SGI: Hardware

Hello! I wish to know how to access the BIOS settings on an O2 machine, since at power-up there isn't any "Press XY to enter BIOS", like on PCs...

Thank you!

"Press ESC to stop for maintenance"

Enter command monitor and type in commands to change settings. Start with ? or help.

FWIW, the firmware on SGI machines is referred to as the "PROM", not "BIOS". So if you're searching for more info on the subject, search for PROM to get better results.

Many thanks to both of you! I will try tomorrow morning, first thing! By the way, I wish, to set the boot options so that the system can be started from CD-ROM, in other words, I wish to set the boot devices sequence to "CD first - HD second"... I suppose to be able to do that from PROM in the same way as from BIOS on a PC. Am I correct?..

The radar guy wrote: Many thanks to both of you! I will try tomorrow morning, first thing! By the way, I wish, to set the boot options so that the system can be started from CD-ROM, in other words, I wish to set the boot devices sequence to "CD first - HD second"... I suppose to be able to do that from PROM in the same way as from BIOS on a PC. Am I correct?..

you might wanna change the perspective a bit away from pc conventions. of course you can set the boot path to whatever you like but there're no 2nd or 3rd options which would kick in automatically.
that's not needed either because there's almost nothing that can boot from cd except the os and irix unlike many pc operating systems is made to run and stay; which it does in a way you might not have seen before

hit escape upon starting up and see what is offered there. it doesn't make much sense to "clearify" many things before you've actually seen the basics in action.

there's almost nothing that can boot from cd

Well, my actual need is to find a "live-CD" (running from CD) file manager/partition editor, like Parted Magic or Gparted if you know them, which can run from CD without booting IRIX. I don't think that Parted Magic (or Gparted) is compatible with the microprocessors used in the various versions of the O2, so I would need to find a suitable one, too.

You will want to use fx... If you need to change the boot device it needs to be run from the irix CD.

It is detailed here http://www.sgidepot.co.uk/6.5inst.html

The radar guy wrote: my actual need is to find a "live-CD" (running from CD) file manager/partition editor, like Parted Magic or Gparted if you know them, which can run from CD without booting IRIX

for doing what and why?
in general it'd help if you'd tell a little more about what you wanna do with the o2

for doing what and why?

My company acquired this system as a special OEM configuration many years ago, but they never purchased a "life-long" maintenance/upgrade contract from the supplier, and now we need to perform some modifications in several files, which are "locked-out" due to the original customization. I need to run a file/partition editor without booting IRIX in order to gain full access to all files.

If you can't bring up the system in single-user mode or with an irix CD, mount the disk in another machine to root it.

The radar guy wrote:

for doing what and why?

My company acquired this system as a special OEM configuration many years ago, but they never purchased a "life-long" maintenance/upgrade contract from the supplier, and now we need to perform some modifications in several files, which are "locked-out" due to the original customization. I need to run a file/partition editor without booting IRIX in order to gain full access to all files.

oh so this is a commercial request ...

oh so this is a commercial request ...

Not at all!

The forum rules apply to pirating commercial software. It has nothing to do with the user of the equipment being commercial/non-profit/one person/martians/whatever- We don't discriminate

You should try to reset the root password like this http://www.tek-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=285642

As you boot your system, press ESC when you first see the
dialogue box that says something like 'Hit ESC for maintenance menu'.

Choose to install system software and insert your CD into
in the CDROM drive. Once the installer loads, go to the
admin menu (by typing admin) and open up a root shell (by typing shroot). Now vi the file /root/etc/passwd and delete the password field for root (the password field is the second one, with all the random-looking characters in it).

Now exit without installing or removing anything and upon
reboot you should have an unprotected root account.

This will be held up if you have a PROM password that you
do not know. If this is the case, I'm not sure how to get
around it (it used to be jumper settings on older machines
but I think SGI changed that).

