BloodyCactus
Experienced Member
So, there is a lot of info around the 'net about how you need a really old nic+retro box to use the restore cd because you cant do it in VirtualBox because you get this "compatible network interface card was not detected" message.....
I have the more fuller details on my blog (https://kråketær.com/projects_cobalt_entry_1_-_using_a_cobalt_recovery_cd_with_virtualbox.php), but the TLDR is, yes, you can use VirtualBox to serve the Cobalt Restore ISO image!
But Cobalt/SUN are tricking you, because the restore image supports many more network cards than it tells you about.
You can use the following drivers if you have a real, old NIC laying around, but for VirtualBox we only care about pcnet32!
The trick is to know how to make it load the driver;
NOTE: You can't do this with the really old recovery image listed as v1.1, you need a 2.0 image.
In VirtualBox, you want to set the adapter as a PCnet-PCI II card.
Boot into the system on VirtualBox, and you will be greeted with the EULA.
Type Y to agree to license.
It will display the 'You don't have a compatible system' message. By default the network adapters are not loaded but are present, so we need to install one.
The trick is, the system is running in a loop that just does a "less instructions.txt" that you can't break out of, but inside less, we can actually execute shell commands.
Type (including the bang at the start)
This will load the PCnet driver, now we need to bring it online by force giving it an IP address and netmask within the subnet its handing out.
The recovery CD is setup to give out IP address in range of 10.0.0.150 to 10.0.0.160.
Now press 'q' and it will reload the message into the successful message, follow instructions for how to netboot your device.
And awaaaay we go! (note, the screen in virtualbox screen never changes during the restore process, its whole purposes is to allow a nfs mount and thats it).
Things to note, if you have a MIPS box, you can't use any of the intel recovery cd's, as they will push an intel kernel over the wire and the box will crash.
You can boot into single user mode and look around with
To see if the netboot has started you can type
And it should spit out something like;
If you’re not sure if the system is doing anything (some things take A LONG time to run), you can run
to watch the tx/rx packet counts. You should be seeing a change in TX-OK packets
Also, I did this on a 256gb SSD, and I'd REALLY recommend something in the size of 16gb or 32gb, because when you boot up it takes HOURS to do a disk check, then a quota check.. Small drives are your friend (or sd/cf cards!). (it actually only uses 8gb of the entire drive but still takes FOREVER to do a disk check at start up).
Also for Qube 2 restore vs RAQ2 restore, the Qube2 is "190-00110-04" and RAQ2 is "190-00104-06", which makes the qube2 look newer than the RAQ2, but. the RAQ2 is actually the later version (561) vs Qube2's (498)!
After applying all the patches + updates for the Qube2, I did grab two packages I didn't have from the RAQ2 recovery cd (I checked, none of the binaries are dynamic, so no problems with missing library versions).
once I had ssh, I scp'd the package over and installed bzip2
(obviously it goes without saying, these are massively insecure outside a home network, don't put any old qubes or raq's on the internet with their old software).
I have the more fuller details on my blog (https://kråketær.com/projects_cobalt_entry_1_-_using_a_cobalt_recovery_cd_with_virtualbox.php), but the TLDR is, yes, you can use VirtualBox to serve the Cobalt Restore ISO image!
But Cobalt/SUN are tricking you, because the restore image supports many more network cards than it tells you about.
You can use the following drivers if you have a real, old NIC laying around, but for VirtualBox we only care about pcnet32!
Code:
3c501, 3c503, 3c509, 3c515, 3c59x, 82596, 8390, at1700, cs89x0, de4x5
depca, dgrs, e2100, eepro, eepro100, eexpress, ewrk3, fa312, fmv18x,
hp-plus, hp, hp100, lance, ne, ne2k-pci, ni52, ni65, old_tulip
pci-scan, pcnet32, sis900, smc-ultra, smc-ultra32, smc9194, tlan, tulip, via-rhine, wdThe trick is to know how to make it load the driver;
NOTE: You can't do this with the really old recovery image listed as v1.1, you need a 2.0 image.
In VirtualBox, you want to set the adapter as a PCnet-PCI II card.
Boot into the system on VirtualBox, and you will be greeted with the EULA.
Type Y to agree to license.
It will display the 'You don't have a compatible system' message. By default the network adapters are not loaded but are present, so we need to install one.
The trick is, the system is running in a loop that just does a "less instructions.txt" that you can't break out of, but inside less, we can actually execute shell commands.
Type (including the bang at the start)
!insmod /lib/modules/2.2.16/net/pcnet32.oThis will load the PCnet driver, now we need to bring it online by force giving it an IP address and netmask within the subnet its handing out.
!ifconfig eth0 10.0.0.254 netmask 255.0.0.0 upThe recovery CD is setup to give out IP address in range of 10.0.0.150 to 10.0.0.160.
Now press 'q' and it will reload the message into the successful message, follow instructions for how to netboot your device.
And awaaaay we go! (note, the screen in virtualbox screen never changes during the restore process, its whole purposes is to allow a nfs mount and thats it).
Things to note, if you have a MIPS box, you can't use any of the intel recovery cd's, as they will push an intel kernel over the wire and the box will crash.
You can boot into single user mode and look around with
!/etc/init.d/singleTo see if the netboot has started you can type
!arpAnd it should spit out something like;
Address HWType HWAddress Flags Mask Ifacelease150.mfg.cobaltmicr ether 00:10:E0:00:1E:7E C eth0If you’re not sure if the system is doing anything (some things take A LONG time to run), you can run
!netstat -ito watch the tx/rx packet counts. You should be seeing a change in TX-OK packets
Also, I did this on a 256gb SSD, and I'd REALLY recommend something in the size of 16gb or 32gb, because when you boot up it takes HOURS to do a disk check, then a quota check.. Small drives are your friend (or sd/cf cards!). (it actually only uses 8gb of the entire drive but still takes FOREVER to do a disk check at start up).
Also for Qube 2 restore vs RAQ2 restore, the Qube2 is "190-00110-04" and RAQ2 is "190-00104-06", which makes the qube2 look newer than the RAQ2, but. the RAQ2 is actually the later version (561) vs Qube2's (498)!
After applying all the patches + updates for the Qube2, I did grab two packages I didn't have from the RAQ2 recovery cd (I checked, none of the binaries are dynamic, so no problems with missing library versions).
nfsroot/bto-sync/bundles/90_MIPS-OpenSSH-3.4p1-PM4.pkg (you will need to add exceptions to your ~/.ssh/config for deprecated algorithms to ssh in)once I had ssh, I scp'd the package over and installed bzip2
nfsroot/bto-sync/production/2800R_2.561/rpms/bzip2-0.9.0c-1.mips.rpm(obviously it goes without saying, these are massively insecure outside a home network, don't put any old qubes or raq's on the internet with their old software).