Trying to boot historic Cube, need help.

[Azygos]

Hi, I really need someone's help. I've recently become the
proud owner of a Cube. The documentation which came with it
indicates that it may be historically significant. It may have
belonged to the president of Minug, the Michigan NeXT Users
Group, based at the University of Michigan. As you are no
doubt aware, umich.edu was one of the hotbeds of innovation
during in the early days of the WWW. The info on the hard
drive of this machine may be very unique and very much worth
saving.

The problem is that I can't get past the password screen. The
hardware password was set, and I defeated that by removing the
battery. I need to get past the software login. I don't want
to erase the hard drive in this NeXT just so I can get it
running. Who knows what great historic info is on it. The docs
that came with it are fantastic. There is a binder with
documents from NeXT Computer which are about system .8 which
say "For support use only. Not for public distribution." There
is also the official NeXT statement from "Black Tuesday", in
which they announce that they will no longer manufacture
hardware. There are 2 boxed technical reference manual sets
with 9 volumes, plus 4 more official tech ref books and 2
booklets. There are 2 more 030 boards and 1 040 board. The
list goes on.

I've been a Mac guy for 15 years. I know more about older Macs
than 95 percent of people who use them and sometimes repair
them to sell. I know nothing about NeXT software. I've never
run Mac OS X. I've never run Linux or Unix. I don't do Windows
or DOS. I work on my Apple ][, Mac 128k, C-64s, Sinclair,
TRS-80s, etc. Any explanations you may give me need to be very
step by step and understandable to a newbie. Thanks.

The tools I currently have to help me to crack the hard drive:
A Zip-100 drive with a PC formatted disk. A Mac 8500 with a
500mhz upgrade. I don't have an external SCSI HD, but will get
one if I absolutely have to. I may be able to rig up an
external CD drive for the Cube. I have NEXTSTEP 3.2 on CD with
the floppy, but no floppy drive for the Cube.

Here is what happens when I boot the HD in single user mode. I
get:

init arg: -sx

NeXT ROM Monitor 1.0 v41

NeXT Mach 3.0: Wed Jul 29 19:43:s8 PDT 1992;
root(rcbuilder):mk-127.15/BUILD/RELEASE_M68K

FPU version 0x0

physical memory = 16.00 megabytes.

available memory = 14.9 megabytes.

using 16 buffers containing 0.12 megabytes of memory

SCSI 59C98A Controller. Target 7. as sc0 at sc0 at 0x2814000

MAXTOR XT-83805 Rev B3C as. sd0 at sc0 target 1 lun 0

Disk Label: MyDisk

Disk Capacity 349MB, Device Block 1024 bytes

Generic SCSI Device as sg0 at sc0 target 7 lun 7

Generic SCSI Device as sg1 at sc0 target 7 lun 7

Generic SCSI Device as sg2 at sc0 target 7 lun 7

Generic SCSI Device as sg3 at sc0 target 7 lun 7

odc0 at 0x2812000

od0 at odc0 slave 0

drive ROM v8. servo ROM v8

od1 at odc0 slave 1

en0 at 0x2008000

np0 at 0x200f000

sound0 at 0x200e000

root on sd0

master cpu at slot 0.

Fri Sep 1 20:53:57 GMT-0500 1995

Singleuser boot -- fsck not done

Faking root mount entries

Configuring ethernet interface to 141.214.080.255.

Configuring hostname to rvnext

The network is disabled or your computer isn't connected to
it.

erase ^? intr ^C kill ^U #

So I type in:

sh /etc/rc &\

I was very careful to get put keep the spaces where they
should be. I hit enter, and instead of seeing "a series of
messages appear on the screen as the rc shell script is
executed" I immediately see a


prompt.

I've typed in:

passwd root

and was prompted for a password. I entered 1234 (the new
password), was prompted for it again, and entered it again. I
found that I had to enter it quickly or the machine would
start to boot in multiuser mode. After entering the second
password I immediatelly hit the power off button, and then hit
"y" when prompted.

When I turned the machine on again it would do the system test
and then gives me an insert optical disk message. It wouldn't
automatically boot off the hard drive. I believe that the
optical drive is toast. I have ODs named "Software Release
1.0" and "Software Release 2.0 (with that crossed out and 2.1
written in pen). Neither one of them does anything. The OD
drive just sits there whirring.

I then turn the system off and boot it into single user mode.
I type in bsd -s and the hard drive boots. I get the password
entry field, but the dialog box just shakes every time I enter
anything. I've tried:

name: root

password: 1234 (the password I thought I'd set)

or

name: me

password: [blank]

I went through the whole process again just to make sure I'd
gotten the password right. Still no go.

I have also tried to restore the system by typing in:

cp -Rp /usr/template/client/etc /etc

It doesn't change a thing.

My guess is that I'm being blocked out by an extra layer of
security because the phrase "Faking root mount entries"
doesn't appear in other people's description of this process
on Usenet. If this is the case, then how the heck can I beat
it? If I can get into this HD I will post whatever treasure I
find there to the Web for everyone else to enjoy. Any
Einsteins out there?

Thank you very much, Al

[Brent P]

In article <a-009F4E.16124727032004@news6.west.earthlink.net>, Azygos wrote:
The problem is that I can't get past the password screen. The hardware password was set, and I defeated that by removing the battery. I need to get past the software login. I don't want to erase the hard drive in this NeXT just so I can get it running.
<snip> Singleuser boot -- fsck not done

Good.

<snip> So I type in: sh /etc/rc &\

Don't do that. You just told it to start everything...
passwd root
and was prompted for a password. I entered 1234 (the new password), was prompted for it again, and entered it again. I found that I had to enter it quickly or the machine would start to boot in multiuser mode. After entering the second password I immediatelly hit the power off button, and then hit "y" when prompted.

If I remember correctly you need to manually change the password
in netinfo. I forget how to do that, it should be in the google
usenet archive: http://groups.google.com/
When I turned the machine on again it would do the system test and then gives me an insert optical disk message. It wouldn't automatically boot off the hard drive.

hmm... that can be fixed by telling it to boot of the scsi drive by
setting parameters with p at the rom monitor.

My guess is that I'm being blocked out by an extra layer of security because the phrase "Faking root mount entries"

Passwords on a next are in netinfo, that phrase is always present,
dunno it's meaning.

[David Evans]

In article <jYo9c.108296$1p.1539503@attbi_s54>,
Brent P <tetraethylleadREMOVETHIS@yahoo.com> wrote:If I remember correctly you need to manually change the passwordin netinfo. I forget how to do that, it should be in the googleusenet archive: http://groups.google.com/

Right. I know that the procedure has been discussed a few times, so
you should be able to find it in the archives.
My guess is that I'm being blocked out by an extra layer of security because the phrase "Faking root mount entries"Passwords on a next are in netinfo, that phrase is always present,dunno it's meaning.

IIRC, that is printed because the kernel's method of mounting the root
filesystem doesn't go through the "normal" mount procedure that would
result in placing entries in /etc/mtab. These entries are "faked" so
that the contents of /etc/mtab actually match reality.

--
David Evans dfevans@bbcr.uwaterloo.ca
Ph.D. Candidate, Computer/Synth Junkie http://bbcr.uwaterloo.ca/~dfevans/
University of Waterloo "Default is the value selected by the composer
Ontario, Canada overridden by your command." - Roland TR-707 Manual

[Azygos]

In article <jYo9c.108296$1p.1539503@attbi_s54>,
tetraethylleadREMOVETHIS@yahoo.com (Brent P) wrote:
In article <a-009F4E.16124727032004@news6.west.earthlink.net>, Azygos wrote: The problem is that I can't get past the password screen. The hardware password was set, and I defeated that by removing the battery. I need to get past the software login. I don't want to erase the hard drive in this NeXT just so I can get it running. <snip> Singleuser boot -- fsck not done Good. <snip> So I type in: sh /etc/rc &\ Don't do that. You just told it to start everything...

