[Simh] Unable to locate boot file

Tue Jun 21 00:33:29 EDT 2016

Hello, Daniel

How many network interfaces have you defined in your emulated VAX 
configuration ?

Cordialement/Regards

Jean-Claude Parel
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OpenVMS Architect
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From:   Daniel Parrott <danielthegreat at msn.com>
To:     "simh at trailing-edge.com" <simh at trailing-edge.com>
Date:   20/06/2016 22:16
Subject:        [Simh] Unable to locate boot file
Sent by:        "Simh" <simh-bounces at trailing-edge.com>

I have two physical systems, a VAX 6220 and a VAX 4000-300.  The latter 
system is set up to do a network bootstrap off the 6220 using an EZA0 
network device.

First, using vddriver and backup/image, I generated and retrieved disk 
images of the RA92 drives from the 6220.  With these disk images, and 
specifying MicroVAX 3900 on the SimH simulator, I am able to boot up an 
emulated version of the 6220 on my laptop.  So far so good.

My first goal is to get the physical VAX 4000-300 to do its network 
bootstrap off the emulated 6220 rather than the physical 6220.  By the 
way, I am running SimH 4.0 on Windows 8, it seems to work OK.

The first problem I ran into was that the simulator presents a different 
network adapter to the emulated 6220 than it is accustomed to seeing.  It 
typically sees a "BNA-0" interface, but the simulator uses "QNA-0", as 
derived from the XQA0 device.  So, I found out that I needed to run 
netconfig.com.  When I ran that script, it brought the circuit online.

But when I tried to do network boot of the physical VAX 4000-300 off the 
emulated 6220, it kept saying 'retrying network bootstrap'.  So evidently 
that was not sufficient.  Then I came to discover that the 6220 uses 
DECserver, and there is a dsvconfig.com script.  Once again, because the 
simulator presented a different network device than the 6220 was 
accustomed to seeing, the configuration had to be updated.  So okay, I ran 
the dsvconfig.com script, and made it aware of the fact that it is now a 
"QNA-0" device rather than a "BNA-0" device.

So after running both netconfig.com and dsvconfig.com on the emulated 
6220, the physical 4000-300 no longer says "retrying network bootstrap". 
Instead it now appears to be able to communicate, but it says "unable to 
locate boot file":

>>> b eza0
(BOOT/R5:0 EZA0)

  2..
-EZA0
  1..0..

%VAXcluster-I-SYSLOAD, system loaded from node ORION (AA-00-04-00-B6-11)

%VAXcluster-F-BADOPEN, unable to locate BOOT file
?06 HLT INST
                PC = 00007395
>>>

Using Wireshark, I captured some of the packets to try to glean some more 
details, and I see messages like "VAXcluster-F-NOSUCHDEV, nonexistent 
drive" and "VAXcluster-F-READERR, I/O error reading boot file".

I am really stumped on this one because basically the disk images should 
be one-to-one copies of what is on the physical VAX 6220, so other than 
having to tell it that it has a different network adapter (QNA-0 rather 
than BNA-0), why shouldn't it just work?  Does SimH not support MOP or 
DECserver?  I did check, and the sysboot.exe file is present in 
dua0:[sys14.syscommon.sysexe], and sys14 is the directory for the VAX 
4000-300 to use for its network boot.  So I believe the boot file is 
available.

By the way, the VAX 6220 is running VMS 5.5-2H.  And I have set VAXCLUSTER 
to 2.

Oh and one more thing, when the 4000-300 fails to boot, on the simulator 
side of things I see the following:

%%%%%%%%%%%% OPCOM  20-JUN-2016  15:10:06.58 %%%%%%%%
Message from user DECNET on ORION
DECnet event 0.3, automatic line service
>From node 4.438 (ORION), 20-JUN-2016 15:10:06.58
Circuit QNA-0, Load, Requested, Node = 4.764 (GUINAN)
File = DISK$VMSRL5:<SYS14.>, Operating system, Ethernet address = 
08-00-2B-23-9A-F4

%%%%%%%%%%%% OPCOM  20-JUN-2016  15:10:11.58 %%%%%%%%
Message from user DECNET on ORION
DECnet event 0.3, automatic line service
>From node 4.438 (ORION), 20-JUN-2016 15:10:06.75
Circuit QNA-0, Load, Successful, Node = 4.764 (GUINAN)
File = DISK$VMSRL5:<SYS14.>, Operating system, Ethernet address = 
08-00-2B-23-9A-F4

%PEA0, Port has Closed Virtual Circuit - REMOTE NODE GUINAN

So it almost looks like it has done a successful load of the system 
software to the 4000-300, but then the port closes presumably due to not 
being able to locate the boot file.

My thoughts are that maybe:
1) there is some other config script that needs to be run when using disk 
images from one VAX system (physical 6220) to another (simulated MicroVAX 
3900)
2) SimH on Windows 8 does not really support MOP or DECserver stuff?
3) there is some permissions issue with the boot file (sysboot.exe?), but 
since it is off a disk image (which should be a one-to-one exact copy), 
how so?

Any ideas?  Thanks in advance.
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