AUTOSEARCH - AUTOBOOT to alternate boot path does not work

[FLQ]

Hi all,

I'm currently in a MC/SG class in Toronto and I was trying to boot from the alternate disk when the primary was not available....It does not work!!

I will not post the steps I took to setup mirror because it works when I type "bo alt" at boot prompt.

Here is the setup:

A-500 with 1 processor
1 GB of RAM
2 internal disks
2 external disks
HP-Ux v11.00

Here is what I did:

1 - Setup mirror on external disk (0/6/2/0.5.0)
2 - setboot -p 0/6/2/0.5.0 -a 0/0/1/1.15.0 -s on -b on
3 - Reboot on "pri" = OK
4 - Power off "pri" = Oh my god it worked.... :-)) as expected.
5 - Reboot..wait...wait...boom error message saying boot possible but the only thing to do now is Ctrl-B, RS
6 - If I "bo alt" I'm OK

Question : Why doesn't it boot automatically from the alternate path?

TIA

Francis

BTW I will try for the third time to assign points to the answer as I was not able to do it the last times.

[Domenico_5]

hi francis

but if you stop the boot sequence, use sea for search disk and boot from secon, you can boot??

Anc can you remember how you have mirrored the disk?

[Christopher McCray_1]

Hello,

When setting up the disk for mirroring, did you execute:

# mkboot -a "hpux -lq" /dev/rdsk/c#t#d#

for both disks?

execute the following to find out:

# lifcp /dev/rdsk/c#t#d#:AUTO -

to read the contents of the AUTO file

Hope this helps
Chris

[Ceesjan van Hattum]

Hi,
I'm not an expert on this issue, but i know that MC/SG is only active after the start-scripts. It's only a piece of software with which you can define swapable packages.
So.. your booting problem has nothing to do with MC/SG. Back to basic hpux on the A500. As for as i know, this machine is not 'Fault Tolerant Hardware' using flashcards or such. Therefor it simply tries to start with 'bo pri'.
The 'ALT' is not a backup mechanism for PRI. It is only a definition for a second bootable device, but manual intervention is needed, it is not each others backup.

Greetings,
Ceesjan

[FLQ]

OK here we go again.... :-((

Answer #1

1 - pvcreate -B /dev/rdsk/c6t5d0
2 - vgextend /dev/vg00 /dev/dsk/c6t5d0
3 - mkboot /dev/dsk/c6t5d0
4 - mkboot -a "hpux -lq" /dev/rdsk/c6t5d0
5 - mkboot -a "hpux -lq" /dev/rdsk/c1t15d0
6 - for i in 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9;do lvextend -m 1 /dev/vg00/lvol$i;done
7 - setboot -p 0/6/2/0.5.0 -a 0/0/1/1.15.0 -s on -b on

All these commands returned successfully.
As said in previous, I CAN boot with "bo alt" and if I poweroff the external drive it does work.

Answer #2

lifcp /dev/rdsk/c6t5d0:AUTO -
I get "hpux -lq"

lifcp /dev/rdsk/c1t15d0:AUTO -
I get "hpux -lq"

TIA

Francis

[S.K. Chan]

Try using this string in the AUTO file instead ..

mkboot -a "hpux -lq (;0)/stand/vmunix" /dev/rdsk/c#t#d#

I usually use the complete boot string and so far it hasn't fail me yet.

[FLQ]

Sorry all, I resolved the problem myself...:-)


The problem was that I was not waiting long enough for the "Alert Message" timeout...my fault

By default it is set in the GSP->AC at 60 seconds. Since it display alert messages by default at level 3 and higher and this message is at level 6, I could have set the threshold at level 7 or higher and not see the message.

After I waited 1 min, it booted off the ALT path and the OS came up.

The only thing is that the code does not clear the screen so I do not know from which device it booted from unless I'm the one who setup the machine.

I really appeciate the forums because we can resolve the problems faster and we get input from different point of view.

Thanks to all that answered.

Cya

Francis

[Bill McNAMARA_1]

you will still need to -lq..as the others mention.

testing that the alt boot disk is bootable is not enough,

Later,
Bill

[Darrell Allen]

To see which disk you booted from:
echo boot_string/S|adb /stand/vmunix /dev/mem

Darrell

[Christopher McCray_1]

Hello, again

I was looking through your steps and I didnt see the step where you updated the LIF area on the disk to be mirrored:

mkboot -b /usr/sbin/diag/lif/updatediaglif2 -p PAD -p LABEL -p ISL -p AUTO -p HPUX /dev/rdsk/c#t#d#

or did you just omit the step from your output to us?

Chris

[FLQ]

I understand that I could check which disk has been booted but it was just a comment about the screen not being refreshed when I booted the box.

In regards to Christopher question, do I absolutely need to issue the command you gave me? Because it works fine now that I wait for the timeout...:-))

Thanx

Francis

[Christopher McCray_1]

Not necessarily. execute the lifls command to view the contents of the LIF area and take note of the dates. They may or may not need be updated.

Chris

[Christopher McCray_1]

Sorry, incomplete thought.

Make sure the items specified in the mkboot command are there. The mkboot command is also used to update the LIF area, which may need be done. It is possible that this disk was once a boot disk before, the reason it worked without the command.

Hope this clears things up

Chris

[Christopher McCray_1]

Sorry about the excessive posts. Disregard the "must have been a boot disk before" remark. I was thinking about other things at that time. You just want to make sure that the items I mentioned are there and faily recent. I will go now.

Thank you for you patience

Chris