pfs_mount of Oracle CD Question?????

[Ken Polakowski_1]

Can some one please shed some light on this situation:

Two brand new L3000-6x systems. These systems are identical in every way. The hardware and os HPUX 11.i (patchlevel as of march 2003) were installed by HP services and turned over to us.

We started to install our applications. Oracle installed on system A without a problem. We were unable to mount the install CD on System B.

The procedure that was used in both cases was from the Oracle install instructions as follows:

nohup /usr/sbin/pfs_mountd &
nohup /usr/sbin/pfsd &
nohup pfs_mount -t rrip -x unix /dev/dsk/c3t2d0 /cdrom

The error message returned was:

/usr/sbin/pfsd: /usr/sbin/pfsd: can't register pfsd.rpc with pfs_mountd.rpc:
rldjded1: RPC: Program not registered

I called support and they had me mount the CD as follows:

pfs_mountd &
pfsd &
pfs_mount -o xlat=unix /dev/rdsk/c3t2d0 /cdrom

The CD mounted without a problem. The Support Engineer could not explain why.

We're a brand new HP customer. Needless to say lack of an explanantion is not giving management a warm and fuzzy feeling.

Also, can someone tell me how to determine which procedure to use. I have 3 more systems to work on.

Thanx in Advance for any information.

Ken Polakowski

[John Poff]

Hi,

If you have the latest patches, you should have the patch for the mount command which lets you use it to mount a Rock Ridge CD-ROM. If you have that, you won't need the stinking pfs_mount program. Do a 'man mount_cdfs' and if you see references to the Rock Ridge format. If you don't grab patch PHCO_25841 and put it on your box. It's the best way to go.

JP

[Patrick Wallek]

PFS is JUNK! HP has recently see the light and designed the base mount command so it will work with things like Oracle CDs.

Try this and see if it works better for you:

# mount -o rr /dev/dsk/c3t2d0 /cdrom

If you are not careful with pfs* stuff you can hose your system such that only a reboot will fix it.

Use the above mount command and you will NEVER have any problems with PFS since you won't be using it anymore.

[Steven E. Protter]

Patrick's comments which I mostly agree with aside, to mount oracle disks and have installations work correctly off the dreaded Rock Ridge format, you need to be able to mount the suckers.

Here is a script that does just that.

You run it as root and then pfs_mount /cdrom to mount up the cd.

Attached.

SEP

[James R. Ferguson]

Hi Ken:

Offhand, I'm not sure why you had the failure the first time.

Portable File System (PFS) mounting is fraught with problems. FIrstly, it requires some RPC services, notably 'nfs' and 'mountd' to be running. More importantly, if you fail to use 'pfs_umount' and/or you fail kill the launched 'pfs' daemons in the *reverse* order in which they were started, then you will hopeless hang your server. A reboot will be necessary to recover!

That said, there is a superior alternative to PFS mounts and it works absoultely fine with Oracle installations.

For 11.11, download and install these patches from the ITRC Patch database:

PHCO_25841
PHKL_28025
PHKL_26269

This will allow you to natively mount CDs in RockRidge Format (like Oracle uses).

While this requires a reboot to install, it is far superior to the old 'pfs' mount methodology. To mount your CD/DVD, do:

# /usr/sbin/mount -F cdfs -e -o ro,rr device_file

Now, forget PFS mounts and all their problems!

Regards!

...JRF...

[Steven E. Protter]

upon further reflection, I'm going to have to test Patrick's command.

Consider my script a historic rellic unless you hear otherwise.

SEP

[Bryan D. Quinn]

Hey Ken,

Here is the procedure that we use:

Make sure that your /etc/pfs_fstab file has the following entry:

/dev/dsk/cXtXdX /cdrom pfs-rrip xlat=unix,soft 0 0

(Where /dev/dsk/cXtXdX is the device file for your CDROM drive.)

START THE PFS SERVICES:

nohup /usr/sbin/pfs_mountd &

nohup /usr/sbin/pfsd &

(Be sure to put the & at the end, this will run the services in the background. Also note that after issuing each of these commands it may be necessary to hit ENTER once or twice more to get back to a prompt.)

MOUNT THE CD (2 different variations):

pfs_mount -t rrip -o ro -o cdcase /dev/dsk/cXtXdX /cdrom

(The -t rrip says to mount in Rockbridge International format, you will need this for certain applications which specify this type of mount. Also the /dev/dsk/cXtXdX is the device file for the CDROM drive.)

pfs_mount -o ro -o cdcase /dev/dsk/cXtXdX /cdrom

(/dev/dsk/cXtXdX refers to the device file for the CDROM drive.)


Please disregard the descriptions in parenthesis, I wrote this to put in an emergency database we have. So I wrote it for people who were not necessarily familiar with UNIX.

Hope this helps!
-Bryan

[Paul Sperry]

Don't use PFS it has know issues!

For 11.i download and install the
Rock Ridge extension for ISO-9660

PHCO_25841
PHKL_26269 (re-boot required)
PHKL_28025

Then mount as follows,

# mount -F cdfs -o rr /dev/dsk/c3d2t0 /cdrom

[Bill Douglass]

The only functional difference for the two sets of commands in not explicitely specifying the Rock Ridge format for the CD. If the CD is not in RR format, that could cause the command to fail, though it seems unikely that you'd get the error messages you received.

Elsewhere on this forum, I read that the recommended approach is to dump the pfs applications and install the following patches (for 11i)

PHKL_26269, PHKL_25760 and PHKL_26269

These install Rock Ridge support into the kernel, and allow you to mount CDs with the standard mount command.

[Yogeeraj_1]

hi,

just wanted to contribute to this thread by posting the script i use to both mount and unmount my Oracle CDs.

I've already forgotten about the errors i have been getting before that... :)

hope this helps!

best regards
Yogeeraj

[Ken Polakowski_1]

Thanx for the responses. I did not get a chance to try any of the suggestions. I had to reboot the systems in question do to the installation of some additional hardware. After the complete shutdown and reboot the Oracle procedure functioned properly across all systems. If I have to do do oracle installs in the future, i'll try some of the suggestions.

Ken

[patrick_119]

I had the same problem just now with mounting of oracle cd's. Thank You JAmes R. Fegurson. U have made my day.

rgds

PAtrick