Boot to different disks from Open Boot Prompt

Thanks for your help.

Yes, disk1, disk2, ... disk5 are scsi disks that just contain data, not a Solaris install. (They show up in the format command, but I just omitted those disks...sorry for the confusion)  The "disk" alias is the first fiber channel disk, which is the default boot device.  I would like to boot to the second one, but don't know how to create an alias that identifies the second fiber channel disk, based on the output I see from the format command.  All three fiber channel disks seem to have an almost identical phyical address.

Thanks.

How good are you with openboot?  I got around this problem once by just pulling the "true" boot disk out of the system then the system found the other disk and I could create a new alias after the fact once I put the original boot disk back in place.  However.... I have also had a system that just won't find a boot disk once I pull the original boot disk.  

Here is a great openboot reference that sun offers online.

http://docs.sun.com/app/docs/doc/805-4434/6j46vcb4j?a=view

Thanks for the help.  Not very good with openboot.  I will check this out.
Unfortunately the system is in a colocation facility about 70 miles away and is a production server.  I would have to think of a better reason to try this :)

Ouch you are right.

I would look through the open boot book on Sun's web page.  You are going to need to use open boot tools to make sure your alias is actually set correctly.

Specifcally research the "select" command in the openboot system as well as the "show-children" command.  With those commands you should be able to get the "true" address of those other disks and create a usable device alias.

Have you tried booting from the real dev address from the boot prom? ie.
{a} ok boot /sbus@2,0/SUNW,socal@d,10000/sf@0,0/ssd@w210000203717533a,0

or

{a} ok boot  /sbus@2,0/SUNW,socal@d,10000/sf@0,0/ssd@w210000203718a707,0

or create aliases for the two disks and then boot using them. ie.

{a} ok nvalias disk6 /sbus@2,0/SUNW,socal@d,10000/sf@0,0/ssd@w210000203717533a,0

and

{a} ok nvalias disk7 /sbus@2,0/SUNW,socal@d,10000/sf@0,0/ssd@w210000203718a707,0

then type;

boot disk6

or

boot disk7

Cheers

You can also use "eeprom" commad to set the alias instaed of useing OBP promt command.

you can backup printer a copy of your OBP settings to a file:
eeprom > myOBP.txt

then au as root (or login as root) to set a disk alias for your mirror
boot disk.

have a look at the example in the following page to learn how to
do it:

http://www.batcom-it.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=41&Itemid=41

man eeprom

Fireside_Chat:
So far I have not found what I am looking for. Thank you for the help though.

yokel:
Unfortunately it does not recognize these as boot devices.  Thanks.

yuzh:
Thank you for the tip. I am still having problems booting from the second disk though.


Thanks for the help everyone.  Any other ideas?  I haven't found any other help online about this either, unless I'm not looking in the right places.

These 3 disks are mirrored are they? Do you know they are bootable?
What is outputted to the screen when you try to boot using the 2nd and 3rd disks?

yokel:

The second disk is a copy of the first.  The message I receive is:
Can't open boot device

Is the disk you want to boot up a bootable disk? (eg, have
you done

installboot /usr/platform/`uname -i`/lib/fs/ufs/bootblk /dev/rdsk/your-disk-name

if the 2nd disk is a identical one to your primary boot disk, you need
to edit the vfstab in your 2nd disk to use the correct disk devices.
(mount points, the file is under etc dir).

Yes, a good thought.  I did do an installboot though.  Thanks for the thought.

1. Make sure you have created a device alias for your 2nd boot disk
2. Add the new device alias  to "boot-device"
3. Edit  the vfstab in your 2nd disk to use the correct disk devices.

   see:
   http://www.batcom-it.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=41&Itemid=41
   
   also "Using show-disks to create devalias for Ultra[TM] disk board boot drive":
   http://www.filibeto.org/sun/lib/hardware/enterprise_4500/diskbrd_aliases.html

Hi
Assuming your alias is correct, such as disk2, then you also need to say which partition you are going to boot from.

So for example,
you can either setup your OpenBoot variable "boot-device" to be disk2:a (to boot from slice 0 of this disk)

or you can type "boot disk2:a" from the ok prompt.
This should explain why you get the message
"Can't open boot device"

You would also need to edit your /etc/vfstab to point root (/) at the correct /dev/ device (such as c0t2d0s0)

Good luck

John

jephilc:
So what would I need to do and what is the syntax to boot to c0t1d0s0 instead of c0t0d0s0?  The following three disks (listed from the format command) seem identical from the Open Boot Prompt:

# format
AVAILABLE DISK SELECTIONS:
       0. c0t0d0 <SUN18G cyl 7506 alt 2 hd 19 sec 248>
          /sbus@2,0/SUNW,socal@d,10000/sf@0,0/ssd@w210000203717a582,0

       1. c0t1d0 <SUN18G cyl 7506 alt 2 hd 19 sec 248>
          /sbus@2,0/SUNW,socal@d,10000/sf@0,0/ssd@w210000203717533a,0

       2. c0t2d0 <SUN18G cyl 7506 alt 2 hd 19 sec 248>
          /sbus@2,0/SUNW,socal@d,10000/sf@0,0/ssd@w210000203718a707,0


Thank you very much for your help.

try
at ok prompt.
ok nvalias disk1 /sbus@2,0/SUNW,socal@d,10000/sf@0,0/ssd@1,0
ok nvalias disk2 /sbus@2,0/SUNW,socal@d,10000/sf@0,0/ssd@2,0

Now if these 2 other disk has installable os, then they should boot to different disk than the c0t0d0

to check if they have installable os, u may want to check it first from c0t0d0.
boot system to default disk c0t0d0

then mount the partition like this.
#mount /dev/dsk/c0t1d0s0 /mnt
#cat /mnt/etc/release

see if it shows the installed os on other disk.

You could always share out the points. I answered the question but the author hasn't responded.

Cheers

John