How do I boot a 4server8 without a console?

[Jeff Doughty]

I'm not sure what manual contains this info, but I'll give you all of the
info I can.  I'm a little confused since the system should detect the absence
of a graphics console and default to the serial terminal.  At any rate:

1. Attach your serial terminal to the 9 pin port marked "1" in the back.
   Set your terminal to 9600 Baud, 8 bits, no parity.

2. Hit the reset button.  If all is well, you'll start getting output from
   the prom monitor.  Depending on the version of the prom, you'll either
   get a nice pretty menu.  If so, type "1" for "Start System".
   Otherwise, you'll get a ">>" prompt.  In this case, type "auto".

Other details:  The prom monitor, and eventually the system, looks at
an NVRAM environment variable to choose which console to boot up on.
If the "console" environment variable is "G" or "g", it will attempt to
use the graphics console.  If the graphics keyboard is hooked to the
"KEYBD" port in the back, the graphics console will in fact be used.
Otherwise, it will switch back to the serial port.  You will get a
"Cannot open graphics" message or something to that effect.  If this message
is annoying, you can change the environment variable as follows:

	1. If you get a menu upon reset, type "5" for "Enter Command Monitor"
	   to get the ">>" prompt.  Otherwise you are already talking to
	   the command monitor.

	2. Type "setenv console d" to boot the serial console automatically
           in the future.

If you are not even getting up in the monitor, try plugging in to the second
9 pin serial port.  It could be that the console environment variable was 
accidentally set to "r" which means use this alternate port.

				Jeff Doughty
				UNIX group
				jeffd at norge.sgi.com