topic Re: Booting from CD in Operating System - OpenVMS

Booting from CD

Andrij CAde — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 09:12:42 GMT

I have an Alpha running OpenVMS that ran out of memory. It is asking to free up 210 blocks. How DO I boot to the operating CD to get the system to a prompt so I can purge log files?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Re: Booting from CD

Steven Schweda — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 09:24:09 GMT

It's so bad that you can't log in as SYSTEM
and do it the easy way?

> It is asking [...]

Who is asking when?

At the SRM console (">>>") prompt, try SHOW
DEVICE, and see if you can spot the CD-ROM
drive. ("[A]n Alpha" is not very specific.)
Then "BOOT DKA400", or whatever the CD-ROM
drive device name seems to be.

Re: Booting from CD

Heinz W Genhart — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 09:29:06 GMT

Hi Andrij

First of all, welcome to the ITRC OpenVMS Forum

I think, your machine did not run ot of memory, but the Systemdisk may be full.
If the system is stil running, then you should be able to delete logfiles on the systemdisk. There are several possibilities, depending on how much you need the Logfiles.

If you know exactly which file you want to delete then do it by

$ delete sys$sysdevice:[directory.subdirectory]file.log;*

You could also use Purge, to delete older Versions of Logfiles.

$ PURGE SYS$SYSDEVICE:[000000...]*.log

If you need the older Versions of the logfiles, you could also move them to another disk

$ BACKUP/DELETE sys$sysdevice:[000000...]*.log/Excl=*.log;0 new_device:[directory]logfiles.bck/sav

Sometimes its a File like OPERATOR.LOG which fills up the systemdisk. Then you should first get some free space on the systemdisk and then you should see what's filling up the Operator logfile. (REPL/ENABLE to see the new messages), (REPL/LOG to crreate a new Version of operator.log, but this needs free space on the systemdisk)

To answer your original question:

In Console Mode do a SHOW DEVICE and identify your CD-ROM
Then boot the CD for examples with

b 'cd-rom'

Finnaly you will see a menu on your screen and there is the possibility to 'execute a DCL command'. If you select 'execute a DCL Command' then you will get the $ prompt and you can delete unwanted logfiles.

hope that gives some input to you

regards
geni

Re: Booting from CD

Andrij CAde — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 09:32:57 GMT

I can't even get to the >>> prompt. IT just get stuck in the blue screen during boot up with the errors:

Message from user SYSTEM on DEP100
QMAN-I-NODISKSPACE, Disc space not available for qeue manager to continue.

Message from user SYSTEM on DEP100
QMAN-E-FREEDISK, Free up 210 blocks on disk _DEP100$DKA0

Re: Booting from CD

Jan van den Ende — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 09:37:52 GMT

Andrij,

Let me join Geni in wlcoming you.

Geni gave a pretty complete advise.

Just one thing to add
>>>
Finnaly you will see a menu on your screen and there is the possibility to 'execute a DCL command'. If you select 'execute a DCL Command' then you will get the $ prompt and you can delete unwanted logfiles.
<<<

After you go into "Execute DCL" mode, _NO_ devices ae mounted yet.
You will need to identify your system disk, and mount it, before you can access it.

Also, now it is the CD-rom that acts as your system disk, so, you will need to address your normal system disk through its hardware name.

hth

Proost.

Have one on me.

jpe

Re: Booting from CD

Andrij CAde — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 09:41:02 GMT

I thank all of you for the info. One last item. How do I get to Console Mode so I can access the CD?

Re: Booting from CD

Heinz W Genhart — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 09:46:58 GMT

Hi Andrij

press ctrl

on the console or press the restart button. If your systems auto_action is boot, then you need to press ctrl

after the console has initialized until you get the >>> prompt

regards

Geni

Re: Booting from CD

Andrij CAde — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 12:37:43 GMT

Thank you all for the very useful info. Just as a continuation. Once I boot to the CD. I then need to mount the hard drive correct. I know that is it dka0. But where do I find the label? What would be the correct syntax to mount the drive?

Thank you

Re: Booting from CD

Volker Halle — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 13:06:05 GMT

MOUNT/OVER=ID DKA0:

Volker.

