Installing Ultrix 4.5 on SIMH
This WORK-IN-PROGRESS guide will be a simple guide to installing ULTRIX 4.5 for VAX on SimH.
Contents
Requirements
The following is a list of things required for installation
- A recent version of the SIMH emulator
- Make sure the binary you're using includes Ethernet support
- I'm using a self-compiled version (git revision 0e8c0aea)
- An ISO image of ULTRIX 4.5 for VAX
- See the "Resources" section for a download link
- It's probably also possible to install it from tape, although I don't know if any installation tapes for ULTRIX 4.5 exist
- Optional stuff (might get added to the guide later):
- Starfish Ultrix Freeware CDs from here
SimH configuration
The machine I'm using to run ULTRIX has the following configuration
- DEC MicroVAX 3800
- 64mb memory
- DELQA network card (XQ0)
- Two RA90 disk drives (with 1.2gb each) attached to an RQDX3 controller (RQ0 and RQ1)
- CD ROM drive attached to the same RQDX3 controller as unit 2 (RQ2)
- TK50 tape attached as unit 0 on the first TQK50 controller (TQ0)
- DZV11 terminal multiplexer with 16 lines, attached to telnet port 1005 (DZ)
- LPT line printer attached to text file
printer_output.txt
Here's my config file (I called it simh.conf)
; ; SimH 4.0 Configuration file for MicroVAX 3800 ; ; Host System : DEC MicroVAX 3800 ; Operating System : DEC Ultrix v4.5 ; Memory : 64mb ; Network config : XQ: Ethernet, 08:00:2b:04:14:02 ; Disks : RQ0: RA90, 1.2gb ; RQ1: RA90, 1.2gb ; CDROMs : RQ2: iso file ; Tape config : TQ0: TK50, 94mb ; load -r ka655x.bin ; NVRAM attach NVR nvram.bin ; CPU config set CPU 64m set CPU conhalt set CPU idle=all ; configure console to 7-bit only set TTO 7b set TTI 7b ; Disk drives set RQ0 ra90 attach RQ0 rq0-ra90.dsk set RQ1 ra90 attach RQ1 rq1-ra90.dsk set RQ2 CDROM attach -r RQ2 ultrix-vax-os-v4.5.mode1.ufs.iso ; MD5 sum: 19df0753c27f195e9f1d2f139a3b4629 *ultrix-vax-os-v4.5.mode1.ufs.iso set RQ3 dis ; Tape set TQ tk50 ;attach tq0 filename-to-tape-file set TQ1 dis set TQ2 dis set TQ3 dis ; serial port, simulated by Telnet to port 1005 set DZ LINES=16 set DZ 8B attach DZ 1005 NoBuffer ; printer set LPT enable attach LPT printer_output.txt ; Disable unused peripherals set CR dis set RL dis set TS dis ; Network interface (08-00-2b is the DEC prefix, the 04-14-02 part is arbitrary) set XQ MAC=08-00-2b-04-14-02 attach XQ0 eth0 ; serial console (launch directly after booting CPU) set console telnet=1001 ; experimental ;set QVSS en ; boot the system ;boot CPU
Note that I'm using a telnet console (for easier copy/paste on Windows), which means that directly after running this config file (via do simh.conf from Simh) you will need to connect via telnet to localhost:1001 or the boot will abort. If you are on Linux, or just don't want that, remove the set console telnet=1001 line.
Also note that you might need to attach XQ0 to a different ethernet device. Use "show ether" in SimH to list all available devices on your system and modify the attach XQ0 eth0 line accordingly.
Running the Emulator
Either run vax.exe simh.conf from the Windows command line, or just double-click the VAX.EXE executable and type do simh.conf.
