Using Primary and Alternate Boot Paths

You can set the primary and alternate boot paths of a virtual partition by using the HP-UX setboot command or the vPars command vparmodify and the BOOT and ALTBOOT attributes.




	NOTE: Like many other HP-UX applications, MirrorDisk/UX software is supported. However, vPars does not have a knowledge of the mirror configuration. If your boot disk is mirrored, you may want to explicitly configure the mirror disk as the alternate boot path. Also, on Integrity systems, after creating a mirrored boot disk, you will have to do either a setboot -[p\|a\|t] <path> or vparefiutil -u to be able to boot from the mirror later. To modify stable storage, you must either: go into standalone/nPars mode and use setboot or parmodify use parmodify for PA-RISC nPartitionable servers (parmodify is not supported from within the vPars environment on Integrity servers) go to the BCH for PA-RISC or EFI Shell for Integrity systems For more information on using the above firmware and HP-UX commands, see the document HP System Partitions Guide, Managing Systems and Workgroups (11.11, 11.23) or HP-UX Systems Administrator’s Guide (11.31), available at http://docs.hp.com. The boot path setting for HAA (High-Availability Alternate) is not supported for vPars instances. For more information on HAA, see the HP System Partitions Guide. For Integrity systems, including using the parmodify command in `vPars` mode and EFI variables and booting, see also “EFI and Integrity Notes”. For more information on how setboot works on a vPars server, see “Setboot and System-wide Stable Storage ”. For more information on the I/O attributes, see vparresources(5) manpage.

Autoboot and Autosearch Attributes

Beginning with vPars A.03.02, there is a new attribute called autosearch, in addition to the existing autoboot attribute. The autosearch attribute has the value of either search or nosearch (the default is nosearch). See the table below for the results of the combination of possible values. For further information on the attributes, see the vparcreate(1M) or vparmodify(1M) manpages. For information on setting these attributes, see “Managing: Modifying Attributes of a Virtual Partition”.

Table 5-5 Boot Attempt Results of the autoboot and autosearch Values

autoboot value	autosearch value	resulting boot attempt
`manual`	`nosearch`	no booting of the target virtual partition is attempted.
`auto`	`nosearch`	only the primary path is attempted
`auto`	`search`	attempt to boot the primary path; if boot fails, attempt to boot the alternate path.
`manual`	`search`	non-nPartitionable servers: no booting is attempted nPartitionable servers: do not attempt to boot the primary path; attempt to boot the alternate path. These actions match the nPartitionable firmware actions. For more information, see the setboot(1M) manpage.

Setting the Primary or Alternate Boot Paths

In the examples below, suppose you want the virtual partition winona2 to have its primary boot disk at 0/8/0/0.5.0 and its alternate boot path at 0/8/0/0.2.0.

Using setboot

Because setboot affects only the virtual partition from which you execute the command, execute these commands from winona2.

To set the primary boot path:
winona2# setboot -p 0/8/0/0.5.0
To set the alternate boot path:
winona2# setboot -a 0/8/0/0.2.0

Using vparcreate

Within the vparcreate command, you can specify the primary or alternate boot paths with the BOOT and ALTBOOT attributes:

To set the primary boot path:
winona1# vparcreate -p winona2 -a io:0.8.0.0.5.0:BOOT

To set the alternate boot path:

winona1# vparcreate -p winona2 -a io:0.8.0.0.2.0:ALTBOOT

Or to set both the primary and alternate boot paths on the same command line:
winona1# vparcreate -p winona2 -a io:0.8.0.0.5.0:BOOT -a io:0.8.0.0.2.0:ALTBOOT

Using vparmodify

If the virtual partitions are created already, you can specify the primary or alternate boot paths with the BOOT and ALTBOOT attributes within the vparmodify command:

To set the primary boot path:
winona1# vparmodify -p winona2 -a io:0.8.0.0.5.0:BOOT

To set the alternate boot path:

winona1# vparmodify -p winona2 -a io:0.8.0.0.2.0:ALTBOOT

Or to set the primary and alternate boots paths on the same command line:
winona1# vparmodify -p winona2 -a io:0.8.0.0.5.0:BOOT -a io:0.8.0.0.2.0:ALTBOOT

Using Primary and Alternate Paths with nPartitions

The vPars database and the nPartition complex profile are entirely separate. Therefore, a change in the vPars database does not change any complex profile data.