I've never had to do it myself, but I understand that is the general procedure. Once you can access the root account, you can do whatever you want to the system. But first, you should make a backup of the disk


added: from that same website-

nevermind, I fixed it... turns out the root password was blank.

If you can boot in single user mode (by typing "single" from the command monitor) you will also have access to the system that way.

@guardian452

Thank you very much! Actually, it doesn't have anything to do with pirating software. My company legitimately purchased the system but they lacked foresight when they decided not to purchase an all-inclusive maintenance contract. I am trying to keep wheels turning where our very technicians lack of the necessary documentation. As a matter of fact, I *do have* the access as root user, but I don't have enough documentation from the original OEM supplier, and our technicians told me that they were unable to find certain settings. I am not at liberty to fully disclose the details of the specific application for that machine here, but look at my avatar and draw your conclusions...

what i meant by "commercial request" is that the OP gets paid for what he wants help with here for free. in other words he gets the bucks for what we do. unless he's working for free of course
simple question to sort this: is this o2 adventure part of your job you get paid for?

if that's not the case and this is about a voluntarily private/non-profit project i'm wrong and will of course contine helping out.

foetz wrote: what i meant by "commercial request" is that the OP gets paid for what he wants help with here for free. in other words he gets the bucks for what we do. unless he's working for free of course
simple question to sort this: is this o2 adventure part of your job you get paid for?

if that's not the case and this is about a voluntarily private/non-profit project i'm wrong and will of course contine helping out.

I get paid to the last cent even if I don't care at all about the damn radar (ooops! ), it's not part of my job on the paper , but as a matter of fact, most of my job tasks are about the output of the r@d@r... if I don't take care of it, nobody does because bureaucracy submerges it all. I might even be criticized by the "high brass" of my agency for taking care of something that, theoretically, is not part of my job. I even paid from my pocket money to upgrade the PC in my office with extra RAM, extra HD and a new video board. I needed them badly and I could not get them in decent time through the official channels. But I love my job more than I care about being paid for such trivial things or for taking care of extras.

In other words: I don' get any bucks from the radar nor from what you guys do here. Should I drop it, nobody would care about, and I would probably work less (and worse).

mhm that sounds fair. it's nothing against you personally but as you can imagine unfortunately there were such incidents in the past.
anyway seems guardian452 provided what you need to know already so good luck

Thank you very much for understanding my position. It may sound paradoxical, but in this country very often it's the only effective way to keep things moving.

About the privileges of the root user, I do have the credentials to access as the root user, and our maintenance technicians too, but they told me that, even in this way, there are some files and menus which stay locked out. Such files and menus were only accessible to the personnel of the equipment manufacturer (when they were still in charge of the maintenance, of course). In my knowledge, it is the root user who has the highest "power" in terms of authorizations, but facts seems to indicate otherwise. It's for this reason that I need an editing tool, running from CD, to view/edit the contents of the HD without starting IRIX.

If you have a CD that the O2 can boot, why don't you insert the CD, power up the O2, and press ESC when it gives you the option. Then select 'install software' from the PROM menu.

This will boot a CD (if it has an SGI compatible disklabel and filesystem). If you do this with an IRIX disc in the drive it will boot it and start the installation process. You don't want that. But if you do this with your special maintenance CD, it may very well do what you want.

The radar guy wrote: I do have the credentials to access as the root user, and our maintenance technicians too, but they told me that, even in this way, there are some files and menus which stay locked out. Such files and menus were only accessible to the personnel of the equipment manufacturer

that sounds a bit odd. more details about this would help a lot.
to make it short: there is nothing like partition magic or some rescue cd for irix. you can just boot with the installation cd to get full access to the disks which btw is the same you get when using something like the parted magic cd , too. however if you have root already it wouldn't make a difference so the key is to figure out in what way those files are special. as root you have physical access to the files but from what you said i'd assume they're just in some special format you can only read using special software. if that's the case there're nothing you can do.

anyway for now i'd recommend you fire up the o2 and go to those files. then describe everything as detailed as possible. maybe we can find a way around those restrictions.