kambiz@mrspoc.Transact.COM (Kambiz Aghaiepour) (07/14/90)
I am having problems changing the kernel configurations on one of our systems here at Transact. We are running SCO xenix on a 386 machine. After changing the number of buffers (NBUF) and max. buffer heads (MAXBUF), relinking xenix, and running hdinstall, I can no longer boot from the new kernel. Upon boot, I get the message : bn void <number> bn void <number> bn void <number> : . etc The <number>s increase and the machine freezes around number 709. The strange thing is that I cannot boot from xenix.old anymore either!! Has anyone else seen this before or am I totally in the dark? (What does the error message mean?!!!) Is there some other parameter I need to change along with NBUF and MAXBUF? I am reducing the buffer pool size to free up user memory. Thanks in advance --Kambiz -- "If everything in life was easy, then nothing would be easy." -- Kambiz Aghaiepour @ Transact Software, Inc -*- Los Altos, CA (415) 961-6112 Internet: kambiz@mrspoc.Transact.com, cccbiz@bullwinkle.ucdavis.edu \/\/\
pgd@bbt.se (P.Garbha) (07/16/90)
In article <KAMBIZ.90Jul13114306@mrspoc.Transact.COM> kambiz@mrspoc.Transact.COM (Kambiz Aghaiepour) writes: > >I am having problems changing the kernel configurations on one of our >systems here at Transact. We are running SCO xenix on a 386 machine. >After changing the number of buffers (NBUF) and max. buffer heads >(MAXBUF), relinking xenix, and running hdinstall, I can no longer boot >from the new kernel. Upon boot, I get the message : > >bn void <number> >bn void <number> >bn void <number> I get the same error message when i install the new irwin tape drivers from sosco. But I only get one "bn void 2", and then the system boots normally. (But the tape does not work). What does "bn void <number>" mean anyway?
rosso@sco.COM (Ross Oliver) (07/20/90)
In article <1990Jul16.125419.1283@bbt.se> pgd@bbt.se (P.Garbha) writes: >In article <KAMBIZ.90Jul13114306@mrspoc.Transact.COM> kambiz@mrspoc.Transact.COM (Kambiz Aghaiepour) writes: >> >>I am having problems changing the kernel configurations on one of our >>systems here at Transact. We are running SCO xenix on a 386 machine. >>After changing the number of buffers (NBUF) and max. buffer heads >>(MAXBUF), relinking xenix, and running hdinstall, I can no longer boot >>from the new kernel. Upon boot, I get the message : >> >>bn void <number> >>bn void <number> >>bn void <number> > >I get the same error message when i install the new irwin tape drivers >from sosco. But I only get one "bn void 2", and then the system boots >normally. (But the tape does not work). > >What does "bn void <number>" mean anyway? Well, this is an ugly one. The following explanation applies only if your hard disk has more than 1024 cylinders. During the boot sequence, the boot program uses the computer's BIOS to load the XENIX kernel from the hard disk. However, the BIOS understands only disks of 1024 cylinders or smaller. If any of the disk blocks used to store the kernel reside beyond the 1024th cylinder, the BIOS will not be able to read them, and the boot program cannot finish loading the operating system. Since both of you started having this problem after building a new kernel, it sounds like your disks have filled up past the 1024th cylinder, and your new kernel resides (at least partially) on disk blocks past that point. There is only one sure-fire way to fix the problem and prevent it from happening again: rebuild your root filesystem so that it is completely within the first 1024 cylinders. This means reinstalling your operating system and everything else on your root filesystem. There is a less drastic fix you can try that MIGHT fix the problem for now, but it will most likely happen again should you relink your kernel again. First, go into system maintenance mode to make sure there is no other disk activity. Then, remove some files that are sure to be near the beginning of your disk (such as some operating system files). Remove enough files to equal the size of your new kernel. Then copy (not move) your new kernel to another file. The new file will be created using the disk blocks freed by removing the other files. You now should be able to boot from the copied kernel. This is only a temporary fix; eventually, you should rebuild your root filesystem. Ross Oliver Technical Support The Santa Cruz Operation, Inc.
djm@eng.umd.edu (David J. MacKenzie) (07/20/90)
We were getting "bn void" errors every time we tried to boot a newly made Xenix kernel, too, but found that simply linking the new kernel in system maintenance mode made the problem go away. I don't know why. -- David J. MacKenzie <djm@eng.umd.edu> <djm@ai.mit.edu>
kambiz@mrspoc.Transact.COM (Kambiz Aghaiepour) (07/24/90)
A few days ago I asked for help as to why I got a strange error message after rebuilding the Kernel. To recap, after running /usr/sys/conf/configure, link_xenix, and hdinstall, I would get the following error message after rebooting : bn void <number> bn void <number> . : etc where the numbers where integers increasing by one until around the number 695 or so. Then the system would hang. Well, after reloading off of a copy of the Kernel (/xenix.virgin) (strange that both /xenix and /xenix.old would give the above message), changing the parameters to their original settings, and reinstalling the kernel, I was able to boot off the Kernel I was using before. I did some further investigating and found the following simple solution : I ran the link_xenix script while running the bash (version 1.04) shell. Bash is the bourne again shell (by gnu). It has a lot of neat additional features and one of them is that things don't always work like they're supposed to. (I still use it though, it's great!) What bash does is that when it sees a bourne shell script, it runs in the current shell instead of spawning a ``sh'' for the process. The script /usr/sys/conf/netlink which is included in link_xenix is where the problem occurs. (I'm not sure where it blows up...it is supposed to work exactly the same in bash and sh). Anyway, the fix for it is, when running bash, run link_xenix (and hdinstall as well to be safe) as arguments to sh, i.e. bash$ sh link_xenix and things will happen correctly. ---Kambiz -- "If everything in life was easy, then nothing would be easy." -- Kambiz Aghaiepour @ Transact Software, Inc -*- Los Altos, CA (415) 961-6112 Internet: kambiz@mrspoc.Transact.com, cccbiz@bullwinkle.ucdavis.edu \/\/\