On the first launch it might take some time because SimH has to create the disk images (~2.5 gb total). It should look something like this
MicroVAX 3900 simulator V4.0-0 Beta git commit id: 0e8c0aea
NVR: buffering file in memory
RQ2: unit is read only
Listening on port 1005
WinPcap version 4.1.2 (packet.dll version 4.1.0.2001), based on libpcap version 1.0 branch 1_0_rel0b (20091008)
Eth: opened OS device \Device\NPF_{A41A1651-DD4D-4735-A4E0-88353165C2EC}
Listening on port 1001
sim>
Type the following to start the emulation (note: you can also uncomment that line from the end of the config file to have the emulation start right away)
sim> boot cpu Waiting for console Telnet connection
Now would be a good time to connect your telnet session (I use a batch file for this), otherwise the boot process will timeout.
On your console, you should see something like this:
Connected to the MicroVAX 3900 simulator CON-TEL device KA655-B V5.3, VMB 2.7 Performing normal system tests. 40..39..38..37..36..35..34..33..32..31..30..29..28..27..26..25.. 24..23..22..21..20..19..18..17..16..15..14..13..12..11..10..09.. 08..07..06..05..04..03.. Tests completed. >>>
This is the VAX's boot prompt. Normally you just type
>>>boot <device>
where <device> is one of the following
- MUA<num>: TK tape device number <num> (1 to 4)
- DUA<num>: RQ disk device number <num> (1 to 4)
You can use show device to see the installed (and detected) devices you can boot from, and show boot to see which device will be the default if you just type boot (or b for short):
>>>show device UQSSP Disk Controller 0 (772150) -DUA0 (RA90) -DUA1 (RA90) -DUA2 (RRD40) UQSSP Tape Controller 0 (774500) -MUA0 (TK50) Ethernet Adapter 0 (774440) -XQA0 (08-00-2B-04-14-02) >>>show boot MUA0
Since we want to boot from CDROM, which is unit 2, we can use
>>>boot DUA2
Note: You can add flags to boot into single user mode, or to boot in interactive mode (so-called conversational boot, where the system prompts you for a kernel file name to load). For details see the Guide to ULTRIX-32 System Startup and Shutdown, linked to in the References section. To use it, add the /R5:<flags> option to the boot command, where flags is 0 (default multi-user), 1 (conversational multi-user), 2 (single-user) or 3 (conversational single-user). For example
>>>boot/r5:3 dua0
Note: You can also boot from ethernet (boot XQA0) but this requires a DEC-specific boot server in your network (the protocol is called MOP for Maintenance Operations Protocol), which is beyond the scope of this document. I did get it to work a few years ago though, but it was a bit difficult to set up.
Bootstrapping ULTRIX
You will see the following output on the first boot.
>>>boot dua2
(BOOT/R5:0 DUA2
2..
-DUA2
1..0..
Ultrixboot - V4.5 Sun Sep 17 13:03:13 EDT 1995
Loading (a)vmunix ...
Sizes:
text = 945424
data = 1290240
bss = 757940
Starting at 0x5219
ULTRIX V4.5 (Rev. 47) System #2: Wed Oct 18 12:06:55 EDT 1995
real mem = 67043328
avail mem = 61517824
Buffer configuration adjusted to run with small system page table
using 123 buffers containing 1007616 bytes of memory
KA655 processor with an FPU
CPU microcode rev = 6, processor firmware rev = 83
Q22 bus
uda0 at uba0
uq0 at uda0 csr 172150 vec 774, ipl 17
klesiu0 at uba0
uq16 at klesiu0 csr 174500 vec 770, ipl 17
ra1 at uq0 slave 1 (RA90)
ra2 at uq0 slave 2 (RRD40)
ra0 at uq0 slave 0 (RA90)
tms0 at uq16 slave 0 (TK50)
WARNING: clock gained 47 days -- CHECK AND RESET THE DATE!
*** STANDALONE ULTRIX ENVIRONMENT ***
If you select the BASIC Installation option from the list that follows,
the installation software creates file systems on default partitions on
your system disk and loads the mandatory ULTRIX software subsets.
If you require additional installation choices, select the ADVANCED
Installation option.
Select one of the following options:
1) BASIC Installation
2) ADVANCED Installation
3) System management
Enter your choice:
Now we want to do an ADVANCED Installation, but when we try to, it will take a few seconds until the installation program dumps us to a prompt because it couldn't find a valid device to install from and to:
Enter your choice: 2 *** SOFTWARE DISTRIBUTION DEVICE SELECTION *** The 'Guide to Installing ULTRIX' explains the following table of software distribution devices and which installation media you should load on it: No valid device is found. Contact a DIGITAL field service representative. #
The problem seems to be that the hardware SimH emulates is not fully supported by ULTRIX (or is misdetected -- I'm not entirely sure myself). The good thing is that the internet has the correct solution, which is to fix some lines in the installation shell script. The fact that the basic system that is running at this point doesn't have vi, or even cat, makes this a bit harder ;-)
The only option you have is ed, the old UNIX editor. For a quick introduction, see here.
To load the file in the editor, use
# ed install.1 16763
You can see the entire file with
1,$l
but be warned, the output is quite long and it'll take some time to print it all out.
To fix it, use the following commands (the lines in bold is what you type, everything else is the response from ed)
# ed install.1 16763 173l BTD=`btd` 173s/`btd`/ra2/ 173l BTD=ra2 193l rz* ) 193s/rz/ra/ 193l ra* ) w 16761 q #
First, we list line 173, then we change it from BTD=`btd` to BTD=ra2, which happens to be the CDROM device and unit number we're installing from (if you changed that in your config, use the correct name here!)
Then we change line 193 from rz* ) to ra* ) since we're trying to install on an RA type disk which was apparently not supported in ULTRIX out of the box.
After writing the file with w and quitting ed with q, we're back at the prompt, at which point we can use CTRL+D to retry the installation:
# ^D
*** STANDALONE ULTRIX ENVIRONMENT ***
If you select the BASIC Installation option from the list that follows,
the installation software creates file systems on default partitions on
your system disk and loads the mandatory ULTRIX software subsets.
If you require additional installation choices, select the ADVANCED
Installation option.
Select one of the following options:
1) BASIC Installation
2) ADVANCED Installation
3) System management
Enter your choice: 2
*** SYSTEM DISK SELECTION ***
The 'Guide to Installing ULTRIX' explains the following table
of system disk drives. Select one of the devices below to contain the
root file system:
SYSTEM DISK TABLE
Selection Device ULTRIX Device Controller Controller
Name Name Number Name Number
----------------------------------------------------------------------
1 RA90 ra0 0 RQDX3 0
2 RA90 ra1 1 RQDX3 0
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Enter your choice: 1
You selected RA90, device number 0. Make sure this disk drive
is on line and write-enabled (if applicable to your disk drive), then
confirm your choice.
Use RA90, ra0, for your system disk? (y/n) []: y
The installation procedure now allocates the root file system on
partition 'a' of the system disk, ra0 RA90.
Making the root file system on ra0 RA90.
The installation procedure is now restoring the root file system to
partition 'a' of the system disk, ra0 RA90.
The installation procedure now checks the root file system on partition 'a'
of the system disk, ra0 RA90.
** /dev/rra0a
** Last Mounted on /mnt
** Phase 1 - Check Blocks and Sizes
** Phase 2 - Check Pathnames
** Phase 3 - Check Connectivity
** Phase 4 - Check Reference Counts
** Phase 5 - Check Cyl groups
226 files, 4547 used, 11004 free (20 frags, 1373 blocks, 1.0% fragmentation)
*** BOOTSTRAP COMMAND SEQUENCE ***
Enter the following boot sequence at the console mode prompt
after the installation software halts the processor:
>>> b dua0
syncing disks... done
?06 HLT INST
PC = 8007F799
>>>
After this, you will be back at the VAX boot prompt (if you used set CPU CONHALT in your config) or at the SimH emulator prompt (if you used set CPU SIMHALT, which is the default). In the latter case you will have to do boot cpu again to get to the VAX boot prompt.
First boot
Now we can boot the installed system from harddisk for the first time.
If you want to, now would be a good time to take a backup copy of your disk files (or just create a btrfs snapshot or something if you have the possibility ;-)
Resources
Some of the resources I used for creating this guide:
