Booting from CD

[Andrij CAde]

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.

[Steven Schweda]

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.

[Heinz W Genhart · Accepted solution]

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

[Andrij CAde]

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

[Jan van den Ende]

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

[Andrij CAde]

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

[Heinz W Genhart]

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

[Andrij CAde]

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

[Volker Halle]

MOUNT/OVER=ID DKA0:

Volker.

[The Brit]

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.