I tried to netboot the FreeBSD 11.2 installer (from FreeBSD-11.2-RELEASE-sparc64-bootonly.iso) on my Sun V100 by using boot/loader binary as the netboot loader over tftp and it failed. --------- snip ------- ok boot net Boot device: /pci@1f,0/ethernet@c File and args: 47e00 Consoles: Open Firmware console Fast Data Access MMU Miss ok --------- snip ------- This is reliably reproducible. However, using the boot/loader binary from the FreeBSD-10.3-RELEASE-sparc64-disc1.iso reliably loads and boots both the FreeBSD 10.3 RELEASE and the FreeBSD 11.2 RELEASE installer kernels. NetBSD 8.0 boots fine (and the machine ran FreeBSD 10.2 for months with ZFS), so I assume it is the 11.2 loader and not my machine.
Update: Finally got around to replacing the CDROM drive in that machine, tried to boot from FreeBSD 11.2 installer DVD. Except here the loader dies as well. It starts reading from the drive and then dies. ------------- snip ------------ Sun Fire V100 (UltraSPARC-IIe 548MHz), No Keyboard OpenBoot 4.0, 2048 MB memory installed, Serial #53169890. Ethernet address 0:3:ba:2b:4e:e2, Host ID: 832b4ee2. ok boot cdrom Boot device: /pci@1f,0/ide@d/cdrom@3,0:f File and args: >> FreeBSD/sparc64 boot block Boot path: /pci@1f,0/ide@d/cdrom@3,0:f Boot loader: /boot/loader Consoles: Open Firmware console Fast Data Access MMU Miss ok ------------- snip ------------
what does 12.0 release do?
Ok, wiped the root disk, installed FreeBSD 12 RELEASE to the machine from DVDROM. Verified that the loader now successfully boots from local disk. Cloned that setup for netbooting and the loader now also successfully netboots. So, moving to FreeBSD 12 RELEASE for sparc64 fixes it.