VAXCluster Node Won't Boot Properly

[Volker Halle]

Phillip,

if you say everything is fine, if 'the cluster is physically isolated from the rest of the network', then I would conclude, that the boot parameters and the MOP and cluster configuration is o.k. and the satellites will all boot in an isolated network segment.

Note that much of the cluster formation code relies on multicast messages. There are situations, where network switches tend to drop (or filter out) those cluster multicast messages, which prevents your cluster from working !

If you are a network guy, look for ethernet frames with a protocol id of 60-07. The cluster multicast address will be AB-00-04-01-xx-xx, you can obtain your cluster's full MC address with $ MC SYSMAN CONF SHOW CLUSTER on the boot server.

Volker.

[Steve Reece_3]

Could it also be that, when the cluster is connected to the rest of the network, the wrong VAX system is responding to the request for a network boot? This then decides that it can't join a standalone node but can't communicate with the right node for one of the reasons like the network switches are dropping the packets?