I have found at least 110 places on the Web and Usenet that say
that this is the correct procedure. If it's not, do you have an
alternative?
If I remember correctly you need to manually change the password in netinfo. I forget how to do that, it should be in the google usenet archive: http://groups.google.com/

Apparently you do that by typing sh /etc/rc &\
hmm... that can be fixed by telling it to boot of the scsi drive by setting parameters with p at the rom monitor.

Thanks. That's helpful. I'll have to figure out what it means.
My guess is that I'm being blocked out by an extra layer of security because the phrase "Faking root mount entries" Passwords on a next are in netinfo, that phrase is always present, dunno it's meaning.

Yes, I guess that part is normal.

I've gone through the archives until smoke has come out of my ears and gone
through the procedures in the the FAQ for this newsgroup at peanuts.org.
I've done the steps very carefully and written everything I've done
in my first post. Does anyone have a concise step by step alternative
proceedure?

Thanks -Al

[Azygos]

In article <c45cm7$4be$1@rumours.uwaterloo.ca>,
dfevans@bcr10.uwaterloo.ca (David Evans) wrote:
Right. I know that the procedure has been discussed a few times, so you should be able to find it in the archives.

Yes, as I've said, I've found around 110 posts, plus the comp.sys.next
FAQ which gave me the correct proceedure which I have followed. It didn't
work.
IIRC, that is printed because the kernel's method of mounting the root filesystem doesn't go through the "normal" mount procedure that would result in placing entries in /etc/mtab. These entries are "faked" so that the contents of /etc/mtab actually match reality.

Whatever that means, it sounds logical. So my theory of an extra security
layer may not be right. Then again it may.

This looks to be a problem spot. It is different from what the FAQ and
archives say it should be:

"So I type in:

sh /etc/rc &\

I was very careful to get put keep the spaces where they
should be. I hit enter, and instead of seeing "a series of
messages appear on the screen as the rc shell script is
executed" I immediately see a


prompt."

The FAQ is telling me I should see a series of
messages appear on the screen as the rc shell script is
executed. But I don't. It goes immediately to the > prompt.
Are the FAQ and the Usenet posts wrong? Is my machine wrong?

Thanks -Al

[David Evans]

In article <a-8AA2E2.17042428032004@news5.west.earthlink.net>,
Azygos <a@z.com> wrote:Yes, as I've said, I've found around 110 posts, plus the comp.sys.nextFAQ which gave me the correct proceedure which I have followed. It didn'twork.

....
This looks to be a problem spot. It is different from what the FAQ andarchives say it should be:"So I type in:sh /etc/rc &\

I just looked at a few posts and none of them had the trailing
backslash. Did you give that a try?

--
David Evans dfevans@bbcr.uwaterloo.ca
Ph.D. Candidate, Computer/Synth Junkie http://bbcr.uwaterloo.ca/~dfevans/
University of Waterloo "Default is the value selected by the composer
Ontario, Canada overridden by your command." - Roland TR-707 Manual

[Azygos]

In article <c47t3m$fd2$1@rumours.uwaterloo.ca>,
dfevans@bcr10.uwaterloo.ca (David Evans) wrote:
In article <a-8AA2E2.17042428032004@news5.west.earthlink.net>, Azygos <a@z.com> wrote:Yes, as I've said, I've found around 110 posts, plus the comp.sys.nextFAQ which gave me the correct proceedure which I have followed. It didn'twork. ...This looks to be a problem spot. It is different from what the FAQ andarchives say it should be:"So I type in:sh /etc/rc &\ I just looked at a few posts and none of them had the trailing backslash. Did you give that a try?

Yes thanks, I did. And I tried it without. I also tried it without spacing.

[Guest]

Hello,

In comp.sys.next.software Azygos <a@z.com> wrote:
: [...]
: I have also tried to restore the system by typing in:

: cp -Rp /usr/template/client/etc /etc

: It doesn't change a thing.

