changj@turing.cs.rpi.edu (John Chang) (07/18/90)
We have several ds3100 running ultrix 3.1 begin served as diskless clients by a ds5400. We are trying to move the root of ds3100 onto the local rz23 disk to have them boot locally. We have so far tarred all the files in the /dlclient0/client.root over onto the local disk, including all . files, made all the appropriate directories, edited the config file to indicate root on local disk and made a new kernel. When we then try to boot it from the local disk, we get "?417 btblk fmt" message. Does anyone know what this means or what we have to do to make it boot locally? Thanks.
mamros@cavdog.enet.dec.com (Shawn Mamros) (07/19/90)
The error message indicates that the bootblocks weren't installed on the local disk. Your procedure didn't install them, since the bootblocks aren't part of /dlclient0/client.root. The bootblocks can be found in /usr/mdec/bootblks, but just copying that file over won't work either, because they have to be installed on the right part of the disk. There might be a way to get them on to the disk without having to re-copy all the other files over (probably using dd), but I don't know for sure. You could do a # newfs /dev/rrzNa rz23 (where N is the SCSI unit number for the disk), which will initialize the partition and place the bootblocks on the disk automatically. Of course, that means you'll have to tar the other files over again... -Shawn Mamros mamros@aiag.enet.dec.com or mamros@cavdog.enet.dec.com Disclaimer: I'm not speaking in any official capacity for DEC. No warranty is expressed or implied by the above statements.
changj@cs.rpi.edu (John Chang) (07/23/90)
My previous post: > We have several ds3100 running ultrix 3.1 begin served as diskless clients > by a ds5400. We are trying to move the root of ds3100 onto the local rz23 > disk to have them boot locally. We have so far tarred all the files in the > /dlclient0/client.root over onto the local disk, including all . files, made > all the appropriate directories, edited the config file to indicate root on > local disk and made a new kernel. When we then try to boot it from the local > disk, we get "?417 btblk fmt" message. Does anyone know what this means or > what we have to do to make it boot locally? Thanks. Thanks for all those who replied to my question. The replies suggested that I newfs the partition and this would install bootblk in the appropriate location. Someone also suggested using dd to install bootblk. I tried all these, along with making new kernel, tarring all the files over to the local partition, etc., but I still get the same error message -- "?417 btblk fmt". Someone also said that he couldn't get this to work and even suggested that this can't be done. Does anyone actually have this set-up running? Thanks.
mamros@cavdog.enet.dec.com (Shawn Mamros) (07/23/90)
In article <5^1$Z1#@rpi.edu>, changj@cs.rpi.edu (John Chang) writes: > Thanks for all those who replied to my question. The replies > suggested that I newfs the partition and this would install bootblk in > the appropriate location. Someone also suggested using dd to install > bootblk. I tried all these, along with making new kernel, tarring all > the files over to the local partition, etc., but I still get the same > error message -- "?417 btblk fmt". Someone also said that he couldn't > get this to work and even suggested that this can't be done. Does > anyone actually have this set-up running? Thanks. It certainly can be done. I have several machines here running in this configuration. Here is the procedure I used (NOTE: this does not imply any official support of this procedure. I'm just telling you what I did.) 1. Set up a spare 'a' partition on the server machine (in my case, it was rz2a) and dump / on to it. # newfs /dev/rrz2a rz55 (or whatever your disk happens to be) # mkdir /root # mount /dev/rz2a /root # cd /root # dump 0f - / | restore rf - 2. Configure a new vmunix and place it in /root/vmunix. This kernel should be built with a configuration file containing the following line: config vmunix root on rz3a swap on rz3b dumps on rz3b (rz3 being the rz23 on the client machine) 3. Edit /root/etc/fstab to reflect what the client system will have for its filesystems. 4. Boot the client machine over the net into single-user mode. 5. Mount /usr on the client. THIS IS IMPORTANT! If you do not mount /usr, the newfs procedure cannot find /usr/mdec/bootblks and therefore will *not* install the bootblocks on the disk. 6. Do a newfs on the client AFTER mounting /usr: # newfs /dev/rrz3a rz23 7. Dump the /root partition down to the local disk with the following: (on the client machine): # mount /dev/rz3a /mnt # cd /mnt # rsh server dump 0f - /root | restore rf - 8. Halt the client machine and boot it from the local disk. Again, please note that this procedure is NOT officially supported, sanctioned, or guaranteed by anybody. But it worked for me... -Shawn Mamros mamros@aiag.enet.dec.com or mamros@cavdog.enet.dec.com Again, no warranty is implied or expressed in the above statements.