Re: Booting HP-UX 11 server using O.S. on EMC disks

From: Alan Johnson (adjtech_at_ulster.net)
Date: 07/16/03 

Date: Wed, 16 Jul 2003 12:00:40 -0400

gary burstow wrote:
> Thanks everyone for the responses, and yes it very strange to want to
> slow down a boot!
>
> Let me answer some of the points raised:
>
> Finding storage that comes up quicker is not an option as I'm
> constrained by the kit I already have. This is a fairly old setup
> which is not going to be upgraded and will eventually be replaced.
>
> The kit does not include a UPS, that would be nice!
>
> The reason the OS is on the EMC disks and not the internal is that the
> symm is attached to a mirror at our DR site which is fully sync'ed.
> This allows us to attach similar servers at the DR site and quickly
> boots from the original OS's on the EMC disks. So internal disk are
> not an option.
>
> The reason this issue has only recently come to light is that the
> continual upgrade to the symm firmware has over time increased its
> boot time, to be expected really!
>
> Alan, I will look into reconfiguring the auto-boot timout as this,
> although not ideal might do the job. Does anyone have any idea if
> this is possible and how to do it?
>
> Thanks ALL
>
> Gary
>
> Alan Johnson <adjtech@ulster.net> wrote in message news:<OhycnZD8f7-qAomiXTWJjw@thebiz.net>...
>
>>Rick Jones wrote:
>>
>>>gary burstow <garyburstow@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>The problem occurs when there is a power outage. As the power comes
>>>>back on the EMC symmetrics and the 3 attached HP servers start
>>>>simultaneously. The problem is the HP's ask for the boot disks
>>>>before the EMC is ready to present them. This causes the HP's to
>>>>wait and subsequently requires the power to be cycled for each HP to
>>>>restart the boot process. In the time taken to do this the EMC is
>>>>ready and the servers can boot.
>>>>
>>>>In itself this is not a problem when people are available to cycle
>>>>the power switches on the servers. However when no one is arround
>>>>its a pain! as someone has to physically visit the servers to power
>>>>them off then on.
>>>
>>>
>>>>Does anyone have any ideas how I can get round this problem?
>>>
>>>
>>>Putting the storage on a UPS might be one solution. Then the storage
>>>"never" has a power outtage (The old bit: Patient: Doctor! Doctor! It
>>>hurts when I do this. Doctor: Then don't do that! comes to mind :)
>>>
>>>Finding storage that comes-up faster after a powerfail would be
>>>another.
>>>
>>>Third would be to have the machines boot off of local discs.
>>>
>>>A fourth, definitely kludgy mechanism would be to stop at the firmware
>>>prompt and configure the autoboot timeout to be Really Large (TM) such
>>>that it is longer than the time it takes your EMC storage to come
>>>online. This presumes of course that the autoboot timeout can be made
>>>long enough. I've never changed it from the default 10 seconds
>>>myself.
>>>
>>>rick jones
>>>
>>>how ironic - in the the previous 15ish years I've only seen people ask
>>>how to make the HP systems boot faster, not slower :)
>>>
>>
>>Gotta agree Rick, NEVER heard about someone complaining about HP's
>>booting too fast! WHY are you booting off of "array" disks? thats what
>>you have local internal disks for, a single or pair of 4GB disks are
>>real cheap and by the time it starts up and goes through init and FC
>>stuff the EMC's will be there.... ?? No UPS's...........??
Gary,
  The only thing that I know of of that you can change the FASTBOOT
option from the bootmenu, if it is already off then it won't help. Maybe
you could set autosearch to on and it will go through all of the I/O
cards looking for devices, if the EMC's are not ready yet then maybe it
will wait for them. You have to go through the poweron selftest and then
stop it before it boots. From the main menu go in to configuration and
you can set those options. There is no way to access stable storage from
the OS on K boxes. HTH

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