About Diagnostics And The Boot Process; Prologue: System Controller Boot - Sun Microsystems Sun Fire V440 Diagnostics And Troubleshooting Manual

About Diagnostics and the Boot Process

You have probably had the experience of powering on a Sun system and watching as
it goes through its boot process. Perhaps you have watched as your console displays
messages that look like the following.
0>@(#) Sun Fire[TM] V440 POST 4.10.0 2003/04/01 22:28
/export/work/staff/firmware_re/post/post-build
4.10.0/Fiesta/chalupa/integrated
0>Hard Powerup RST thru SW
0>CPUs present in system: 0 1 2 3
0>OBP->POST Call with %o0=00000000.01008000.
0>Diag level set to MAX.
0>MFG scrpt mode set to NONE
0>I/O port set to TTYA.
0>
0>Start selftest...
It turns out these messages are not quite so inscrutable as they first appear once you
understand the boot process. These kinds of messages are discussed later.
It is possible to bypass firmware-based diagnostic tests in order to minimize how
long it takes a server to reboot. However, in the following discussion, assume that
the system is attempting to boot in diagnostics mode, during which the firmware-
based tests run. See "How to Put the System in Diagnostics Mode" on page 57 for
instructions.
The boot process requires several stages, detailed in these sections:
"Prologue: System Controller Boot" on page 8
"Stage One: OpenBoot Firmware and POST" on page 9
"Stage Two: OpenBoot Diagnostics Tests" on page 15
"Stage Three: The Operating Environment" on page 23

Prologue: System Controller Boot

As soon as you plug in the Sun Fire V440 server to an electrical outlet, and before
you turn on power to the server, the system controller inside the server begins its self-
diagnostic and boot cycle. The system controller is incorporated into the Sun
Advanced Lights Out Manager (ALOM) card installed in the Sun Fire V440 server
chassis. Running off standby power, the card begins functioning before the server
itself comes up.
8 Sun Fire V440 Server Diagnostics and Troubleshooting Guide • July 2003
(firmware_re)