"bad LIF magic" error during restore with Ignite

[U. Kaan Sönal]

Hello,
I have an HP-UX 11i system. HP support confirms that, my boot disk is out of order and the mirror is corrupted. So I have to restore with Ignite backup. The problem is, I can not be sure which tape has the Ignite backup. When I put in the tape, boot, interrupt, search for devices, see the tape and type boot p, I get the following message:

Booting...
Boot IO Dependent Code (IODC) revision 1

IPL error: bad LIF magic.
.... FAILED.

Does that mean, this tape does not have the Ignite backup? Please say no!
(On my first try to start a thread, I had a problem. If this is a duplicate, I will delete one)

[Mridul Shrivastava · Accepted solution]

To solve this problem try running a cleaning tape through the tape drive
and try booting again (see warning below).

If this does not fix the problem, you can check whether the really tape
contains a LIF area using the Ignite/UX command "copy_boot_tape". More
information on the copy_boot_tape command can be can be found in the man
page copy_boot_tape(1m).

An example to determine if the tape can be booted from (This assumes that
there is directory called /tmp/ignitetest and it contains at least 20Mb of
free space):

# copy_boot_tape -u /dev/rmt/0mn -b -d /tmp/ignitetest
Rewinding tape /dev/rmt/0mn.
Extracting the boot area to /tmp/ignitetest/bootimage.
14242+1 records in
14242+1 records out
Boot file contents.
volume ISL10 data size 281239 directory size 3
filename type start size implement created
===============================================================
ISL -12800 16 240 0 00/07/26 08:45:17
AUTO -12289 256 1 0 00/07/26 08:45:18
INDEX BIN 264 1 0 00/07/26 08:45:18
CONFIG BIN 272 26 0 00/07/26 08:45:18
HPUX -12928 304 880 0 00/07/26 08:45:18
INSTALL -12290 1184 25354 0 00/07/26 08:45:25
INSTALLFS -12290 26544 31744 0 00/07/26 08:45:32
FWWKAR BIN 58288 1 0 00/07/26 08:45:32
INSTCMDS BIN 58296 10154 0 00/07/26 08:45:35
SYSCMDS BIN 68456 45435 0 00/07/26 08:45:45
SCRIPTS BIN 113896 41 0 00/07/26 08:45:45

Rewinding and ejecting /dev/rmt/0mn.

The example tape contains a LIF area and should be bootable. If there is a
problem with this area, you should see output similar to the following:

# copy_boot_tape -u /dev/rmt/0mn -b -d /tmp/ignitetest
Rewinding tape /dev/rmt/0mn.
Extracting the boot area to /tmp/ignitetest/bootimage.
0+2 records in
0+2 records out
Boot file contents.
lifls: Can't list /tmp/ignitetest//bootimage; not a LIF volume
ERROR: lif image corrupted. Tape heads may need cleaning.

Warning: The tape drive only be cleaned according to the cleaning
instructions applicable to the tape drive. A DDS tape drive should be cleaned
2-3 times in this situation (especially pre DDS3 tape drives). DLT tape
drives should never be cleaned unless the cleaning light is on.

[F Verschuren]

Too possibilities.

Bad tape divice (mayby just cleaning) (my first guess) ore leader
Bad tape (no ignite)
it is alsow whise to check the SCSI termination on the bus.

It can alsow be that the tape unit that was used is not suported to boot from, what kind of tapes/divicedo you use

[Florian Heigl (new acc)]

Which command did You use to search for devices?

'search' or 'search ipl' ?

You should use the second one, as it will only list *bootable* media - that's probably the easiest way to locate Your ignite tape.

Furthermore, if You have another HP-UX box and tape drive available, there's a command to read the tape header, it's just I don't know it off my head.

just make two stacks of tapes and sort out all that reply to 'search ipl'.

If You want, You can make things easier for You by automatically printing tape labels after backup is done, we can surely work out something that will lower the chance of lost tapes (though I very much know the problem, at least for the boxes at home :>)

[U. Kaan Sönal]

As Mridul wrote, I checked the tapes with copy_boot_tape command. In the end, we found out that backup tapes are missing. But, at least, we are sure now.

I distributed Mridul's answer to my colleagues :-)

Thanks.