Hardware

  • Processor
    • 64Bit MIPS RISC CPU QED RM5231-250Q (superscalar, 250MHz)
  • ChipSet
    • Galileo GT-64111
    • PCI-ISA Bridge/ATA Controller: Via VT821C586 (Apollo VP)
  • Memory
    • 1x16MB RAM (EDO 3.3V, SIMM-Modul 72 Pin, proprietary)
    • 7E32X8-4EMV-60
    • Maximum 256MB

Flash

The main board contains a Flash of the type AM29F040B. It is a 4Mbit Flash Memory (that is 0,5 MB..). I managed to use my trusty old TL866 to dump the content:

qube2-AM29F040B

Links of interest

Starting up – or lack of..

Welcome to minicom 2.8

OPTIONS: I18n
Port /dev/ttyUSB0, 18:01:16

Press CTRL-A Z for help on special keys

�@����������n����w���������������Cobalt Microserver Diagnostics – ‘We serve it, you surf it’
Built Tue May 25 15:58:41 PDT 1999

1.LCD Test…………………………..PASS
2.Controller Test…………………….PASS
5.Bank 0:……………………………64M
6.Bank 1:……………………………0M
7.Bank 2:……………………………0M
8.Bank 3:……………………………0M
9.Serial Test………………………..PASS
10.PCI Expansion Slot………………..EMPTY
12.IDE Test…………………………..PASS
13.Ethernet Test………………………PASS
16.RTC Test…………………………..PASS
BOOTLOADER ramcode: selected partition /dev/hda1
Decompressing done
Executing bootloader kernel…
Jump_to_Real_Kernel: disk error, trying BFD again
BOOTLOADER ramcode: selected partition /dev/hdc1
Decompressing – done
Executing bootloader kernel…
Jump_to_Real_Kernel: disk error, trying BFD again
get_root_dev: nr_boot_failures 0x00000002 exceeds maxtries 0x00000002 for boot_index 0x00000000

*** halting ***

Bootloader

When starting up, you send “space bar” and you will be allowed into the bootloader menu.

Cobalt Microserver Diagnostics – ‘We serve it, you surf it’
Built Tue May 25 15:58:41 PDT 1999

1.LCD Test…………………………..PASS
2.Controller Test…………………….PASS
5.Bank 0:……………………………64M
6.Bank 1:……………………………0M
7.Bank 2:……………………………0M
8.Bank 3:……………………………0M
9.Serial Test………………………..PASS
10.PCI Expansion Slot………………..Unknown Card
12.IDE Test…………………………..PASS
13.Ethernet Test………………………PASS
16.RTC Test…………………………..PASS

Cobalt: ?
? – This menu
r[b,w,l] address – Read byte, word, or long from address
w[b,w,l] address data – Write byte, word, or long data to address
dm address n – Display n bytes of memory from address
readrtc – Read time and date from the RTC
writertc YYMMDDWHHmmSS – Write time and date to the RTC
YY: Year MM: Month W: Day of week (Sunday = 1)
HH: Hour (24) mm: Minute SS: Second
loadkernel – load kernel image from serial port
boot – jump into loaded kernel
rm address – loop read from address (reset to kill)
wm address data – loop write to address (reset to kill)
wrm address data – loop write/read from address (reset to kill)
bfd – boot kernel from DISK image
lcd [on,off,reset,clear]- lcd on, off, reset, clear
lcdr address – Read DD RAM from address
lcdw address data – Write byte to DD RAM address
br – Read the buttons
exp – Test the PCI Expansion Slot
setbfd, clearbfd – Set or clear flag to bfd next reset
setlcd, clearlcd – Set or clear flag to lcd test next reset
reset – Reset Board

Cobalt:

Getting NFS to work

In order to reinstall the OS, or to install any other OS the machine boots from NFS.

I did spend some time getting the machine to boot from NFS. The trick is to enable NFS v2.

Check your version of NFS

First check what versions og NFS your server is providing:

$ rpcinfo -p gen8 | fgrep nfs
100003 3 tcp 2049 nfs
100003 4 tcp 2049 nfs
100003 3 udp 2049 nfs

Here only version 3 and 4 are active.

Now add this line to /etc/default/nfs-kernel-server:

RPCNFSDOPTS="--nfs-version 2,3,4 --debug --syslog"

restart and chack again:

$ rpcinfo -p gen8 | fgrep nfs
100003 2 tcp 2049 nfs
100003 3 tcp 2049 nfs
100003 4 tcp 2049 nfs
100003 2 udp 2049 nfs
100003 3 udp 2049 nfs

First Linux Boot

Cobalt Microserver Diagnostics – ‘We serve it, you surf it’
Built Tue May 25 15:58:41 PDT 1999

