Viewing boot parameters while booted?

[Gordon Morrison]

I'm recently returned to TRU64 after some years.
Is there a non-intrusive way to view the boot parameters on a DS20?
On a GS140?
On an ES40?
On an AS2100A?

The first 2 are running TRU64 V5.1
The ES40 is running OpenVMS V7.1-2
The AS2100 is running OpenVMS V6.2-1H3

Unfortunately, at present I have no console access to the ES40.

Thanks

[Rob Leadbeater · Accepted solution]

Hi,

From Tru64 you can use consvar.

Individual variables can be grabbed with

# consvar -g

or you can list all with

# consvar -l

eg:

# consvar -g bootdef_dev
bootdef_dev = dsk13(4 paths)
#


Cheers,

Rob

[Steven Schweda]

On VMS, there's a lexical function, F$GETENV,
but I don't know if it was available on VMS
versions so old.

alp $ write sys$output f$getenv( "boot_dev")
SCSI 1 6 0 0 0 0 0

alp $ write sys$output f$getsyi( "version")
V7.3-2

[Gordon Morrison]

Thanks Steven. It does work on older versions, though I'm not sure what to make of the output for boot_dev:

write sys$output f$getenv( "boot_dev")
RAID 0 7 0 0 0 0 0

write sys$output f$getsyi( "version")
V6.2-1H3

------

write sys$output f$getenv( "boot_dev")
SCSI 1 3 0 0 0 0 0

write sys$output f$getsyi( "version")
V7.1-2

------
Is there a command to get all of the parameters or do you need to get them all individually?
Can you extract a list of SRM parameters?

[Steven Schweda]

> [...] what to make of the output for boot_dev:

It's the kind of hardware path used by the
firmware, but it's not the kind of simple
device name you would specify. There may be
some actual information somewhere, but I
don't know where. On mine,
"SCSI 1 6 0 0 0 0 0" is DKA0. I'd guess that
the "1" and "6" are related to the bus and
slot for the SCSI adapter, and three of those
"0"s are for "A" and "0" (SCSI ID) and "0"
(SCSI LUN) in "DKA0[00]", but I don't know
which three, and right now I don't have an
Alpha which I can play with to try to figure
it out.

> SCSI 1 3 0 0 0 0 0

I'd guess that that's a DKx0 (x = A, B, ...).

> RAID 0 7 0 0 0 0 0

I don't have any RAID adapters, so I know
even less about that one.

A Google search for:
"SCSI 1 6 0 0 0 0 0"
found:
http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=263178

which suggests that
bootdef_dev dka0.0.0.6.1
and
bootdef_dev SCSI 1 6 0 0 0 0 0
are related.

Perhaps a search for bootdef_dev would find
some different/better examples.

> Is there a command to get all of the
> parameters or do you need to get them all
> individually?

F$GETENV does one at a time.

Can you extract a list of SRM parameters?

All I know is: HELP Lexicals F$GETENV

There's also an example program showing the
lower-level system services at:

http://labs.hoffmanlabs.com/node/548

[Gordon Morrison]

OK, Thanks.