converting /stand from hfs to vxfs on Itanium 11.23.

[RAC_1]

Somehow, during install /stand was seleted as HFS in stead of VXFS. We want to set /stand to VXFS. How to do that. Is re-install the only option? I am not able to boot thrugh alternate kernel also or into single user mode also.

[Wouter Jagers]

I would think you should be able to unmount /stand when your system is up and running (kernel is loaded), no ?

Whether a switch to VxFS would be 'safe' is something I don't know, though.. I have itanium nor 11.23 experience :/

But if your other option is a reinstall, why not satisfy (y)our curiousity and give it a shot ;-)

Cheers,
Wout

[melvyn burnard]

There is a vxfsconvert command, but the man page states you should NOT use this on the /stand file system.
I woul drecommend for safety you should create an Ignite image that is interactive, and recoevr from this making the relevant changes to tell /stand to be a vxfs file system and not hfs

[RAC_1]

This is what I tried and it failed.
1. Mirror disk taken out. (lvreduce -m 0)
2. copied /stand files to alternate location.
3. unmounted /stand. Did newfs with vxfs.
4. Copied back kernel files to /stand and mounted as vxfs.
5. updated fstab and reboot.

IT CRASHED. Just can't boot it now. Thinking of re-installing the OS.

Is there any procedure other than re-install?

[Heironimus]

As you've now learned, you can not boot from vxfs. This is a common thing across many UNIX platforms - the kernel has to be located on one of a limited set of filesystem types that the loader knows how to read. HP puts the kernel in /stand, which needs to be HFS.

If you kept an HFS version of /stand on an alternate boot disk you could boot from that, if you set it up. But it looks like you just reduced the mirror and newfs'd.

You might be able to boot to a recovery shell from the HP-UX install media and recreate /stand as HFS, but I've never tried to do anything like that. To be honest, if there's nothing already on the system and you can take the downtime I'd recommend just calling it a learning experience and reigniting.

[Florian Heigl (new acc)]

The crash has an easy reason!

You forgot to do
lvlnboot -b /dev/vg00/lvol1 before rebooting.

If You want to, you can still fix this, it
requires around 2 hours, been there, done that, but I didn't take notes back then.
Roughly it goes like this:

boot install cd, rescue mode
loadfile vgscan, vgchange and all these
activate vg00
chroot into 'your' system
run lvlnboot now

done.

My failed attempt was at extending /stand, but retried it the day after fixing, and have come up with a stable process; You don't need the remirroring bits, but the notes and such should still help you.

http://forums1.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?threadId=1011573

[Florian Heigl (new acc)]

> Is there any procedure other than re-install?

and, please, next time, just split the mirror by shutting down and pulling the *primary* vg00 disk[s] before testing in low quorum mode. ;)

[Heironimus]

Hmm, actually I guess you can use vxfs for /stand on the newer Itaniums, thanks to EFI (landmark for me, I think this is the first thing I've ever found about EFI that I didn't absolutely hate :). Though I'm not sure how valuable that is, since /stand is so small and changes so rarely.... Still, good to know.

[Florian Heigl (new acc)]

Hey EFI is great - I have always missed the [bootmenu] hacks I had in my autoexec.bat (or was it config.sys?) back in the DOS days.

Some people had a hangman game going in their boot procedure, and finally we get that option on our superdomes too. not to forget reimplementing a useless partition scheme below lvm, booting of an error-prone FAT32 partition and at random times forgetting about your boot configured paths.

But honestly - it could have been worse, like, i.e. an AMI BIOS.

:))

[TwoProc]

Well RAC, I would have simply commented that it's not doable, if you read the manual for HPUX and lots of other UNIX OSs. However, it seems that Florian has got a handle on this process (btw - good posting). I know you've got your reasons - but can I ask why it's worth the work for the change of such a small filesystem? Maybe I'm overlooking something here that I need to think about too!

P.S. I must have missed the posting for it, but congrats on the new stylin' headpiece.