On 19/04/07, Nick Holland <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Damon McMahon wrote:
> Greetings,
>
> This is quite strange: very occassionally (perhaps a rate of 1 in 25
> occasions or so?) automatic booting 3.9/i386 fails, but manually
> booting via the console works. Below is the console output and other
> potentially relevant information - is this faulty hardware (I suspect
> it is given the problem's sporadic nature), or something else?
>
> booting hd0a:: open hd0a:: No such file or directory
> failed(2). will try /obsd
That appears to be your problem, something is sticking random
characters in when the system is expecting a kernel name to boot from.
As a result, the system is trying to boot from a non-existent file
rather than hd0a:/bsd
Because of the info you are providing, I'm guessing you have a
serial console on the system. Could the serial console device be
sending random characters on boot-up? Maybe the failure is when power
is interrupted, and reapplied to both systems at the same time, the
OpenBSD machine is just getting to the boot> prompt as the serial
console machine is initializing the serial ports (or sending other
garbage over them for unknown reasons)...a normal reboot of just
the OpenBSD box (or just the serial console box) wouldn't cause
the problem, as the random chars come long before or long after the
boot> prompt.
Nick - you seem to have a psychic connection with my serial consoles
(or perhaps just a lot of experience with them!)
This all makes sense now, and you are indeed correct. The garbage
input is being sent from my console device to the OpenBSD machine when
the console device boots (booting Windows 2K in this case). The reason
for the 1 in 25 or so frequency is because this event only occurs when
both boxes are booting at the same time.
IF I'm right (no promises!), a few options I can think of:
[snip]
You missed the easiest solution (for my circumstances, anyway) - just
disconnect the null modem cable connecting the two until console
access is needed! Obviously not ideal if remote management via serial
console is required, but fine for me.
Many thanks,
Damon