When you really succeed in doing that operation ('cp'), any
previous knowledge about the machine has been wiped out. It also
wiped out anything that was in the netinfo database (residing in
/etc/netinfo). What it wouldn't do is eliminate other/higher 'netinfo'
domains, but since you would have lost the 'link' by that operation ('cp')
you can freely remove any directory not(!) named local.nidb in /etc/netinfo.

After that, not(!) booting into single user mode, but 'normal' boot (omit
the '-s' iirc) should directly put you to a graphical desktop (of the user
'me'). Give 'me' a password, either via a terminal (Terminal.app, command
'passwd') or with the Prefrences.app (the second icon from top of the dock)
and the 'password-setting' panel there. After having set the password, log
out (via Workspace 'q'uit=logout). If you haven't successfully altered the
password of me, you're immediately put back "into 'me'", otherwise the
login-panel will appear. Now you can log in as 'root', without a password
by the way (iirc). Give root also one (for security/safety reasons).
You're/should be done.

Booting into 'single user' mode should never directly lead you to the
graphical login (iirc) and I'm not sure that 'manual-starting' multi-user
mode (sh /etc/rc) does it quite the same way as 'normally'.

When you are at the login panel and don't succeed in logging in, entering
'console' as user (no/empty password) should put you in a non-graphical
login mode, where you can 'read' error messages, should there be any. May be,
you learn more from there.

To resume: After copying the templates over to /etc, only additional
databases in /etc/netinfo make any difference from a fresh install as far
as configuration is involved. Even the machine's name (and IP addresses)
change that way.

: My guess is that I'm being blocked out by an extra layer of
: security because the phrase "Faking root mount entries"

You already got a correct explanation for that: as the system is alreay
running "under" the root '/' directory, it can't really 'mount' it again,
but it can provide correct information to /etc/mtab now (and (e.g. with
Linux) switch from a read-only mode to read-write, which it doesn't do
with NS/OS).

: doesn't appear in other people's description of this process
: on Usenet. If this is the case, then how the heck can I beat
: it? If I can get into this HD I will post whatever treasure I
: find there to the Web for everyone else to enjoy. Any
: Einsteins out there?

Don't hope, those (Einsteins) will be needed :-).

Greetings,
Ruediger Oberhage
--
H.-R. Oberhage
Mail: Univ. Duisburg-Essen E-Mail: oberhage@Uni-Essen.DE
Fachbereich 7 (Physik) ruediger@Theo-Phys.Uni-Essen.DE
Campus Essen, S05 V07 E88
Universitaetsstrasse 5 Phone: (+49) 201 / 183-2493
45141 Essen, Germany FAX: (+49) 201 / 183-4578

[buymystuff]

Just goto the ROM Monitor and then boot into Single User mode , then start
NetInfo with this command sh /etc/rc & . Use the nu -m command to modify the
root password, and reboot the machine! Easy as cake!

[Cute Swinger 8\)]

