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HP OpenVMS Systems Documentation

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HP OpenVMS Version 8.3 Upgrade and Installation Manual > Chapter 6 Upgrading the OpenVMS Operating System

Booting the Operating System Media

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The OpenVMS operating system includes procedures that allow you to easily upgrade the operating system using the PCSI utility. To upgrade your system, you must boot the OpenVMS Alpha CD or the OpenVMS I64 OE DVD. To boot the OpenVMS Alpha system CD, see “Booting the OpenVMS Alpha Operating System CD”. To boot the OpenVMS I64 OE DVD, see “Booting the OpenVMS I64 Operating System DVD”.

Booting the OpenVMS Alpha Operating System CD

To get started, boot the OpenVMS Alpha operating system CD either from your local CD drive or from a CD drive served by the InfoServer, as described in “Booting from the Local Drive” and “Booting from the InfoServer”. First, you need to identify the name of the CD drive, as explained in “Determining the Boot Device”. For more information about booting operations, see “Booting Operations”.

Determining the Boot Device

To boot the operating system CD, you need to determine the identity of the CD drive. Follow these steps:

  1. Insert the operating system CD into the local CD drive.

  2. Enter the SHOW DEVICE command at the console prompt (>>>) and look for the correct drive listed in the output (for example, DKA400). If you are booting from the InfoServer, look for a device listed with its hardware address, as in the last line of the following example (EWA0):

       >>>SHOW DEVICE

    dva0.0.0.1000.0 DVA0 RX23
    dka200.2.0.5.0 DKA200 RZ28M 1004
    dka300.3.0.5.0 DKA300 RZ29B 0016
    dka400.4.0.5.0 DKA400 RRD42 442E
    ewa0.0.0.3.0 EWA0 00-00-F8-1F-70-3D

    For additional information, see the HP OpenVMS Version 8.3 for Alpha and Integrity Servers Software Product Description (SPD 82.35.xx) and the hardware manuals that you received with your Alpha computer.

Booting from the Local Drive

To boot the operating system CD from the local CD drive, enter the boot command in the following format:

BOOT -FLAGS 0,0 source-drive

Substitute the device name of the CD drive for source-drive, such as DKA400, as listed in the SHOW DEVICE display example in “Determining the Boot Device”. In this case, you would enter the following command and press Enter:

   >>> BOOT -FLAGS 0,0 DKA400

Booting from the InfoServer

To boot the operating system CD using either the InfoServer hardware or the InfoServer utility, follow these steps. To use the InfoServer utility, certain configuration steps are required initially (one time only), as described in Appendix C “Setting Up and Performing Network Booting”; note that the operating system CD must be mounted systemwide.

  1. At the console prompt, enter the boot command in the following format:

       >>> BOOT -FLAGS 0,0 -FILE APB_083 lan-device-name

    Substitute the name of the local area network device for lan-device-name, such as EWA0, as listed in the SHOW DEVICE display example in “Determining the Boot Device”.

    The APB file name is the unique file name that was assigned to the APB.EXE file when it was copied from the operating system CD to the InfoServer. This file is the name of the APB program used for the initial system load (ISL) boot program.

    NOTE: If you are using a DEC 3000 or 4000 series system, note the following:
  2. The InfoServer ISL program then displays the following menu:

       
    Network Initial System Load Function
    Version 1.2


    FUNCTION FUNCTION
    ID
    1 - Display Menu
    2 - Help
    3 - Choose Service
    4 - Select Options
    5 - Stop

    Enter a function ID value:
  3. Respond to the prompts as follows, pressing Enter after each entry:

    1. Enter 3 for the function ID.

    2. Enter 2 for the option ID.

    3. Enter the service name (ALPHA083 is the default service name for the InfoServer hardware; for the InfoServer utility, ask your system or network manager for the service name).

    A sample display follows:

          Enter a function ID value: 3 
    OPTION OPTION
    ID
    1 - Find Services
    2 - Enter known Service Name

    Enter an Option ID value:
    2
    Enter a Known Service Name: ALPHA083
NOTE: If you boot the OpenVMS Alpha operating system CD from an InfoServer system but lose your connection during the upgrade procedure (the system is unresponsive and pressing Ctrl/Y does not return you to the menu), do the following:
  1. Boot the OpenVMS Alpha operating system CD again from the network.

