various boot-related questions.

[Ruth Milner]

In article <89Sep12.214425edt.2245 at neat.cs.toronto.edu> lamy at ai.utoronto.ca (Jean-Francois Lamy) writes:
>People on the phone on the hotline are giving me blank stares :-) when
>asked the following:
>
>a) on an SGI 4D/240 using a tty as a console, how does one forcibly enter
>   the PROM monitor? (this is often accomplished by BREAK on ttys).  While we
>   understand this may not be desirable by default, there oughta be a way
>   to make the machine pay attention without having to depress its belly
>   button...
>

I called the hotline about this back in June, and was told there is no
way to do this. I suggested that there should be, but I don't know whether
my suggestion was taken seriously enough that it was submitted as a change
request.

I have also suggested that there should be a way for it to i) automatically
reboot after a crash, without depressing its belly button :-), and ii) have
it actually HALT after the shutdown sequence has completed, rather than
rebooting if you aren't there in time to press <ESC>. I often initiate
shutdowns from my desk, and then go to the machine room a minute or two
later. In the IRIS' case, it had cleverly rebooted by this time and I had to 
shut it down again. There have been some hints that new PROMs might fix at
least one of these problems, but it has been like pulling teeth to get any
concrete information.

While I can live without ii), part i) is absolutely vital. If it crashes
due to power problems or greedy people filling up swap or something, there
is no reason why it shouldn't go ahead and reboot. And in other situations,
I can get the information from /usr/adm/SYSLOG (or from the console if it
can't reboot).
-- 
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