--
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"Azygos" <a@z.com> wrote in message
news:a-009F4E.16124727032004@news6.west.earthlink.net... Hi, I really need someone's help. I've recently become the proud owner of a Cube. The documentation which came with it indicates that it may be historically significant. It may have belonged to the president of Minug, the Michigan NeXT Users Group, based at the University of Michigan. As you are no doubt aware, umich.edu was one of the hotbeds of innovation during in the early days of the WWW. The info on the hard drive of this machine may be very unique and very much worth saving. The problem is that I can't get past the password screen. The hardware password was set, and I defeated that by removing the battery. I need to get past the software login. I don't want to erase the hard drive in this NeXT just so I can get it running. Who knows what great historic info is on it. The docs that came with it are fantastic. There is a binder with documents from NeXT Computer which are about system .8 which say "For support use only. Not for public distribution." There is also the official NeXT statement from "Black Tuesday", in which they announce that they will no longer manufacture hardware. There are 2 boxed technical reference manual sets with 9 volumes, plus 4 more official tech ref books and 2 booklets. There are 2 more 030 boards and 1 040 board. The list goes on. I've been a Mac guy for 15 years. I know more about older Macs than 95 percent of people who use them and sometimes repair them to sell. I know nothing about NeXT software. I've never run Mac OS X. I've never run Linux or Unix. I don't do Windows or DOS. I work on my Apple ][, Mac 128k, C-64s, Sinclair, TRS-80s, etc. Any explanations you may give me need to be very step by step and understandable to a newbie. Thanks. The tools I currently have to help me to crack the hard drive: A Zip-100 drive with a PC formatted disk. A Mac 8500 with a 500mhz upgrade. I don't have an external SCSI HD, but will get one if I absolutely have to. I may be able to rig up an external CD drive for the Cube. I have NEXTSTEP 3.2 on CD with the floppy, but no floppy drive for the Cube. Here is what happens when I boot the HD in single user mode. I get: init arg: -sx NeXT ROM Monitor 1.0 v41 NeXT Mach 3.0: Wed Jul 29 19:43:s8 PDT 1992; root(rcbuilder):mk-127.15/BUILD/RELEASE_M68K FPU version 0x0 physical memory = 16.00 megabytes. available memory = 14.9 megabytes. using 16 buffers containing 0.12 megabytes of memory SCSI 59C98A Controller. Target 7. as sc0 at sc0 at 0x2814000 MAXTOR XT-83805 Rev B3C as. sd0 at sc0 target 1 lun 0 Disk Label: MyDisk Disk Capacity 349MB, Device Block 1024 bytes Generic SCSI Device as sg0 at sc0 target 7 lun 7 Generic SCSI Device as sg1 at sc0 target 7 lun 7 Generic SCSI Device as sg2 at sc0 target 7 lun 7 Generic SCSI Device as sg3 at sc0 target 7 lun 7 odc0 at 0x2812000 od0 at odc0 slave 0 drive ROM v8. servo ROM v8 od1 at odc0 slave 1 en0 at 0x2008000 np0 at 0x200f000 sound0 at 0x200e000 root on sd0 master cpu at slot 0. Fri Sep 1 20:53:57 GMT-0500 1995 Singleuser boot -- fsck not done Faking root mount entries Configuring ethernet interface to 141.214.080.255. Configuring hostname to rvnext The network is disabled or your computer isn't connected to it. erase ^? intr ^C kill ^U # So I type in: sh /etc/rc &\ I was very careful to get put keep the spaces where they should be. I hit enter, and instead of seeing "a series of messages appear on the screen as the rc shell script is executed" I immediately see a prompt. I've typed in: passwd root and was prompted for a password. I entered 1234 (the new password), was prompted for it again, and entered it again. I found that I had to enter it quickly or the machine would start to boot in multiuser mode. After entering the second password I immediatelly hit the power off button, and then hit "y" when prompted. When I turned the machine on again it would do the system test and then gives me an insert optical disk message. It wouldn't automatically boot off the hard drive. I believe that the optical drive is toast. I have ODs named "Software Release 1.0" and "Software Release 2.0 (with that crossed out and 2.1 written in pen). Neither one of them does anything. The OD drive just sits there whirring. I then turn the system off and boot it into single user mode. I type in bsd -s and the hard drive boots. I get the password entry field, but the dialog box just shakes every time I enter anything. I've tried: name: root password: 1234 (the password I thought I'd set) or name: me password: [blank] I went through the whole process again just to make sure I'd gotten the password right. Still no go. I have also tried to restore the system by typing in: cp -Rp /usr/template/client/etc /etc It doesn't change a thing. My guess is that I'm being blocked out by an extra layer of security because the phrase "Faking root mount entries" doesn't appear in other people's description of this process on Usenet. If this is the case, then how the heck can I beat it? If I can get into this HD I will post whatever treasure I find there to the Web for everyone else to enjoy. Any Einsteins out there? Thank you very much, Al