  2. Enter the DCL environment by choosing option 8 on the menu.

  3. Mount the device containing your backup copy of the target disk and the device that is your target disk.

  4. Restore the backup copy of your target disk by entering the appropriate BACKUP commands. (See Appendix E “Backing Up and Restoring the System Disk” for complete information about using MOUNT and BACKUP commands to restore a system disk.)

  5. Log out from the DCL environment.

  6. Perform the upgrade again by choosing the upgrade option (1) on the menu and following the procedures described in this chapter.

Booting the OpenVMS I64 Operating System DVD

This section explains how to boot the OpenVMS I64 operating environment DVD, either from your local DVD drive, as described in “Booting from the Local Drive”, or from a virtual DVD drive served over the network by the InfoServer utility, as described in “Booting from the InfoServer Utility”. For more information about booting operations, see “Booting Operations”.

Booting from the Local Drive

To boot a local OpenVMS I64 OE DVD, follow these steps. To boot the DVD on a cell-based server, a DVD device must be accessible by the nPartition that OpenVMS is being installed on.

  1. Make sure your Integrity server is powered on. If your system has an attached external device, make sure it is turned on and operational.

  2. Insert the DVD into the drive.

  3. Cycle power.

  4. From the main EFI boot menu (for cell-based servers, this must be the EFI boot menu for the nPartition on which OpenVMS is to be booted), select the appropriate item from the boot options list. Note that the EFI boot menu is timed; press any key to stop the countdown timer.

    For some systems, the boot option to select is the Internal Bootable DVD option. If that option is not listed in your EFI boot menu, move to the Boot From a File menu and select the Removable Media Boot option, if present.

    Alternatively (and this method is recommended for cell-based servers), boot the DVD drive from the EFI Shell prompt by entering the command shown in the following example, where fsn: corresponds to the Integrity server DVD drive (such as fs0:). Note that if you have navigated to a particular file system, the EFI Shell prompt would reflect that file system; for example, if the current file system is fs0:, the EFI Shell prompt would be fs0:>.

       Shell>fsn:\efi\boot\bootia64.efi

    To determine which device is the bootable DVD drive, examine the list of mapped devices and look for an fs device listing that includes the letters “CDROM”, as in the following line, where fsn is the file system associated with the drive, which is usually fs0: (instead of "fsn", you might see something similar to "V8.3"; instead of Ata, you might see Scsi, depending on the server model):

    fsn : Acpi(HWP0002,400)/Pci(4|1)/Ata(Primary,Master)/CDROM(Entry0)

    You can use the following command to display the mapping of various EFI device names to OpenVMS device names, where fsn is the device you want to check (such as fs0:):

            Shell>fsn:\efi\vms\vms_show dev -fs

    On most Integrity servers, the DVD drive is DQA0:. On systems that include a SCSI bus, such as the Superdome server, the DVD drive is DKA0:. For more information about the vms_show command, see the HP OpenVMS System Management Utilities Reference Manual.

    NOTE: Remember that by default EFI interprets the Delete (or Backspace) key differently than do OpenVMS Alpha systems or Microsoft Windows computers. Use Ctrl/H to delete the last character entered. For more information, see “Using the Delete or Backspace Key with Integrity Server Utilities”.

When the DVD boots properly, the OpenVMS operating system banner appears, followed by the operating system menu. You can now upgrade your OpenVMS I64 operating system on the target disk (see “Performing the Upgrade”). If the methods documented in this section do not succeed in booting the DVD, see “Alternate Method of Using EFI to Boot the DVD”.

NOTE: When booting OpenVMS from the installation DVD for the first time on any OpenVMS I64 system with a SAN storage device, you might experience a delay in EFI initialization because the entire SAN is scanned. Depending on the size of the SAN, this delay might range from several seconds to several minutes.

Booting from the InfoServer Utility

To use the InfoServer utility to boot from the network, certain configuration steps are required initially (one time only); see Appendix C “Setting Up and Performing Network Booting”. The instructions for booting over the network from a virtual DVD drive over the network are also included in Appendix C “Setting Up and Performing Network Booting”.