Re: Booting from CD

The Brit — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 06:59:47 GMT

Just a couple of things. The "QMAN" messages you are getting indicate that the system is still up. You might be able to log in to an account which has a root directory which is NOT on the system disk. You could then 'purge' the system disk as described above.

The second point is that if DKA0 is a member of a shadowset, then Volker's command will be insufficient since the drive will be "write-locked" when it mounts. You will need to

$ mount/over=(ID,shad) DKA0:

Using a different approach, it seems to me that you should be able to boot "MIN" and purge the drive. This would avoid any issues related to modifying a shadow set unit.

Dave.

Re: Booting from CD

Andrij CAde — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 09:18:11 GMT

How do you boot "MIN" ?

Re: Booting from CD

Volker Halle — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 09:25:55 GMT

Andrij,

>>> show boot_osflags

will give r,n

>>> B r,1
SYSBOOT> set startup_p1 "MIN"
SYSBOOT> C

login and purge the system disk

To reset the system for a full boot:

$ MC SYSGEN
SYSGEN> USE CURRENT
SYSGEN> SET STARTUP_P1 ""
SYSGEN> WRITE CURRENT
SYSGEN> exit

Reboot

Volker.

Re: Booting from CD

Hoff — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 10:05:49 GMT

You don't need to use the CD to free up disk storage space on the system disk. (That approach does work, however.) You should be able to do this disk clean-up with a standard conversational bootstrap.

Shutdown and/or halt the system. Use ^P or BREAK, depending on the box.

Boot conversationally and minimally, setting STARTUP_P1 to "MIN" and SET/STARTUP=OPA0: and then set WRITESYSPARAMS to 0 at the SYSBOOT prompt.

PURGE or DELETE as appropriate.

Reboot.

Off you go.

Details:
http://64.223.189.234/node/204

Re: Booting from CD

Andrij CAde — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 10:44:54 GMT

Volker,

I tried the boot_osflags.

It returned just 0??

Re: Booting from CD

Jan van den Ende — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 10:55:11 GMT

Andrij,

>>>
I tried the boot_osflags.

It returned just 0??
<<<

So it is not set. Defaults to 0,0

To boot conversational, boot

>>>b -fl 0,1

Proost.

Have one on me.

jpe

Re: Booting from CD

Andrij CAde — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 10:57:44 GMT

So the saga continues,

I did the b -flags 0,1

and then it started to boot and still said that there was not enough memory to continue

Re: Booting from CD

Volker Halle — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 11:29:53 GMT

Andrij,

please provide the full error messages and the commands you've entered. This will make troubleshooting much simpler...

Volker.

Re: Booting from CD

Hoff — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 11:33:13 GMT

>>>
I did the b -flags 0,1

and then it started to boot and still said that there was not enough memory to continue
<<<

What commands did you enter at SYSBOOT (the ones I cited or the ones Volker mentioned?), and what is the text of the error that you received from the bootstrap?

"not enough memory to continue" is not an error text typical of the bootstrap itself, and there are a number of errors with slightly different wording that could be the trigger here. Having the exact text seems a little fussy, but it really helps figure out the particular memory constraint here. (The original question reference blocks, which implies disk storage and not a physical nor virtual memory error.)

Re: Booting from CD

Andrij CAde — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 11:55:08 GMT

The exact messages are:

Message from user SYSTEM on DEP100
ERRFMT - Error Accessing Log File
%RMS-F-Ful, Device Full(Insufficient Space for Allocations

Message from User System on DEP100
ERRFMT - Deleteing ERRFMT Process
Error Log File Unwritable
To Restart ERRFMT Process, Use "@SYS$SYSTEM:Startup ERRFMT"

Re: Booting from CD

Heinz W Genhart — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 13:37:51 GMT

Hi Andrij

your system disk ist full!
Do a
$SHO DEV SYS$SYSDEVICE

and you will see the system disk has 0 or near 0 blocks of free space.

In previous articels, you can find many suggestions, what you can do now.

- Purge sys$sysdevice:[000000...]
- Delete sys$sysdevice:[000000...]*.log.*
- Reply/enable
Reply/log
Purge sys$startup:

etc. etc.

Regrads

Geni