SPARC timeout waiting for ARP/RARP packet

[jonad2002]

When booting any Solaris VM after upgrading to 4.6.0 beta the boot is stuck in a loop "Timeout waiting for ARP/RARP packet". I believe this to be related to a fix in QEMU (re: https://gitlab.com/qemu-project/qemu/-/issues/2017). The suggested workaround (issue a stop-a) doesn't appear to be available (re: https://github.com/utmapp/UTM/issues/5684).

• UTM Version: 4.6.0 (102)
• macOS Version: 15.0.1
• Mac Chip (Intel, M1, ...): M1

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[osy]

I think in the future we will add a menu to send keyboard keys like Stop-A. For now, there is a workaround: create a new serial device and set it to QEMU Monitor (HMP). Then you can get a terminal window where you can type in sendkey stop-a. Not a graceful solution, but I'm hoping QEMU can fix this upstream at some point.

[melvinlusk]

I think in the future we will add a menu to send keyboard keys like Stop-A. For now, there is a workaround: create a new serial device and set it to QEMU Monitor (HMP). Then you can get a terminal window where you can type in sendkey stop-a. Not a graceful solution, but I'm hoping QEMU can fix this upstream at some point.

This interrupts the BIOS, but after doing "boot disk0" it appears to freeze. I'm using the Solaris 9 VM downloaded straight from the gallery today.

UTM 4.6.0 (102) Mac Mini M2 16 GB RAM

[EinfachRuwen]

I have the same issue.

[mcastanhogit]

I have the same issue too.

The same boot hangs on M1 and M3.

UTM 4.6.4 M1 - sonoma 14.4.1 M3 - Sequoia 15.2

[JonathanDLee24]

I am also having this issue, I also can not send a break command to access boot disk0

[yaazkal]

Same issue here, the system does not boot. Using macOS sonoma 15.3 on a MacBook M2

[JonathanDLee24]

It makes me sad I want it to work

[brownralph]

Any fix yet? I am experiencing the same issue. Is it possible to download the Sparc ISO to install and setup?

[d0wntime]

It looks like networking is b0rked on UTM 4.6.x for some targets.

I've got SPARC and PowerPC VMs in UTM for a long time that previously both worked but will no longer exchange ARP packets under UTM 4.6.3 or 4.6.4 with the host to make a ping work, and fail to talk to the host even after static ARP entries are made at both sides. My ARM64 targets work just fine ... but not existing PowerPC or SPARC VMs.

I was able to get around this issue by restoring UTM 4.5.4.

It's probably worth mentioning that this problem occurs both on my Intel Mac and my ARM-based Mac.

[peterwargo]

I won't bother with a screen cap; same issue here.

UTM Version 4.6.4 (107) and the downloaded Solaris 9/SPARC.

I've tried creating some SPARC VMs, but to no avail, and I have pretty much all the Oss and tools I need. Just isn't happy.

[peterwargo]

After some poking around to get the firmware prompt to accept input, I initiated a boot off of a SunOS 4.1.4 CD image. It started, then crashed hard. Repeated attempts met with the same fate. I believe the image is good, however I may dig out my physical CD and make my own. The ISO I was using came from the late Bill Bradford's sunhelp.org, and while I'm pretty sure it's good, it's never a bad idea to try another source. And, I just happen to have OEM physical media for most OS releases.

[ryancnelson]

hi, folks: i dug into this a bit this weekend. This seems to be a regression/incompatability related to the update of qemu in UTM. quick fix: roll back to using an older release of UTM -- i'm having luck with https://github.com/utmapp/UTM/releases/download/v4.5.3/UTM.dmg

this image (or utm) doesn't seem to store a sparcstations nvram, so we see the "nvram checksum error" at the boot screen, then nvram settings revert to the defaults (every boot!). The defaults are "bootp from le0 (lance ethernet 0)", which is the dhcp stuff you see failing. UTM and this setup of solaris 9/sparc has apparently ALWAYS booted this way, but older versions enjoyed a bug where the net-boot would fail due to some other network bug, and we'd fail back to an "ok>" boot prompt, where we could enter "boot disk0"

new version fixed that, so we try to netboot forever. unless you can figure out how to type a "stop-a" .

... which, i figured out! in your solaris9 utm settings, add a "serial" device, and set as its source the QEMU monitor:

if you do that, you should get a 2nd window, where you can type qemu commands. "sendkey stop-a" in there should kick your boot process back to the "ok" prompt.

still, though, with the latest UTM/qemu, solaris9 hangs during the boot for me, so i continue to use the 4.5.3 release.

hope this helps!

[sglux69]

Using the sendkey trick above type set-defaults on the OBP, then type reset and it should load the defaults. You should then be able to boot disk0 and watch the system boot up to CDE. We then need help getting the mouse to work.

Have Fun..

