RP8420 ignite from tape

[Ian Dennison_1]

Have 4 npars and 6 vpars on an RP8420, each apparently has their own tape drive. Anecdotal evidence is that we cannot boot from an ignire tape on an RP8420 - does anyone know any different?

Share and Enjoy! Ian

[Pete Randall · Accepted solution]

While I have heard rumors that this has been fixed in the latest Ignite versions, I do not believe them to be true. There are issues with the kernel that gets booted off the tape not being compatible.


Pete

[Pete Randall]

Ian,

Here's a discussion on the very same subject from last week:

http://forums1.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?threadId=872669

I'm still trying to verify that the latest version of VPars (not Ignite!) will or will not work with make_tape_recovery.


Pete

[Pete Randall]

Ian,

Here in the release notes for VPars version 2.03, there is some discussion on using make_tape_recovery:

http://docs.hp.com/en/T1335-90010/T1335-90019.pdf

Note, however, that they talk only about recovering an Ignite server from tape, and then using that Ignite server to recover the VPars via make_net_recovery.


Pete

[Steven E. Protter]

I do not believe you can boot from a tape and restore vpars.

But, you might want to make an appointment to try it at your closest HP Performance Center.

This is an ideal DR issue that you need to know but can't risk on your own hardware.

Talk to your HP rep.

SEP

[Jeff Schussele]

Hi Ian,

This is a known issue with vPars.
The only partition easily recoverable from a tape is the 0 partition. BUT even then ALL other vpars will need to be down simply because you need to get to the BCH to boot from tape.
All other vPars need to recover/should be recovering from a net image.
I suppose that one *could* recover a vPar from a tape - but again all other vPars would need to be down to get to the BCH and you need to direct the image to the proper disk drive.
I also believe that Ignite - to date - can only fire up /stand/vmunix so the final reboot would need to be interrupted to manually boot the vPar kernel - vpdb.
Bottom line is that vPars & tape recovery are inherently incompatible as they are currently implemented.

HTH,
Jeff

[john guardian]

If I'm reading your question correctly, I have done this. Assuming that you are recovering an entire rp84xx, after you make the genesis partition, you make any other NPars. To create the first VPar on any given NPar, you create it as if the first VPar will actually be an NPar. Then, once the NPar is rebuilt/recovered, assuming VPar software is loaded, you use the vparcreate command to create the first VPar and set the boot device to the current boot disk path. Then, create any/all other VPars on that NPar using the boot path for each individual VPar boot disk. On any given NPar (node partition), all VPars need to be down when the above is occuring. Initially, to rebuild/restore any VPar, I simply boot the NPar as such and interact w/the ISL to select the tape drive and eventually the correct boot disk for the kernel/filesystem destination.

As to booting only one VPar to restore from an ignite tape using, say for instance, the vparboot cmd, I have never had to attempt that method, so I cannot speak to it.

Sorry if this was verbose and didn't answer your question.

Joe Mazzarella
guardian@epix.net