How to boot a M4000 Sun Solaris server

Sometimes your Solaris server may not boot by just pressing the power button. If autoboot is not enabled in XSCF or is configured wrongly, you will have to manually issue the boot command. I will explain how to do that here.

First of all, make sure that any disk array attached to the Solaris server is powered on.

Notes:

a) Type commands without the quotes shown below.

b) Do not press the power button on the front of the machine.

Here is the procedure:

1. First, make sure that the server is powered down. If it is already powered on you will have to pull out the 2 power cables from the back to power down the server. Powering on the server does not mean it has booted the OS. This server will power on and just sit there. It will not boot the Solaris OS automatically.

2. Connect a laptop using a serial cable to the server

3. Use putty to start a serial connection. You will not see anything on putty until you plug in the power cables in the next step.

4. Plug the power cables in.

5. You will see XSCF boot up and you will see text scrolling up. It will take around 2-3 minutes to boot up and come to a logon prompt.

6. Logon as username = “default” with no password

7. It will prompt you for the actual physical key (ignition key??) on the front of the server to be changed to “service” position >> hit enter

8. Then wait 5 seconds, change the key back to locked and hit enter again

9. The server will power on and you will see text scrolling up.

10. Type “console -d -0” to connect to the console of domain 0

11. Type “boot” to boot the domain. You may get a prompt to confirm. Press y for yes.

12. Wait for a few minutes for the server to boot (you will see text scrolling up)

13. You should now get an OS prompt.

14. You are done. Now you can disconnect the laptop.