Problem with EFI boot on RX2600

[tjohnsonbtl]

Hi guys,

Got a problem with an old RX2600 series. I was in the middle of adding some storage to the system and rebooted and now I am faced with the below at the console. I am unable to interrupt the boot process to enter single user mode to back out my changes to /etc/fstab. Hoping someone can help!

- - - - - - - - - - Prior Console Output - - - - - - - - - -
-- 'SysROM:Floating-Point Software Assistance Handler' returned Success
1 0 0x00020B 0x0000000000000006 EFI Launching Boot Manager
0 0 0x0015B2 0x0000000048497761 boot time event
Scsi(Pun1,Lun0) HP 73.4GST373455LC HPC8 (320 MBytes/sec)
Scsi(Pun2,Lun0) HP 73.4GST373455LC HPC8 (320 MBytes/sec)
HP Fibre Channel Mass Storage Driver v1.23 (0x1.17)

- - - - - - - - - - - - Live Console - - - - - - - - - - - -

I see this on every boot now. If I run "pc -c" or otherwise to reboot the system I'm not presented with any method to interrupt the boot to get to single user mode. Dead in the water! Is there a way for me to get in here and wrangle things around?

I'll tell you that I apparently have an Ignite backup but have zero clue how to use this, but it doesn't appear that I can attempt to restore this machine since I can't get into EFI to change what the chassis will boot to.

[Duncan Edmonstone · Accepted solution]

Looks like you haven't reached the point in the boot where you can break out to the EFI shell... If I was going to hazard a guess at the problem I'd say its possible you have full scanning and enumeration of FC LUNs enabled in your EFI boot parameters (rather than just enumerating the boot paths listed in NVRAM). To test this hypothesis you have two options...

- Leave the boot at this point - eventually it should finish enumerating the LUNs down the FC paths and continue - chances are you will miss the chance to interrupt the boot process though, so the other choice will be:

- Physically disconnect the FC ports on the server and reboot - it should sail straight through to the point where you can break out to an EFI shell. From that point you will need to change the EFIScanLevel parameter in the EFI boot driver for the cards in question - that depends on the model oif FC card you have - can you tell us which card(s) you have?

[tjohnsonbtl]

Hi Duncan,

Thank you for the reply.

I'll say that I left the server up for approximately 5 days (maybe 6) without any movement from the session log I pasted in the original post. The system is otherwise idle at this point.

This system does boot from the disks in the chassis so I can have the FC cable pulled that connects to the other storage.

As far as the card type (pulled from an old fcmsutil output) :

Driver Version = @(#) libtd.a HP Fibre Channel Tachyon XL2 Driver B.11.23.0809 $Date: 2008/05/29 12:44:45 $Revision: r11.23/8

For EFIScanLevel value change, I can get in to the EFI settings and then change the value to 1? I pulled some interesting instructions from a NetApp support page. I would do this for the FC controller with steps 1 through 11, correct? https://library.netapp.com/ecmdocs/ECMLP2346410/html/GUID-A63EBD26-B4F4-40A0-BEE4-A4CA46FDCADC.html

Thank you!

[Duncan Edmonstone]

The process will be similar to that in the netapp doc, but there may be a few variations as the card you have is not a Qlogic card. The parameter may even have a slightly different name rather than EFIscanlevel

But you need to make sure the parameter is set to NOT enumerate FC paths and LUNs - there's no reason for EFI to do this if you are booting from local disks - in the cas eof EFIscanlevel that would mean ensuring it is set to 0 - not sure what it will mean for your card..

I also see some notes that for the A6795A card, the EFI FC driver is only loaded if there is a boot option set up in the EFI boot menu that points to a path out the FC card - do you think you should have one of those? If not check what paths you do have set up for boot in EFI and get rid of any entries that point out the FC cards.

[Duncan Edmonstone]

Maybe worth reading this as well?

https://community.hpe.com/t5/Integrity-Servers/rx2620-hangs-at-boot-time/m-p/3687362

I actually like my own suggestion in there of temporarily zoning the SAN so the HP-UX system cannot see any targets or LUNs so you can determine if the issue is a favric login problem or a LUN scanning problem  - I guess I was smarter in those days!

[tjohnsonbtl]

Thanks again Duncan.

I'm not sure on the model of card but I don't have a single issue removing non-local disks from the EFI boot menu at all! I'm going to give that a whirl.

[tjohnsonbtl]

Hi again Duncan!

We were able to track down the issue. It was an FC cable that a local resource had decided its new home was the inactive HBA on the back of the server. Once that was unplugged I restarted the chassis through ILO and had EFI boot menus. The OS came right back up without any issue.

Many thanks for your assistance!