1.LCD Test…………………………..PASS
2.Controller Test…………………….PASS
5.Bank 0:……………………………64M
6.Bank 1:……………………………0M
7.Bank 2:……………………………0M
8.Bank 3:……………………………0M
9.Serial Test………………………..PASS
10.PCI Expansion Slot………………..Unknown Card
12.IDE Test…………………………..PASS
13.Ethernet Test………………………PASS
16.RTC Test…………………………..PASS
Decompressing done
Executing bootloader kernel…
Decompressing – done.
CPU revision is: 000028a0
FPU revision is: 000028a0
Primary instruction cache 32kb, linesize 32 bytes.
Primary data cache 32kb, linesize 32 bytes.
Linux version 2.4.18 (root@qube) (gcc version 2.95.4 20011002 (Debian prerelease)) #9 Sat Jun 15 13:00:18 BST 2002
Determined physical RAM map:
memory: 04000000 @ 00000000 (usable)
On node 0 totalpages: 16384
zone(0): 16384 pages.
zone(1): 0 pages.
zone(2): 0 pages.
Kernel command line: console=ttyS0,115200 ip=on root=/dev/nfs
Calibrating delay loop… 249.03 BogoMIPS
Memory: 62384k/65536k available (1259k kernel code, 3152k reserved, 160k data, 88k init, 0k highmem)
Dentry-cache hash table entries: 8192 (order: 4, 65536 bytes)
Inode-cache hash table entries: 4096 (order: 3, 32768 bytes)
Mount-cache hash table entries: 1024 (order: 1, 8192 bytes)
Buffer-cache hash table entries: 4096 (order: 2, 16384 bytes)
Page-cache hash table entries: 16384 (order: 4, 65536 bytes)
Checking for ‘wait’ instruction… available.
POSIX conformance testing by UNIFIX
PCI: Probing PCI hardware
Cobalt Board ID: 5
Activating ISA DMA hang workarounds.
Linux NET4.0 for Linux 2.4
Based upon Swansea University Computer Society NET3.039
Initializing RT netlink socket
Starting kswapd
pty: 256 Unix98 ptys configured
Cobalt LCD Driver v2.10
Serial driver version 5.05c (2001-07-08) with MANY_PORTS SHARE_IRQ SERIAL_PCI enabled
�ttyS00 at 0xc800000 (irq = 7) is a ST16650V2
rtc: ARC console epoch (1980) detected
Real Time Clock Driver v1.10e
block: 128 slots per queue, batch=32
Uniform Multi-Platform E-IDE driver Revision: 6.31
ide: Assuming 33MHz system bus speed for PIO modes; override with idebus=xx
VP_IDE: IDE controller on PCI bus 00 dev 49
PCI: Enabling device 00:09.1 (0285 0280)
VP_IDE: chipset revision 6
VP_IDE: not 100% native mode: will probe irqs later
ide: Assuming 33MHz system bus speed for PIO modes; override with idebus=xx
VP_IDE: VIA vt82c586a (rev 27) IDE UDMA33 controller on pci00:09.1
ide0: BM-DMA at 0xcc00-0xcc07, BIOS settings: hda:pio, hdb:pio
ide1: BM-DMA at 0xcc08-0xcc0f, BIOS settings: hdc:pio, hdd:pio
hda: IRQ probe failed (0xfffffefa)
hda: IRQ probe failed (0xfffffefa)
hdb: IRQ probe failed (0xfffffefa)
hdb: IRQ probe failed (0xfffffefa)
hdc: IRQ probe failed (0xfffffefa)
hdc: IRQ probe failed (0xfffffefa)
hdd: IRQ probe failed (0xfffffefa)
hdd: IRQ probe failed (0xfffffefa)
Linux Tulip driver version 0.9.15-pre9 (Nov 6, 2001)
PCI: Enabling device 00:07.0 (0045 0280)
tulip0: Old format EEPROM on ‘Cobalt MicroServer’ board. Using substitute media control info.
tulip0: EEPROM default media type Autosense.
tulip0: Index #0 – Media MII (#11) described by a 21142 MII PHY (3) block.
tulip0: MII transceiver #1 config 1000 status 7809 advertising 01e1.
eth0: Digital DS21143 Tulip rev 65 at 0x100000, 00:10:E0:00:E4:4E, IRQ 4.
PCI: Enabling device 00:0c.0 (0005 0280)
tulip1: Old format EEPROM on ‘Cobalt MicroServer’ board. Using substitute media control info.
tulip1: EEPROM default media type Autosense.
tulip1: Index #0 – Media MII (#11) described by a 21142 MII PHY (3) block.
tulip1: MII transceiver #1 config 1000 status 7809 advertising 01e1.
eth1: Digital DS21143 Tulip rev 65 at 0x101000, 00:10:E0:00:D6:EB, IRQ 13.
NET4: Linux TCP/IP 1.0 for NET4.0
IP Protocols: ICMP, UDP, TCP
IP: routing cache hash table of 512 buckets, 4Kbytes
TCP: Hash tables configured (established 4096 bind 4096)
Sending DHCP requests .<6>eth0: Setting full-duplex based on MII#1 link partner capability of c1e1.
., OK
IP-Config: Got DHCP answer from 192.168.0.5, my address is 192.168.0.136
IP-Config: Complete:
device=eth0, addr=192.168.0.136, mask=255.255.255.0, gw=192.168.0.1,
host=192.168.0.136, domain=localdomain, nis-domain=(none),
bootserver=192.168.0.5, rootserver=192.168.0.5, rootpath=
Looking up port of RPC 100003/2 on 192.168.0.5
Looking up port of RPC 100005/1 on 192.168.0.5
Root-NFS: Server returned error -13 while mounting /tftpboot/192.168.0.136
VFS: Unable to mount root fs via NFS, trying floppy.
VFS: Cannot open root device “nfs” or 02:00
Please append a correct “root=” boot option
Kernel panic: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on 02:00