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Re: vparboot won't :-(

 
Neil Truby
Occasional Contributor

vparboot won't :-(

I have had some more memory fitted to my rp7400. Now, when I try to boot the 4th vpar (the other 3 are fine), I get:

[hamvpar4]
Failed to open (0/4/0/0.97.13.19.0.0.0;)/stand/vmunix
Failed to load (0/4/0/0.97.13.19.0.0.0;)/stand/vmunix

The boot disk is a SAN disk. I've checked all the physical cabling and it's fine.

I'm a bit lost now. I guess the path name of the boot disk may have changed, but I'm unsure of what to do to list what disk paths that vpar *can* see to try those.

Any insight gratefully received.
thx
Neil
4 REPLIES 4
Mridul Shrivastava
Honored Contributor

Re: vparboot won't :-(

Why should a path name get changed?

If you don't change the config (e.g. use another switch port to connect the array) the path will remain.
hardware path is not a problem here, but the config depends of the hardware path.

Try executing vparefiutil -u from all the vpars and check the hardware path by booting in npar.

Have a look at the following thread, very much similar to yours:

http://forums11.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?threadId=1207672
Time has a wonderful way of weeding out the trivial

Re: vparboot won't :-(

Neil,

If this is a PA-RISC (HP9000) server, vparefiutil as suggested above won't do anything (or in fact even exist!).

Can you confirm that this vPar was able to boot *before* you added the memory, or is it new? One other silly question - has this vPar ever been rebooted successfully before since it was installed?

The only thing that can change a disks path is:
i) if the FCID of the storage port the disk is presented on changed in the SAN. This would normally only happen if the FC switch had its domain id changed, or if the storage was moved to another port - although some Cisco FC switches can assign new FCIDs every time they restart if they aren't setup correctly.
ii) If the disk array adminsitrator chnages the LUN id the disk is presented on from the disk array.

There is, unforunately no easy way to see disks out of a FC card when that card isn't in a running copy of the OS. Unless you can really establish what has changed on the SAN and figure out the new path, you really only have three choices:

i) Do you have an Ignite server? If so, boot the vPar off the Ignite server as if you were going to do an install, then drop out to a shell and run ioscans etc. Make sure not to continue with the install!

ii) Otherwise either add the FC cards temporarily to another vPar and run ioscan (that will require you to reboot the other vPar!) -or-

iii) Boot the entrire system in nPar mode (off a DVD should be sufficient) and run ioscans etc.

I fully expect a note in here from SEP telling us how this is because SAN boot is such a bad idea... ah well!

HTH

Duncan

I am an HPE Employee
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Neil Truby
Occasional Contributor

Re: vparboot won't :-(

>> If this is a PA-RISC (HP9000) server, vparefiutil as suggested above won't do anything (or in fact even exist!).

Yes, I had thought that was Integrity only, thanks.

>> Can you confirm that this vPar was able to boot *before* you added the memory, or is it new? One other silly question - has this vPar ever been rebooted successfully before since it was installed?

Yes, the vpar was up-and-running for many weeks, until yesterday. From doing a last reboot on vpar1 it seems that *that* vpar had been up since Aug 2007. I'm not sure what that tells us as I don't believe I can get any info about vpar4 (as it's down, obviously!), but I gues it's possible it also had not been rebooted since.

There is, unforunately no easy way to see disks out of a FC card when that card isn't in a running copy of the OS. Unless you can really establish what has changed on the SAN and figure out the new path, you really only have three choices:

My colleague had already suggested the 2nmd of youer options - delete vpar4, add its disks to vpar3 and ioscan that to see what's goin on, then recreate the vpar. I shall report back.

Thanks, really helpful reply!

Re: vparboot won't :-(

Of course what this shows up is that if you do SAN boot you should *always* have a suitable Ignite Server available for just these kind of situations. I honestly think we should make it a *requirement* of supporting SAN boot installations.

Ah well, I think some of the newer versions of vPars are finally going to support boot from DVD, so I guess theres a long term solution in sight for these kkinds of situations...

HTH

Duncan

I am an HPE Employee
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