[SunHELP] 32/64 bit boot on ultra machines

[Balaji N]

Hi
I have an ultra E450 server running Solaris 2.7.  I got the following result
when issued isainfo command

64-bit sparcv9 applications
32-bit sparc applications

But as per Dale's message (archive) i checked the /platform/sun4u/boot.conf
file and seen that
#ALLOW_64BIT_KERNEL_ON_UltraSPARC_1_CPU=true '
is commented. I am confused now! My OS is running in 64 bit or 32 bit???
Any one clear me?
Thanks in advance.

On Fri, 2 Mar 2001, Robert Wier wrote:

| Good Morning All
|
| I have a Ultra 1 that I purchased referb a couple of years ago. It has
| always booted to the 32 bit kernel even
| with the 64 bit version of Solaris 8 installed.
|
| I have scanned docs.sun.com  for an openboot fix ,but with no results.
|
| Am I looking in the correct area (openboot) or is this a firmware issue.

For Ultra-1 based platforms, 64bit kernels are disabled by default, even
when the 64bit packages are installed and you have a PROM that supports
64bit booting.

The issue is that in the UltraSPARC 1 CPU, there is a big that when a
certain (and rare) sequence of asembly functions are executed by the CPU,
the CPU can hang. The sequence of events that does this however is very,
very rare and not likely to happen by running normally-compile programs,
although a user with malicious intent can produce a asembly program with
the sequence and thus freeze your system.

So, in short, if this box of yours' wont have anyone besides you on it, or
the people other than you that have access to it you can trust, you can
enable 64bit booting by uncommenting the last line in the
/platform/sun4u/boot.conf file and rebooting.

/dale


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