Box died

[Kaloyan Olegoc Georgiev]

Some days ago I bought an old B1000 Visualize machine for 50 euros.
It had no screen, no keybord, no mouse, just a box.
Fortunately it had some very basic HP-UX 11.00 installed on it with networking on, so I plugged it to my local network and got it's IP using a sniffer, then hacked it (The person who sold me that box did not even know how to turn it on... and yes, it's legal purchase, some firms were updating their servers and they ended to that second hand reseller). All was ok, I exported the X display to my linux machine and was able to run some X aplications (mainly sam). I also installed some free software (Apache + MySQL because it was intended this to be my home webserver).
Last time I rebooted the machine it did not start the network, so I cannot access to it. Also the disk does not work as much as on normal system start.

I installed bash and changed the normal root user shell to use the GNU bash (it worked ok prior to the reboot).

As I have no screen (because it uses some HP graphics card) nor keyboard or mouse I cannot solve the problem.

I have read on the PA-RISC Linux pages that there is a way to plug a console to the machine and use the console (Windows hyperterminal or Linux minicom) to comunicate with the machine. Could anyone explian me how to do that? I have had no success for now.
During the statup on the LCD display appears:
Firmware 3_1
console SER_1

Also is there any way to use a normal PC compatible PCI graphics card in order to see what is supposed to appear on the screen? Do normal PC compatible USB and mouse work with this machine?

Thank you for your attention

Kaloyan Olegov Georgiev

[Pete Randall]

I'll give you a hint. It's not going to solve your problem, but I think it will help a lot to explain it.

Never, *NEVER*, **NEVER**, change root's shell on a HP-UX box. You've managed to create an un-bootable server. The only way out of this is to connect a local console and boot into single user mode. This may be possible with some sort of hyper-term "hack", but I can't begin to tell you how to do it.

At this point, it sounds to me like a 50 Euro lesson in doing your research before you hack.

I do wish you luck.


Pete

[Michael Tully]

Unless the box has a CDROM drive and you can scam a CORE-OS disk as a loan from someone (and a terminal screen keyboard etc), I guess you've lost 50 Euros. As Pete has rightly said, you CANNOT change the root shell. IT MUST BE /sbin/sh *****NO EXCEPTIONS*****

[curt larson_1]

as others have mentioned, changing root's shell is probably your problem.

For the B1000 the architecture was a major change from those of it's predessors, e.g. the C200 et al. New I/O devices were integrated, the LASI I/O chip was dumped, together with the GSC bus. All device I/O now sits on various PCI buses, human I/O devices are connected to USB ports.

Slot 2 (graphics) is PCI-64/66, 3.3V,
And the hp mouse is a two button, with a scroll wheel that is also act as a third button.

I would suppose compatible parts would work. but of course i'm sure some won't. I don't have any experience of either.

connect to the serial port

1) shut down the system. i suppose this would be a power off for your situation

2)disconnect the USB keyboard from the back. being you don't have one this is already done.

3)connect your serial connector to the serial 1 connector on the back of the system.
configure your terminal for 9600 baud, no stop bits, no parity, 8 bits.

4) power up your system

the system will now display the console to the
terminal connected to the serial one port

here is the user manual
http://h200007.www2.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/lpv37930/lpv37930.pdf

[KapilRaj]

Hi,

Once it is powered on ---- You will prob get an ISL Prompt where you need to type

bo pri

This will prompt you "Interact with IPL Y/N"

Type with Y

This would take you to another prompt after the message "Hard Booted / Soft booted"

here you should say hpux -lm or hpux -is

I will prefer the first.

If this takes you to a root shell in single user mode !!! (No guarantee) , Then you are through or else better put a new OS CD and re-install OS.

If through .......

vi /etc/passwd :- Replace bash with /sbin/sh and reboot the system

If not through ........

There is one more option if you have a CD drive

Boot through INSTALL CD
Select recovery shell

loadfile /usr/sbin/ioscan
loadfile /usr/sbin/mount

ioscan -fnC disk
if you find any thing *LVM try to mount it and then check whether it is your root lv. if yes mount it and then vi /etc/passwd change the shell to /sbin/sh and reboot.

Regds,

Kaps

[Tim D Fulford]

A while ago I managed to get hyperterm on my laptop as a console. (At the time my company decided to buy 2m racks & throw away the terminals!!! They keept one or two & put them on a trolly, needless to say this caused conflicts.)

Any way you can attach a parallel to serial adaptor to you laptop, then get the 9-pin serial cable to plug into it. You may also need a male:male 9-pin serial adaptor to actually plug into the console. I also had to file off sone of the screws as they interfered with the fit!! Get hyperterm out... & this is where it gets fuzzy in my mind.... I do remember the hyperterm settings were important I just cant tell you what they were!

An alternative is to plug a modem in on the remote port & try that.

For either solution you will need exterme luck of the good flavour.