Core dumps at boot - HP-UX 11.0

[Vineet Khandpur]

I have a development system here, so losing it is no big deal (other than a time waster). Trying to figure out what happened, as to not repeat doing this. And I'm new to HPUX sys admin (well, *nix sysadmin in general)

What I did:
-booted into single user mode (hpux -is)
-having the OpenSource package on the machine, I went to invoke bash (/opt/OpenSource/bin/bash)
-hadn't invoked mountall, so of course it pooped, and said something about a core dump.

(here's where I think my fatal flaw was)

-ignored the warning message (yeah, duh) and proceeded with my changes to the file system (lvextend and extendfs on /usr, just to see how it was done)
-invoked shutdown -r -y 0

got the attached core dump message and now the system is pooched.

Again, no big deal that I have to re-build the system, just wondering if someone can explain what exactly happend. Did something get over-written by the original core dump that made mounting the filesystem impossible?

Thanks.

[Mel Burslan]

Looks like your LVM command corrupted your root disk. After booting into single user mode, try to mount vg00 filesystems one by one, manually. It sounds like you will not be able to mount the /usr mountpoint, if this is where you got the error message before the system pooped out.

I do not see any other way than reloading the system fresh from the CDs or from a recovery tape.

[Vineet Khandpur]

Thanks.

Where did I go wrong?

While in single user mode:
lvextend -L 1024 /dev/vg00/lvol7
#[thus adding a gig to /usr]
extendfs /dev/vg00/lvol7

I left /etc/fstab & /etc/mnttab alone

Did I miss something in extending the logical volume?

It's a 73 GB SCSI, but I was only using something like 4 GB.

Anyway, if I missed something, let me know, otherwise I'm going to reload the system and try again.

Thanks

[Stephen Keane]

If you boot into the ISL/IPL prompt then issue

ISL> hppux ls

What do you get?

[Vineet Khandpur]

See the attached text file from the original post.

Can't even get into single user mode

Actually, you have hppux Is
Did you mean hpux -is?

[Torsten.]

Your command

lvextend -L 1024 /dev/vg00/lvol7

should extend you lvol7 to a total size of 1Gig. Because you told us, it's already 4Gig, lvextend should give you a message.
Any message was given?
like
lvextend: "LogicalExtentsNumber" is not bigger than current setting.

after lvextend check the lvol using

lvdisplay -v /dev/vg00/lvol7 | more

Now boot your system in maintenance mode ( ISL> hpux -lm ) and check the lvol.

But since the lvol contains /usr a restore will be necessary if the data are lost.

[Steven E. Protter · Accepted solution]

hpux -lm

LVM mode.

Where you went wrong was doing anything but what was vital in single user mode.

You do ONLY what MUST be done and then you go back to multi user mode.

Probably you have files hidden in folders that are normally mounted.

If you have a filesystem called /smith on normal bdf

You have a folder named /smith

If in single user mode you copy something into /smith its not visible when you are backup with a filesystem mounted on the folder and it still takes up space.

Your core dump is probably hidden. Somehow, to save your system you need to boot single user (is) or lvm maintenance mode -lm

Find the core dump and remove it. Hopefully it has not hammered anything.

When the root (/) filesystem gets filled on 11.00 systems, files like /etc/group and /etc/passwd tend to get hammered and reduced to zero bytes. This can make booting and other normal operations problematic after the full fs issue has been resolved.

SEP

[Vineet Khandpur]

Actually, the whole file system was about 4 GB. Can't remember the actualy size of /usr.

It was only a minimal 11.0 install (just a "Teach yourself HP UX in a couple of weeks" box)

No messages appeared after invoking the lvextend command.

I immediately followed up with the extendfs.

By the way, I was following an MOP I found on the forums, here.

Bad drive? I doubt it, it was a new drive....

[Stephen Keane]

"Actually, you have hppux Is
Did you mean hpux -is"

No I meant ...

ISL> hpux ls

To see if the boot loader can see what is in the /stand directory

[Vineet Khandpur]

Right, well, hpux -lm resulted in another crash & dump.

I think she's dead.

I'll do an OS reload, and try not to fat finger any more commands.

Thanks for all of the help everyone!

Regards,
vk

[Vineet Khandpur]

See my last post.