aab on Wed, 10 May 2000 11:39:34 -0400 (EDT)


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Re: [PLUG] inconveniently broke a sun box


I can think of two approachs, but both are a bit convoluted.  One is
rather easy - have another Sun box that you can add the first one's drive
to, mount, modify the file and replace the drive in the original box?

The Suns I've used have a boot level os, but I'm not sure how much work is
possible in that interface (mounting, editting, etc.)

The other ... I don't know how easy this will be for you, but you might be
able to network boot the box using NetBSD or OpenBSD, mount the drive and
modify /etc/passwd, reboot Solaris and go.  Not all boxes will go for the
netboot approach, but I've done it with NetBSD on an Alpha ... I can't say
I did it when I was installing OpenBSD on one of the Suns (it's been too
long and I don't remember).

andrew.

On Wed, 10 May 2000 darxus@chaosreigns.com wrote:

> On a Linux box, I'd download an image of a boot floppy, boot off of it,
> mount the root partion, edit /etc/passwd, reboot, and be done.
> 
> How do I do this with a sun box ?  (sparc 20 running solaris 2.7)
> 
> To make the problem more interesting, the thing does not have a floppy or
> cdrom drive (I'd originally assumed it did).
> 
> I know suns have some kind of initial mini operatign system thing that you
> can boot to.  Would that have any chance of mounting a partition ?
> 
> Do sparc 20s have standard floppy controllers ?  Would it be possible to
> plug in a normal floppy drive, get a bootable floppy image somewhere, use
> dd on a linux box (or rawrite on a windows box) to write the image, boot
> off that floppy, and edit /etc/passwd ?  How might I obtain such an image.
> 
> What filesystem do suns running solaris 2.7 use ?  Is it something that a
> linux boot disk could mount readwrite ?  That could be particularly
> useful.  If you can plug a normal floppy drive into a sparc 20.
> 
> The inconvenient part of this is that I have today off to deal with
> paperwork related to this house I'm buying.
> 
> If you can provide any hints at all, please do so here on this list.  I'm
> going to be giving John the url to the archive so he can see any
> responces, and I expect to be back home around 1:30.  
> 
> Thanks.
> 
> ___________________
> www.ChaosReigns.com
> 
> 
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