Firmware Image
The image for the Metrix boxen is at http://cornerstone.personaltelco.net/~brj/metrix-missnet.img It is setup with all 3 interfaces bridged, and br0 set to 10.11.104.5/22.
To flash:
- Setup a sarge installer pxeboot environment.
Instructions at http://www.debian.org/releases/stable/i386/ch04s06.html.en
The pxelinux included with debian tries to use both the VGA emulation and the serial console. This causes problems. Use pxelinux.0 from http://centerclick.org/net4801/pxelinux/ instead.
- Use the serial console pxeboot config.
- Change all the 9600 to 19200 in the config.
- You probably want to add DEBIAN_FRONTEND=text to the boot options of the kernel you'll use. Use expert26.
- Netboot the metrix into the installer
- Attach a serial terminal.
- 19200 baud, 1 bit parity, no flow control
- Press ctrl+p at the prompt to get to the BIOS
boot f0
- Use expert26. You don't need any extra options.
- Go through the installer up through step 9 (Download installer components). This is where device drivers are loaded.
- After the drivers are loaded, go to a shell.
wget -O - http://somewhere/foo/metrix-missnet.img | dd of=/dev/discs/disc0/disc bs=1M (don't get it straight from cornerstone, copy it to your machine first)
- Reboot
Note: as of 2005-10-11 this process isn't working for me. The Metrix stalls during the PXELINUX stuff. I think it's probably just an issue with my setup but I've got it working fine using the documentation from Metrix. (- KeeganQuinn)
The way the Metrix website says to do it is actually better. When I was working on the metrixes, though, that documentation didn't exist, to my memory. The debian netboot was simply the easiest way I could find to get a shell netbooted. (- BenjaminJencks)
Can KeeganQuinn or BenjaminJencks please point at or reiterate the referred-to Metrix documentation here? --RussellSenior