[rescue] SMD

[rescue at sunhelp.org]

   I have a number of Sun-3 (si) VME controllers. As of NetBSD/sun4 1.4,
the si was literally not recognized as a bootable controller. I tried
hacking in the missing code and got it to fully load the kernel, but then
it had other problems with the si and I gave up, especially since it
didn't work very well in /sun3 -- it would boot and run, but there was a
steady trickle of SCSI errors and about once a month or so it would crash
the system, eventually ending up eating the filesystem. The exact same
shoebox/disk/cable attached to a non-VME si in a 3/60 has worked flawlessly
for more than a year now.

   As a result, most of my VME CPUs which don't have SCSI onboard
(3/1xx, 3/2xx, 3/4xx, 4/2xx) will live the rest of their lives diskless.
As long as they have enough RAM, they can get by and perform useful work.
However, I nave a need for a faster CPU with good RAM expandability for
some processes that have moderately large memory footprints, which is where
the 4/2xx comes in. (Don't laugh. It is faster than the 3/60 currently
doing that job.) However, periodically the databases are dumped to disk,
and I'd really feel the burn doing that over NFS. Hence, local disks, and
since I don't feel like beating my head on NetBSD's SCSI problems again,
I'm going to try SMD. They're old disks, but if I mirror the data partition
using NetBSD's raid drivers, and back it up frequently, then they'll probably
run forever without problems. :)

   --James B.