DYNIX/ptx V4.6.1 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:

If your system does not currently have a boot-time configuration file, it will be created when you install DYNIX/ptx V4.6. The file will specify the location of both the primary swap device and the device naming database.

ptx/INSTALL will also set the permanent and temporary bootstrings to point to the root device on which the software was installed.

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


Physical Path Specifiers

On DYNIX/ptx V4.4/V4.5, 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 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 to install software, you must specify a physical path for both the CD device and the swap device.


ATTENTION

DYNIX/ptx V4.6 provides two other types of physical specifiers to specify the location of boot and swap devices. See DYNIX/ptx System Administration for more information.


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, for example, quad( ). Individual token arguments must be separated by commas; the arguments default to zero if they are not specified.

Local SCSI disk:

To specify a partition on a local SCSI disk, use this syntax:

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

Disk connected directly to the Fibre Channel:

quad(quad_number)pci(slot,function)fc(nport_id,child_id)disk(slice,offset,length)

Disk connected to a Fibre Channel Bridge:

quad(quad_number)pci(slot,function)fc(nport_id,child_id)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 local 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)

The next example specifies the first partition of a direct-connect disk with LUN 0xa40 and NPort_ID 0x200213 that is accessed through an FC Host Adapter in slot 0 of quad 0:

quad(0)pci(0,0)fc(0x200213,0xa40)disk(1,0)

The next example specifies the full (unpartitioned) disk located at SCSI target 1, LUN 0 on SCSI channel 5 of the FC Bridge having NPort_ID 0x200013, accessed through an FC Host Adapter in slot 0 of quad 0:

quad(0)pci(0,0)fc(0x2000213,5)scsi(1,0)disk(63,0,0)

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 the operating system, the file will be created automatically for you. Following is an example:

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

For systems on which ptx/CLUSTERS is installed, the following flag is added to the file after you run the rolling_upgrade_complete script. The flag indicates that device labeling is enabled on the node.

set rolling_upgrade = false

Before the script is run, the value of the flag is true; however, the flag does not appear in the /etc/system/boot file until after the script is run.

The rolling_upgrade flag is not used on systems where ptx/CLUSTERS is not installed. These systems do not need to run the rolling_upgrade_complete script.