Technical data
Managing Peripheral Devices
8.3 Setting Security Protection Characteristics on Devices
This command procedure applies the protection specified in the security
template to all current devices.
8.4 Connecting Devices and Loading Device Drivers
The system uses a software component called a device driver to control I/O
operations for a particular device type. For a device to function on a system, the
device must be connected, and the device driver must be loaded into memory.
The AUTOCONFIGURE command connects all devices physically attached to the
system and loads their device drivers. Using AUTOCONFIGURE saves effort and
reduces the possibility of error.
The site-independent startup command procedure, STARTUP.COM, automatically
configures devices, because it includes the AUTOCONFIGURE command.
On VAX systems, the following commands in STARTUP.COM perform
autoconfiguration:
$ SYSGEN := $SYSGEN
$ SYSGEN AUTOCONFIGURE ALL
On Alpha systems, the following commands in STARTUP.COM perform
autoconfiguration:
$ SYSMAN := $SYSMAN
$ SYSMAN IO AUTOCONFIGURE
During autoconfiguration, the CONFIGURE phase of STARTUP.COM creates a
detached process to perform the following tasks:
• Detect any devices connected to HSx devices (storage controllers)
• Load the drivers for HSx devices
• Make the HSx devices known to the system
• Make disk and tape devices served by OpenVMS hosts known to the system
Note
For this discussion, an HSx device can be an HSC, HSG, or HSJ device.
In general, when you add a SCSI disk or tape, you should shut down the system
and power down the machine before you connect the device. When you power the
system up, OpenVMS automatically configures the device.
Some controllers, such as the HSZ series, allow you to quiesce the SCSI bus
and then add or remove a device. When you add a device, you must rerun
AUTOCONFIGURE. Note however, that for served storage devices, your system
must be running the CONFIGURE process.
In certain cases, you might want to suppress autoconfiguration of devices in
system startup. See the following sections for more details.
Managing Peripheral Devices 8–7