orand@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu (05/10/91)
Could someone out there enlighten me to remote reset devices? What I need to know is: Do you need a specific Boot PROM for each version of Novell? We are running SFT 2.15 and will be upgrading to 3.11 in the near future. Should I wait until the upgrade to purchase boot PROMS for my machines? Will the boot prom run the equivalent to the CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT? I would like to get rid of as much stuff off the local hard drives as possible and go with largely diskless nodes. Can I do this? How much should I expect to pay for these babies (about 75 of them)? What about the clone PROMs. Sources? Thanks, Brady... ORAND@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu
nengle@copper.ucs.indiana.edu (nathan engle) (05/10/91)
In article <1991May9.160635.30577@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu> orand@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu writes: > Could someone out there enlighten me to remote reset devices? >What I need to know is: I set up a PC this morning with a boot prom in a 3c503 card. I will attempt to shed some light. > Do you need a specific Boot PROM for each version of Novell? > We are running SFT 2.15 and will be upgrading to 3.11 in the > near future. Should I wait until the upgrade to purchase > boot PROMS for my machines? First of all, DON'T buy the 3COM Etherstart boot prom. The 3c503 boot prom only works with 3COM lan manager. But never fear, a third company called LANWorks (phone# at the office but I'm not) writes boot proms for quite a few cards commonly used with Novell including the 503. However, there's one more twist - there are two different versions of the 503 boot proms for IEEE 802.3 and Ethernet II servers (where the server is ECONFIGed to use packet type 8137). You need to order the right type for your network or no business ensues (as I found out Monday morning). I ordered the wrong kind of proms; 802.3 when I really needed Ethernet II. I didn't know that there was any distinction when I ordered, but reading the manuals closely convinced me by Monday evening that I had the wrong chips. Tuesday I called the LANworks support BBS. One of the messages from the sysop described a procedure for modifying 802.3-type proms to make them work in Ethernet II; you change 2 bytes. I happen to have a prom programmer so making the patch was easy. I got my first successful boot from a server on wednesday morning. Happy customer, relieved consultant... > Will the boot prom run the equivalent to the CONFIG.SYS and > AUTOEXEC.BAT? I would like to get rid of as much stuff > off the local hard drives as possible and go with largely > diskless nodes. Can I do this? The boot proms load a "boot iamge" file from the \LOGIN directory of the file server (so they can read the file without being logged in). This boot image is created by a utility called DOSGEN, and the LANworks PROMs come with a MAPGEN utility that allows you to edit the images without having to re-DOSGEN. The image is basically a snapshot of a 360K DOS boot disk with whatever drivers and AUTOEXEC files you need to connect to your server. This image SUBST's for drive A: during the boot process, so the whole thing is rather like booting from a RAM disk. The transfer of control through all of this is somewhat strange. The boot image is read through IPX before any packet drivers are loaded, so if you use Clarkson packet drivers you have to use the -d (deferred initialization) option since the board has already been initialized when you load the packet driver. Once the net shell is loaded the SUBST'ed drive A: disappears and control transfers to batch files in the \LOGIN directory. Finally when you login the F: drive will reposition to your \HOME directory and transfer to yet another batch file which has to be in that directory. It sounds terribly complex, but it works. Our slow PC workstation boots in about 30 or 40 seconds from the point you hit Ctl-Alt-Del. If there's a disk in the real drive A: then the PC will boot from it as usual. Otherwise the PC sends a boot image request to the file server. > How much should I expect to pay for these babies (about 75 of > them)? What about the clone PROMs. Sources? I think we paid $30 bucks or so for our 3c503 PROM; the source was an outfit called Compucom in Indianapolis. (Once again no phone #'s, try your yellow pages). I'm sure theat they had some sort of price break for buying 10; you should talk to them about 75. >Thanks, Brady... >ORAND@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu > Good luck. -- Nathan Engle Software Juggler Indiana University Dept of Psychology nengle@copper.ucs.indiana.edu
orand@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu (05/10/91)
In article <1991May10.045457.10471@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu>, nengle@copper.ucs.indiana.edu (nathan engle) writes: > First of all, DON'T buy the 3COM Etherstart boot prom. The 3c503 boot > prom only works with 3COM lan manager. But never fear, a third company > called LANWorks (phone# at the office but I'm not) writes boot > proms for quite a few cards commonly used with Novell including the 503. When you get in, could you send me phone #'s for LANWorks & CompuCom? > However, there's one more twist - there are two different versions of > the 503 boot proms for IEEE 802.3 and Ethernet II servers (where the > server is ECONFIGed to use packet type 8137). You need to order the right > type for your network or no business ensues (as I found out Monday > morning). I am using the Clarkson packet drivers but my server is not EConfiged. Does this mean I need the 802.3? Doesn't matter much, I've got access to a PROM burner. Can I use the boot prom to boot several machines with different images or would I need to use login script commands to set individual configurations? Thanks, Brady... ORAND@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu