[Solved] Gentoo on Apple G5 Cluster nodes.

[Hexorg]

Hello everyone. I have one standard apple g5 server, and 7 g5 cluster nodes. The server has video card and cd-rom. but nodes do not.

I've installed Gentoo on the main server. I'm also launching the kernel with console=ttyPZ0 to output everything over the serial port, and I've put serial console into /etc/inittab to be able to log into the machine from serial terminal. Everything works on the main g5 server. I can log in over serial console, or over SSH.

Since g5 cluster nodes don't have cd-rom and have the same hardware as main g5 server (aside video-card), I decided to just copy the harddrive from the main server to the harddrive of the cluster node. Since It doesn't have a video card, I was hoping to get the serial console working. However the serial console never come up. So I thought maybe my harddrive copy was bad. I tried putting the harddrive from main server into cluster node, and the node would still not output the serial console. I have no idea if the kernel actually boots or not, but since I don't see anything on the console, I assume it doesn't.

I tried resetting nv-ram everywhere. Main server outputs to serial console, nodes don't. I also can't ping the nodes. (they never request DHCP address, but main server does).

Then I took main server and one node out and put a video card from main server into node, and it booted! I had serial console, and SSH on the node. Then I've put video card back into main server, and the node doesn't boot. Seems like that's the key difference. I tried to recompile the kernel and remove all graphics support. Node still won't boot. Master still does.

I'm really lost what next to do and it seems I'm running out of options. Can anyone advise me what to do next?

I've never dealt with PPC before, but I have a good gentoo experience.

Edit: Well, this is odd. If I start cluster node into Open Firmware interface and type "boot hd:2,yaboot" it all boots flawlessly! in /etc/yaboot.conf I have ofboot=hd:2 though...

Edit2: Here's my /etc/yaboot.conf:

[Hexorg]

So HDD boots automatically with video card present, and it has to be booted through open firmware, when video card is absent. I've been looking over devalias output. I have a suspicion that when the video card is present, it causes sata controller to sit on pci@6 or @8 slot, and when it's absent - on pci@7, which messes up the whole hd:2 device pointing to the right disk.

I think the command to find the path to /dev/sda was ofpath, and it gave me "/ht@0,f2000000/pci@7/k2-sata-root@c/k2-sata@0/disk@03/" i tried writting that string into "first-boot" by using

[Hexorg]

Fixed it by going into OF and typing "setenv boot-device hd:2,yaboot".