Setting up alternate boot path.

[Dayanand Naik]

Hi,

We are have L-Class servers with identical HDD space, with one as a bootable disk. I've created a bootable tape and i want to restore on the other disk and test it. Is this possible.

My qts. are

1) How do i activate the other disk, when i restore the ignite tape.
2) how do i boot from the alternate disk.

I presume that setboot command is used for doing the same. Can someone guide me on the same.

Regards,
Dayanand Naik.

[Sridhar Bhaskarla]

Dayanand,

If the other disk is not part of the root volume group, then there is no problem. If it is, I would suggest you to reduce it from the volume group configuration and then prepare the make_recovery tape. However, after booting from the tape, you need to go through interactive process where you will get an option of specifying your boot disk and you can specify your other disk. To be on safer side, I would take out the original boot disk so that it will not get messed up during the recovery.

I presume you are doing this to test the ignite tape. Otherwise, you can mirror the logical volumes and make it bootable.

Need more details on setting up mirror boot disk?

-Sri

[linuxfan]

Hi,

First of all do a make_recovery of the first disk and note down the hwpath (I assume you don't want to overwrite what's on there right now) Then reboot the machine and boot off of the tape and interrupt the install of the ignite and there you will have options to change/specify your new root disk (would be handy if you already know the hwpath of the 2nd disk- this is a good practice to change/extend the partition size for /stand or / filesystems as well)

=====
To set bootpaths when at the BCH(when you interrupt the boot process)
path pri
path alt

=====
To set primary and alternate bootpaths (once you are in multi-user mode)

setboot -p -a

============
once you are booted, to determine which disk you are booted off of,
echo boot_string/S|adb /stand/vmunix /dev/mem

-HTH
I am RU

[Tim D Fulford]

Dayanard

The suggestion above about setboot is correct but you also need to do a few more things

I'll assume you JUST have 1 disk in vg00, primary disk /dev/dsk/c1t6d0

1 - Create the mirror disk, bootable, say /dev/rdsk/c2t6d0 is the mirror
pvcreate -B[f] /dev/dsk/c2t6t0

2 - Put LVM boot info stuff into lif area
mkboot -l /dev/dsk/c2t6d0

3 - Make sure the AUTO file is correct
mkboot -a "hpux -lq" /dev/dsk/c1t6d0
mkboot -a "hpux -lq" /dev/dsk/c2t6d0
Check string "hpux -lq" in in both AUTO files
lifcp /dev/dsk/c1t6d0:AUTO -
lifcp /dev/dsk/c2t6d0:AUTO -

4 - As above answers do "setboot"

5 - Mirror vg00
lvextend -m 1 /dev/vg00/lvol1 /dev/dsk/c2t6d0
lvextend -m 1 /dev/vg00/lvol2 /dev/dsk/c2t6d0
lvextend -m 1 /dev/vg00/lvol3 ...
:
do this for all LV's. ** MAKE SURE lvol1, 2 & 3 are done in that order (else it will not boot!!!)

You could stop here, but I also install LIF area diagnostics on both disks (the OnLineDiag bundle I believe)

6 -
cd /usr/sbin/diag/lif
mkboot -b ./updatediaglif -p ISL -p AUTO -p HPUX -p LABEL -p PAD /dev/dsk/c1t6d0
mkboot -b ./updatediaglif -p ISL -p AUTO -p HPUX -p LABEL -p PAD ./dev/dsk/c2t6d0
The -p "Preserves" the lif file so do not forget it!!

Check it
lifls /dev/dsk/c1t6d0
lifls /dev/dsk/c2t6d0

Tim

[Deshpande Prashant]

HI
To test the recovery tape, first create the recovery tape with interactive option.
#make_tape_recovery -a /dev/rmt/0mn -A -v -I

Make sure the other disk (to be tested with) is not part of any active volume groups.

After booting from the recovery tape, go through interactive process where you will get an option of specifying your target boot disk and where you can specify your other disk.

The set boot command helps in setting the primary and al. boot paths, mainly in mirror configurations.

Thanks.
Prashant Deshpande.