the points and good luck. Drop back by anytime you need help. I've been hacking around on Sun gear and in Solaris boxes since 1995 and I'm still learning things about them. There's a lot to absorb.

> Has anybody ever put a "the whole sun" book on line and wrote a little about it and used a lot of pointers back to the sun site ?  
> You can spend days just reading about the firmware.  
> If you want it, my email is (Email address removed by yuzh, Page Editor)
Hi Dave,
You might just post here.
However, the links will break sooner or later.

Wesly

Hi,
   I have heard a lot of people complain about Solaris being *too* hard...  I tend to disagree.  If you are familiar with Redhat, you should do fine
as they both adhere to SysV specs, *but* I also agree that because of the platform differences (Sparc vs x86) some commands are different.  Solaris
tends to stick more strictly to the SysV specs than RH, I *think* because of the GNU apps that RH includes in the distro.  I started in Linux about
7yrs ago, mainly to get away from Novell, and I got a Solaris job 4 years ago and really haven't had that many issues.  Just find the similarities.  
For instance, the OK prompt you are referring to is really a beefed up BIOS from the PC world...  

On a side note.  It seems that alot of companies are thinking that you can just lay off most of the company and beat the hell outta those that are
left.  In my case, they laid off 4 admins (leaving 2) on a 100+ machine network, and then also doubled my tasks by having me do development in
*yuck* Windows....  They just don't get the fact that it takes time and research to properly administer a network of SUN/x86/Cisco boxes, not to
mention learn new languages on a constant basis.  Keep your chin up, once they realize that those in other countries may work cheaper but do
crappy work, the jobs will open up again.

Nortel mgmt sound like a buncha retards...  With no idea how to manage a network as vast as what they have (or had)...

Some simple commands to remember about the PROM

if you connect to the console and see OK: you can type

use the "go" keyword to boot a machine that has dropped out of Solaris for some reason (this may or may not work, depending on the problem)

use the "boot" keyword to a machine when go won't work.  You may want to issue a "sync" command first to make sure whatever was writing
to the disk when the OS broke actually makes it to the drive.  Obviously this won't work if your drives are having issues.

use the "reset" command when all esle fails. You could also issue a "boot -s" which would reset the machine and boot to single user.

use the "printenv" command to get environment settings

use the "setenv" command to set environment settings
   ex:  setenv auto-boot? true  (didn't test this first, but it should work)

As far as practice machines go, you can get darn near anything greater than an ultra 1 to test Solaris on.  As long as you stay out of the gui,
the system will run.  Keep in mind that if you plan on compiling apps and such, you should spring for better machines.  Another thing to be
aware of in Solaris is that the Sun compiler is *not* free.  Check out www.sunfreeware.com and download gcc and other utils as packages to
get you started.  I personally had a test network at home using Sparc 4's and 10's with a Livingston portmaster for console access via the
serial ports on the machines.  Worked perfect.

HTH,
Jess