topic Re: 11iv3 Boot from alternate disk in Operating System - HP-UX

11iv3 Boot from alternate disk

ben10_1 — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 05:08:00 GMT

It may be a basic question, but I have to post it here.

While trying to boot from the alternate mirrored disk I got the following failure:

"Starting: HP-UX Alternate Boot: 0/1/1/0.0x1.0x0
(C) Copyright 1999-2008 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P.
All rights reserved
HP-UX Boot Loader for IPF -- Revision 2.037
Press Any Key to interrupt Autoboot
\EFI\HPUX\AUTO ==> boot vmunix
Seconds left till autoboot - 0
AUTOBOOTING...Could not open file vmunix to check for a directory
Could not open vmunix
loading failed"

However if try the following the server boot normally:
"HPUX> hpux -lq"

1- How can I make the server boot successfully from the alternate as it does for the primary?
2- Any help to understand why "hpux -lq" solve the alternate boot issue?

Any document that you may find useful are welcome.

Thank you.

Re: 11iv3 Boot from alternate disk

g3jza — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 05:15:51 GMT

Hi,
the -lq option to boot (LVM-quorum) simply means, that more than 50% of the disks needs to be present, in order for the system to boot. So when you get into situation, when your 1 disk fails, your other alternate boot disk just won't boot automatically without the "-lq" option.

You can update the AUTO file (/efi/hpux/auto) to contain the "-lq" string:

Use the 'efi_cp' to copy the desired file to a file in /tmp, edit the temporary file with 'vi', and return it back to the EFI system partition with 'efi_cp':

#efi_cp -d /dev/rdisk/diskX_p1 -u /efi/hpux/auto /tmp auto

#vi /tmp/auto (the line should contain "boot vmunix -lq")

#efi_cp -d /dev/rdisk/diskX_p1 /tmp/auto /efi/hpux/auto

Re: 11iv3 Boot from alternate disk

g3jza — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 05:18:43 GMT

also much easier would be:

mkboot -a â boot vmunix -lqâ /dev/rdisk/diskX_p1

Set this flag to both of your boot disks....

Re: 11iv3 Boot from alternate disk

g3jza — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 05:19:38 GMT

mkboot -a "boot vmunix -lq" /dev/rdisk/diskX_p1

Re: 11iv3 Boot from alternate disk

Torsten. — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 05:35:01 GMT

>> Could not open vmunix

The disk is likely not properly mirrored, because the system cannot find the kernel.

Boot up again and check the mirror (lvdisplay -v ...; lvlnboot -v).

Re: 11iv3 Boot from alternate disk

ben10_1 — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 06:24:41 GMT

After executing the below command the system can now boot from the Alternate without any intervention.

efi_cp -d /dev/rdisk/diskX_p1 /tmp/auto /efi/hpux/auto

After checking my old documentation I figure out that the command that I have previously executed was:

efi_cp â d /dev/rdsk/c2t1d0s1 /tmp/auto /efi/hpux/auto

This may give an answer.

Thank you.

Re: 11iv3 Boot from alternate disk

ben10_1 — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 06:29:53 GMT

For g3jza,

Just to confirm, if I did get you well:

HPUX needs to boot normally MORE THAN 50% of the disks.

In our case 1 disk has failed, so 50% of the disks are down, in this case -lq option is needed to boot normally.

Thank you.

Re: 11iv3 Boot from alternate disk

Torsten. — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 06:52:02 GMT

this is not the reason.

there is no kernel!

follow my advise!

Re: 11iv3 Boot from alternate disk

g3jza — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 07:56:46 GMT

ben:

>
HPUX needs to boot normally MORE THAN 50% of the disks.

In our case 1 disk has failed, so 50% of the disks are down, in this case -lq option is needed to boot normally.

-lq is to override the LVM-quorum, which means, that in order for the system to boot, it needs to have in vg00 more than 50% of the disks. So in your case, as you have lost one disk of 2, that's exactly 50% of disks available and system would not boot without the -lq flag.

But as Torsten is saying, you should make sure the failed disk gets replaced as soon as possible and get it mirrored.

Re: 11iv3 Boot from alternate disk

ben10_1 — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 08:04:46 GMT

Now, I did replace the failed disk and I did the mirroring configuration, and I can find my data as expected, and I can boot from any disk I want.

However when booting from the alternate disk I receive messages on the console showing:

vgsync: Couldn't resynchronize volume group "/dev/vg00"

I did:
#vgchange -a y /dev/vg00
Volume group "/dev/vg00" is already active in requested mode

Is this critical, any lead or idea to solve this?

Thank you.

Re: 11iv3 Boot from alternate disk

g3jza — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 08:08:26 GMT

Did you follow the correct procedure in order to re-mirror your disk?

There's a doc called "When good disks go bad":

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/CoreRedirect.jsp?redirectReason=DocIndexPDF&prodSeriesId=4296010&targetPage=http%3A%2F%2Fbizsupport1.austin.hp.com%2Fbc%2Fdocs%2Fsupport%2FSupportManual%2Fc01911837%2Fc01911837.pdf

It cointans the procedure for correct mirroring.

Re: 11iv3 Boot from alternate disk

g3jza — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 08:10:07 GMT

http://bizsupport1.austin.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/c01911837/c01911837.pdf