Creating a new System Disk on IA64 OpenVMS from an IMAGE.

[Arturo Mejia]

Hi.
How can I create a system disk on Itaniums Servers?
In Alphaserver, I used Backup/Image (booting with a CD), and then, restore on a new disk. But in Itanium, its not work.

Best Regards.

[Steven Schweda]

I haven't tried it (yet), but I thought that
it was supposed to work. It might be
interesting to see the actual commands used,
and what, exactly, "not work" means here.

[Hein van den Heuvel]

Hmm, it 'works' for me.

Please explain your steps in more detail, and please explain why you think it failed.

Did you use the SET BOOT command?
Google! (You'll find Hoff's explanation amongst others)

Here is what I did one of my systems the other day...

$init/stru=5/clus=32/head=200000/max=500000 dkb200: backupsys
$mount/for dkb200:
$backup/igno=inter/noinit syssysdevice: dkb200:
$set boot dkb200: ! Not needed for back/phys
$shutdown
:
mp
efi

... find new drive ...
... put in list as "OpenVMS Backup System disk"..
! Options
... boot Backup System disk.
:
Username: ...

$show log sys$sysdevice:
... dkb200:
Succes!

[Arturo Mejia]

I used the command:

$ backup/image $1$dka1: $1$dka200:

I booted from a DVD.

Then, in EFI Menu, I can not "add" the new disk, because "not a valid boot disk".

I think is a "EFI Partition Problem", but I don´t know what more must to do.

[Hoff]

Hola y buenas dias,

The usual approach to create a new system disk on OpenVMS I64 is to boot the distribution DVD (or the InfoServer or vKVM/vDVD stuff, or otherwise), and to perform the installation from there.

Now if you are cloning an existing system disk, then the typical and expected BACKUP /IMAGE sequence also works. I've performed this sequence on many occasions.

BACKUP /IMAGE ddcu_old: ddcu_new:

Or the two BACKUP commands of a saveset creation and restoration.

BACKUP/IMAGE ddcu_old: saveset.bck/SAVE
BACKUP /IMAGE saveset.bck/SAVE ddcu_new:

I prefer to INITIALIZE /ERASE the target disk before use. The EFI console and an existing GPT can get a bit wonky in some cases; best to start with an erased spindle.

BACKUP /IMAGE on V8.2 and later do operate as expected here, and the disk copies and the disk savesets can be created and restored and booted. Been there, done that.

Beware: you cannot use older versions of BACKUP. (Well, you can, but there are extra steps here that are needed before the disk is ready to boot. Best to stick to V8.2 or later BACKUP, and equivalent tools. Older versions of BACKUP do not know about the GPT structures.)

Now as for the usual confusions, you need to be careful with a couple of things around the EFI console. First off, the EFI console boot aliases remember the disk GUIDs. If things go weird, remove the aliases and re-add them.

Disk labels can need to be changed, particularly if this is a cluster and the original system disk is still around and still mounted; if you're cloning disks, you need change the label or the OpenVMS bootstrap gets cranky.

And a general request: please entirely expunge the phrase "does not work" from your IT vocabulary.

For this case, please instead include the details of the OpenVMS I64 software version(s) involved, the BACKUP commands used, the error messages received, and the particular Integrity Itanium platform used. Details on the source and target disk here would be useful, too. We can't answer a problem statement comprised of "it doesn't work" with anything other than questions. See above. We can ask questions and guess. But we can't answer "it doesn't work".

Gracias

[Arturo Mejia]

Set boot command, it is new for me..!!


Thanks a lot for your quicly answer..!!!


Best Regards.

[Hoff]

Ok, so there's a transfer (clone) underway from the SCSI disk in $1$DKA1: to the target disk $1$DKA200:.

$1$DKA1: is a somewhat unusual SCSI device name. What sort of SCSI device is that?

What sort of bits are on DKA1:? What does it contain?

Two obvious potential triggers here are that $1$DKA1: is not a valid OpenVMS I64 boot disk, or that the version of BACKUP that was used here is too old to work with OpenVMS I64 disks.

With an appropriate version of BACKUP, the SET BOOTBLOCK command should not be needed.

I have some details on how to use sys$setboot.exe to poke around posted; Google will find those.

The installation DVD is a bit different than the typical disk in two ways: it is El Torito ISO-9660, which means BACKUP /IMAGE doesn't work so well, and the disk (being a DVD) uses 2048-byte blocks and not the 512-byte blocks of a disk - BACKUP should deal with that, and there are mechanisms in SET BOOTBLOCK (and sys$setboot.exe) to deal with that, too.

If you really want to know the structure of bootable optical media with OpenVMS, get the document posted here:

http://64.223.189.234/node/28

[Hein van den Heuvel]

I managed to drop the critical /image switch from my backup example command. Sorry.

I thought the $SET BOOT would be needed after backup/image, but (of course) not after backup physical, but if Hoff says it is not needed, then it probably is not.
On the other hand, it takes no time/trouble to issue it!

>> I booted from a DVD.

Booted what? Oh... backup.
I just used the running, but idle system, and accepted the expected file access conflict warmings.

>> Then, in EFI Menu, I can not "add" the new disk, because "not a valid boot disk".

As an alternative to the menu add drill down, I though it was useful for my own understanding to select the 'shell' option and do the unix style directory walk down.
First on the original disk such that I knew what roughly should be there, next on an other disk I was playing with.

>> dka1:

Yeah, that's and odd name.
Probably a typo.
DKA0: fine, DKA100: fine, but DKA1 ... unlikely but not impossible right? (unit 0 lun 1)

Hein.

[Hoff]

The current versions of BACKUP /IMAGE use a callable API present within the SYS$SETBOOTSHR.EXE shareable image.

If you're interested and don't mind a look at the source listings for the details, there are latent diagnostics in the shareable image API that can be enabled. You can watch the API do its work.

If this is the installation DVD you're cloning, that gets a little more interesting as that's a hybrid format disk; it's not really a standard ODS-2 disk, it's dual-format.

[Andy Bustamante]

In your case is the source of your backup/image an Integrity system? You can't boot Alpha VMS on Integrity. You could restore an Alphaserver system disk, but don't expect to boot from it.

Andy Bustamante