vmunix.prev

[Greg Hall]

Hi,

I have a 10.20 system
which has /stand in the root filesystem. I need more space so have moved /stand/vmunix.prev elsewhere. I'm aware this is only a backup file. If I link /stand/vmunix.prev to ,say, /usr/vmunix.prev. Then at the next kernal change will the system follow the link and create the new vmunix.prev in /usr?

thanks, Greg.

[A. Clay Stephenson]

I doubt it. Moreover, a vmunix.prev outside of /stand is almost useless. I would only delete vmunix.prev immediately before building a kernel.

[harry d brown jr]

No. if you need more room, you'll need to do a make_recovery, and then use the backup to rebuild your system.

live free or die
harry

[Greg Hall]

Thanks, Guys. I just got back from hols and not really thinking clearly.

[Darrell Allen]

Hi Greg,

Let's just suppose that you do succeed in building a new kernel and getting the previous kernel written to /usr/vmunix.prev with a symlink pointing to it from /stand. Now you reboot and the newly built kernel has a problem. Where's your backup kernel? In /usr where you can't boot from it.

Not a good thing. You need to keep vmunix.prev in /stand. It's not simply a backup file. It's what going to save your bacon one day.

Darrell

[Bill Hassell · Accepted solution]

/stand is part of the root filesystem? Must have been a 10.01 or 10.10 upgrade. I would start by examining the need to increase the root filesystem: it never grows. It is a static filesystem and other than a few root 'droppings', nothing new goes into /.

Now there are a lot of wrong things that get stuck into root, especially badly-behaved install programs. So I would run this command:

# du -kx / | sort -rn > /tmp/du.root

Then look at the top of the du.root file. /sbin will be the biggest at about 15-20 megs, followed by /etc at about 8-15 megs. Everything else should be 10 megs or less. If there are non-standard filesystems, they must be moved out of / for security and stability.

If all else fails, the best solution is to backup VG00 with Ignite/UX (make_recovery) then restore the tape back to the server using the interactive menus. You can create a separate /stand volume and adjust / accordingly.

[Greg Hall]

Bill, thanks for the informative reply and the useful du command. It is an upgrade from 10.01. I have cleaned up lots of junk in /etc but still have very limited root space (about 2mb). However I'll keep digging.

thanks, Greg

[Martha Mueller]

Remember that if you wanted to boot from the vmunix.prev kernel, it would have to reside in an hsfs filesystem. Most of us only have /stand as hsfs and everything else is vxfs.

[Martha Mueller]

Excuse me, I meant hfs filesystem.