- Introduction
- Booting a System
- The OpenBoot Environment
- The OpenBoot Architecture
- The OpenBoot Interface
- Getting Help in OpenBoot
- PROM Device Tree (Full Device Pathnames)
- OpenBoot NVRAM
- OpenBoot Security
- OpenBoot Diagnostics
- OpenBoot PROM Versions
- Booting a System
- The Kernel
- System Run States
- System Shutdown
- Chapter Summary
- Apply Your Knowledge
Getting Help in OpenBoot
At any time, you can obtain help on the various Forth commands supported in OpenBoot by using the help command. The help commands from the ok prompt are listed in Table 3.2.
Table 3.2 - OpenBoot help Commands
Command |
Description |
help |
Displays instructions for using the help system and lists the available help categories. |
help <category> |
Shows help for all commands in the category. You use only the first word of the category description. |
help <command> |
Shows help for an individual command. |
Because of the large number of commands, help is available only for commands that are used frequently.
The following example shows the help command with no arguments:
ok help
The system responds with the following:
Enter 'help command-name' or 'help category-name' for more help (Use ONLY the first word of a category description) Examples: help select -or- help line Main categories are: Repeated loops Defining new commands Numeric output Radix (number base conversions) Arithmetic Memory access Line editor System and boot configuration parameters Select I/O devices Floppy eject Power on reset Diag (diagnostic routines) Resume execution File download and boot nvramrc (making new commands permanent) ok
If you want to see the help messages for all commands in the category diag, for example, you type the following:
ok help diag
The system responds with this:
test <device-specifier> Run selftest method for specified device Examples: test floppy - test floppy disk drive test net - test net test scsi - test scsi test-all Execute test for all devices with selftest method watch-clock Show ticks of real-time clock watch-net Monitor network broadcast packets watch-net-all Monitor broadcast packets on all net interfaces probe-scsi Show attached SCSI devices probe-scsi-all Show attached SCSI devices for all host adapters ok
If you want help for a specific command, you type the following:
ok help test
The system responds with the following:
test <device-specifier> Run selftest method for specified device Examples: test floppy - test floppy disk drive test net - test net test scsi - test scsi test-all Execute test for all devices with selftest method watch-clock Show ticks of real-time clock watch-net Monitor network broadcast packets watch-net-all Monitor broadcast packets on all net interfaces probe-scsi Show attached SCSI devices probe-scsi-all Show attached SCSI devices for all host adapters ok