A change in the primary or alternate paths in the vPars database does not change the primary or alternate paths in the complex profile. To change the primary or alternate paths for both a virtual partition and its nPartition, you must change the paths for each separately.




	NOTE: For an EFI system, the above is true even if you use parmodify to change the paths. parstatus will show them as set; however, once the system is booted into nPars mode, those changes by parmodify are not retained.

Example

Original Status:

Suppose a vparstatus output of keira1 showed the alternate boot path to be 0/0/6/0/0.6.0 (irrelevant output omitted):

keira2# vparstatus -p keira1 -v
[Virtual Partition Details]
Name:       keira1
State:      Down
Attributes: Dynamic,Autoboot
.
.
.
[IO Details]
   0.0.6
   0.0.6.0.0.5
   0.0.0
   0.0.4
   0.0.2
   0.0.6.0.0.5.0  BOOT
   0.0.6.0.0.6.0  ALTBOOT

and its nPartition showed the nPartition’s alternate path to be 2/0/14/0/0.6.0:

keira2# parstatus -p0 -V
[Partition]
Partition Number       : 0
Partition Name         : npar0
Status                 : active
IP address             : 0.0.0.0
PrimaryBoot Path       : 0/0/6/0/0.5.0
Alternate Boot Path    : 2/0/14/0/0.6.0
HA Alternate Boot Path : 0/0/6/0/0.5.0
.
.
.

Changing the Virtual Partition’s Path (vPars Partition Database)

To change keira1’s alternate boot path to the boot disk at 0/0/6/0/0.4.0, run the command:

keira2# vparmodify -p keira1 -a io:0.0.6.0.0.4.0:ALTBOOT

vparstatus now shows:

keira2# vparstatus -p keira1 -v
[Virtual Partition Details]
Name:      keira1
State:      Down
Attributes:   Dynamic,Autoboot
Kernel Path:  /stand/vmunix
.
.
.
[IO Details]
   0.0.6
   0.0.6.0.0.5
   0.0.0
   0.0.4
   0.0.2
   0.0.6.0.0.4.0  ALTBOOT
   0.0.6.0.0.5.0  BOOT
   0.0.6.0.0.6.0

but note that the nPartition’s alternate path has not changed:

# parstatus -p0 -V
[Partition]
Partition Number       : 0
Partition Name         : npar0
Status                 : active    
IP address             : 0.0.0.0
PrimaryBoot Path       : 0/0/6/0/0.5.0
Alternate Boot Path    : 2/0/14/0/0.6.0
HA Alternate Boot Path : 0/0/6/0/0.5.0

Changing the nPartition’s Path (Complex Profile Data)

To change the nPartition’s alternate path to 0/0/6/0/0.4.0, run the command:

keira2# parmodify -p0 -t 0/0/6/0/0.4.0
Command succeeded.

The nPartition’s alternate path has now changed:

keira2# parstatus -p0 -V
[Partition]
Partition Number       : 0
Partition Name         : npar0
Status                 : active
IP address             : 0.0.0.0
PrimaryBoot Path       : 0/0/6/0/0.5.0
Alternate Boot Path    : 0/0/6/0/0.4.0
HA Alternate Boot Path : 0/0/6/0/0.5.0

Booting Using the Primary or Alternate Boot Paths

To boot winona2 using the primary path:

winona1# vparboot -p winona2 -B pri

However, because the primary boot path is the default, you can omit the -B portion:

winona1# vparboot -p winona2

To boot winona2 using the alternate path:

winona2# vparboot -p winona2 -B alt




	NOTE: Setting a path using vparmodify requires the target virtual partition to be down; setboot does not. However, setboot can change only the path(s) of the virtual partition from which the setboot command is run (in other words, the local virtual partition). You cannot specify `pri` or `alt` at the vPars Monitor prompt. However, because the primary boot path is the default, you can boot `winona2` using the primary path using the following command: MON> vparload -p winona2 If you want to boot `winona2` using the alternate boot path, you can specify the hardware address for the alternate boot path. For example, to boot the virtual partition `winona2` using the disk at `0/8/0/0.2.0`: MON> vparload -p winona2 -B 0.8.0.0.2.0