[McDutchie]

Happy to report that the combination of @ryancnelson's and @sglux69's instructions works for me to make Solaris 9 boot on UTM releases after 4.5.4. However, there's still a problem I need to find a way to work around. I use the Emulated VLAN network mode with port forwarding to be able to telnet/ftp into the Solaris 9 guest from the macOS host. But the port forwarding no longer works with the new method. An experiment with UTM 4.5.4 showed that resetting the NVRAM (the set-defaults followed by reset commands) kills port forwarding, so the same thing is likely happening on UTM 4.6.5. But on UTM 4.6.5, Solaris 9 won't boot without resetting the NVRAM. Any ideas?

[ricemaster1]

how's it going everyone, I'll be sharing how I installed Sun Solaris 9 on macOS ARM64 (Apple Silicon M3). My inspiration to try this project started with curiosity, after I saw a prebuilt Sun Solaris 9 image in UTM's gallery. This intrigued me because I've never heard of this operating system so I wanted to try it. I still consider myself to be a beginner when it comes to VMs, networking, etc. but I still gave it a go! When I opened the image in UTM, I noticed that it came with disk-0 - disk-5, a file called ss5.bin (I assume the OBP) as well as a drive labeled as a CD/DVD ISO. It was empty, which confused me, so I interpreted that the .iso was built into it? Well, out of those Disk images, disk-0.qcow2 seemed to be the virtual disk image with all menu config option. Not too sure. But when I booted it, I encountered the same 'Timeout waiting for ARP/RARP packet'. VPN and Firewall off (just in case). Didn't affect. Tried that 'sendkey stop-a' trick, it worked for that part, and I was quite happy to see progress. I did check the devalias to make sure cdrom and disk0 were there, and yeah they were. Tried booting and got to that perpetual frozen boot screen.

So here's what I did.

Since UTM runs under QEMU, I switched to the cli tool.

First I needed a proper ISO. The one that worked for me was this one.

https://fsck.technology/software/Sun%20Microsystems/Solaris%20Install%20Media/Sun%20Solaris%209/Sun%20Solaris%209%2012-2002%20%28U2%29/sol-9-u2-sparc-v1.iso

Then I created a new .qcow2 file (install qemu if you don't have it yet, use homebrew) ❯ brew install qemu

❯ qemu-img create -f qcow2 sparc.qcow2 9663676416

After a few tests, I ditched using the UTM ss5.bin, tried using this

https://fsck.technology/software/Sun%20Microsystems/Sun%20ROMs/SPARCstation%2020%20OBP/2.25/SunOBP2-25_525-1377-08.ROM

reformatted to ss20.bin, but ditched that too. I ended up using QEMU's built in OBP for SS-5. I ran this command

❯ qemu-system-sparc -M SS-5 -m 256
-drive file=sparc.qcow2,bus=0,unit=0,media=disk
-drive file=sol-9-u2-sparc-v1.iso,bus=0,unit=2,media=cdrom,readonly=on
-serial mon:stdio

and once in OpenBIOS

0 > boot cdrom:d -vs ... SINGLE USER MODE

format

select your disk (likely 0) then I chose option 18 'other' for the Disk type

Cylinders: 16381 Heads: 16 Sectors/track: 63 Disk Name: "Qemu9G" (It'll ask for them in both the Solaris install console and the tcx. If you're in the tcx don't need quotations.)

format> label (It'll ask you to confirm, type 'y')

then 'q' format> q

reboot

once you're back, type

0 > boot cdrom:d (you may need to go through the config wizard again, hopefully not).

optionally set a root password

I had another wizard to install package 2/2 SPARC Platform Edition and Solaris 9 Languages. I chose to skip both because installation failed. Then when you reboot, the username is 'root' and password is whatever you set. If no password, just Enter. Welcome to Solaris 9!

when you want to re-run. Just do

❯ qemu-system-sparc -M SS-5 -m 256
-drive file=sparc.qcow2,bus=0,unit=0,media=disk
-serial mon:stdio

GL HF!

[osy]

Fixed in ceaaf4212c81c4ea24e4244a419cf87681e3f5fe

New keyboard shortcut menu can be used to send Stop-A

[JonathanDLee24]

Even with the send stop-a it doesn’t work. It freezes

[JonathanDLee24]

Using the sendkey trick above type set-defaults on the OBP, then type reset and it should load the defaults. You should then be able to boot disk0 and watch the system boot up to CDE. We then need help getting the mouse to work.

Have Fun..

Set defaults did the same issue for it on the iMac

[trigger2k20]

First of all, still comes the bug.

Sorry to say, I do not understand the developers of UTM. If they want that we use and buy via apple shop the program why do they make this so hard ? And why only hard core -less is more- communication which do not help because the vm freezes as written by many ? @osy Can you please - with sugar on it- write a bit more how the get this shortcut menu - I did not find it.

So therefore can we please have a working solaris 9 environment in the gallery ? Thank you.

[trigger2k20]

I stuck in loop where the installer cannot start after the 2nd boot from the swap partition. Any help ?

[techniker]

Same issue here, stuck in boot.