Booting Your System

The most important function of the OpenBoot firmware is to boot the system. Booting is the process of loading and executing a standalone program such as the operating system. Once it is powered on, the system usually boots automatically, without user intervention. If necessary, you can explicitly initiate the boot process from the OpenBoot command interpreter. Automatic booting uses the default boot device specified in non-volatile RAM (NVRAM); user-initiated booting uses either the default boot device or one specified by the user.

If you want to boot the system from the default boot device, type the following command at the Forth Monitor prompt:

---

ok boot 

---

If you are at the Restricted Monitor prompt, and you want to boot your system, type:

---

> b 

---

The boot command has the following format:

boot [device-specifier] [filename] [options]

The optional parameters for the boot command are described in the following table.

Table 2-1 Common Options for the boot Command

Parameter	Description
[device-specifier]	The name (full path name or alias) of the boot device. Typical values include:  cdrom (CD-ROM drive) disk (hard disk) floppy (3-1/2" diskette drive) net (Ethernet) tape (SCSI tape)
[filename]	The name of the program to be booted (for example, stand/diag). filename is relative to the root of the selected device and partition (if specified). If filename is not specified, the boot program uses the value of the boot-file NVRAM parameter (see Chapter 3).
[options]	-a - Prompt interactively for the device and name of the boot file. -h - Halt after loading the program. (These options are specific to the operating system, and may differ from system to system.)

---

Note -

Many commands (such as boot and test) that require a device name, accept either a full device path name or a device alias. In this manual, the term device-specifier is used to indicate that either a device path name or a device alias is acceptable for such commands.

---

To explicitly boot from the internal disk (for diskfull systems), type:

---

ok boot disk 

---

To explicitly boot from Ethernet, type:

---

ok boot net 

---

To specify a boot device at the Restricted Monitor prompt, use the b command with the name of the boot device as shown in the examples below.

---

> b disk
 (to explicitly boot from the internal disk for diskfull systems)
> b net (to explicitly boot from
Ethernet)

---

Device alias definitions vary from system to system. Use the devalias command, described in Chapter 1, Overview , for definitions of your system's aliases the following table is an example of device aliases and their definitions based on SPARCstation 2 and SPARCstation IPX systems. The heading "Old Path" refers to the OpenBoot Version 1.x usage for the equivalent SBus device.

Table 2-2 Typical Device Aliases

Alias	Boot Path	Old Path	Description
disk	/sbus/esp/sd@3,0	sd(0,0,0)	Default disk (1st internal).
disk0	/sbus/esp/sd@3,0	sd(0,0,0)	First internal disk sd0.
disk1	/sbus/esp/sd@1,0	sd(0,1,0)	Second internal disk sd1.
disk2	/sbus/esp/sd@2,0	sd(0,2,0)	External disk sd2.
disk3	/sbus/esp/sd@0,0	sd(0,3,0)	External disk sd3.
tape	/sbus/esp/st@4,0	st(0,0,0)	First tape drive st0.
tape0	/sbus/esp/st@4,0	st(0,0,0)	First tape drive st0.
tape1	/sbus/esp/st@5,0	st(0,1,0)	Second tape drive st1.
cdrom	/sbus/esp/sd@6,0:c	sd(0,6,2)	CD-ROM partition c.
cdroma	/sbus/esp/sd@6,0:a	sd(0,6,0)	CD-ROM partition a.
net	/sbus/le	le(0,0,0)	Ethernet.
floppy	/fd	fd(0,0,0)	Floppy drive.

Note that in the following table the names sd0, sd1, and so on, are terms used in the Solaris\256 1.x operating environment to describe these devices. The Solaris 2.x operating environment names are different, as shown in below.

Table 2-3 Alias Names in the Solaris Operating Environment

Alias	Solaris 1.x Name	Solaris 2.x Name
disk and disk0	sd0	c0t3d0s0
disk1	sd1	c0t1d0s0
disk2	sd2	c0t2d0s0
disk3	sd3	c0t0d0s0