The software on the Sparc EEPROM is called OpenBoot. OpenBoot is actually a Forth interpreter. Yes -- the Forth programming language! Sun calls their version of Forth "fcode."
However, there really are only a few commands which are useful to
most Unix administrators.
The
boot command causes your system to reboot. You often use this command with an argument, such as
boot disk,
boot cdrom, or
boot net.
The
go command returns you back to Solaris.
The
power-off command will power the Sparc down.
The
banner command will show you the system banner which you normally only see at boot time.
The
probe-scsi and
probe-scsi-all commands will tell you what SCSI devices are attached to your system. (Warning: this will often hard-lock your Sparc and necessitate a reboot.
The
show-devs command will list your devices.
The
devalias will show (or set) device aliases -- useful nicknames for various devices, such as "disk" and "cdrom."
The
test-all command runs some rudimentary diagnostics.
Some Sun servers also support the more powerful
obdiag command.
To learn more about OpenBoot, check out the
OpenBoot manuals at Sun.com.
Linear Mode
