DYNIX/ptx V4.4.9 and Layered Products Software Installation Release Notes: Boot the Operating System and Specify Devices


Appendix A
Boot the Operating System and Specify Devices


Requirements for Booting

The following information is needed to boot the system under normal conditions:

When you install DYNIX/ptx V4.4, a boot-time configuration file will be created for you. It will specify the location of both the primary swap device and the device naming database.

Also, the permanent and temporary bootstrings will be set to point to the root device on which the V4.4 software was installed.

To boot the system from run level 0, click the Boot button on SCI-based systems, or type bh at the monitor prompt on CSM- and SSM-based systems.

For detailed information about booting the system, refer to the DYNIX/ptx System Administration Guide. Also review the boot(4), physpath(8), and unix(8) man pages.


Physical Path Specifiers

A physical path specifier indicates the physical hardware path to a local SCSI device. The path can be derived by tracing the cabling from the device to the main system bus. The dumpconf -b device command can also be used on a system running V4.4 to determine the physical path specifier for a particular device.

Physical path specifiers are used to locate devices at boot time before the device naming database is available. When booting from the CD-ROM to install software, you must specify a physical path for both the CD-ROM device and the swap device.

A physical path specifier consists of a string of tokens that represent links in the physical path. (The tokens used depend on the system architecture.) Each token can be followed by optional arguments that are enclosed in parentheses. The parentheses must be entered even if no arguments are specified, such as quad(). Individual token arguments must be separated by commas; the arguments default to zero if they are not specified.


Physical Path Specifiers for IBM xSeries 430 and NUMA-Q 2000 Systems

Only local SCSI devices connected to a PCI controller can be specified with physical paths. To specify a partition on a SCSI disk, use this syntax:

quad(quad_number)pci(slot,function)scsi(target,lun)disk(slice,offset,length)

The components of the physical path are as follows:

The following example specifies the second partition on a disk located at SCSI target ID 4, LUN 0, on PCI slot 0 of Quad 0:

quad(0)pci(0,0)scsi(4,0)disk(2,0)

All arguments having a value of zero can be eliminated; however, for readability we suggest that you retain the first zero:

quad(0)pci(0)scsi(4)disk(2)

Boot-Time Configuration File

The boot-time configuration file, /etc/system/boot, must reside in the root filesystem and specifies the location of the primary swap partition and the device naming database. When you install V4.4, it will be created automatically for you. Following is an example of the file:

#
# boot-time configuration file
#
set primaryswap = sd0s1
set ndb = /etc/system/ndb