HP-UX 11i March 2002 Release Notes

nPartition (Hard Partition) Systems
New and Modified Hard Partition Commands
Chapter 2
34
The interpretation of Autoboot and Autosearch in the command setboot has changed
for systems that support hard partitions. The firmware interprets the bits in
combination and not individually as done before.
In order to approximate the traditional behavior of setboot, the user input for the
Autoboot and Autosearch flags is internally mapped to the right combination to achieve
the desired behavior. This mapping should be transparent to the user of setboot, but it
might not be so apparent to those accessing the firmware using other means. For the
primary path, the boot action corresponds to the Autoboot and Autosearch flags in the
following manner:
Additionally, systems with hard partitions support a boot action for each path. However,
boot actions for paths other than the primary path cannot be set using setboot. (In this
case, the default boot action for boot paths on nPartitions is “skip this device and try next
path,” [a path flag value of 2.]) Instead, setting both the Autosearch and Autoboot flags
to “on” (setboot -b on -s on) means that if the PRI path fails to boot, then booting the
HAA boot path will not be attempted unless the HAA path flag is set to a non-default value
(such as 1 or 2, which attempt booting HAA).
In the default case (when the HAA boot path is not set to “boot from the path”), specifying
setboot -b on -s on will not cause an alternate path to be automatically booted when
the primary path fails. Instead the user will be prompted.
Documentation Changes
Eight new manpages document the syntax and usage of the new commands. The reboot
(1M) and shutdown (1M) manpages have been updated to document the -R and -H
options, and the setboot (1M) manpage has been updated as well.
AutoBoot
(setboot -b)
AutoSearch
(setboot -s)
nPartition Boot Action
off off Go to the Boot Console Handler (BCH) and prompt
the user.
on off Attempt the primary path; on failure go to BCH.
on on Attempt to boot the PRI boot path; if fail to boot
PRI, attempt to perform the HAA boot path’s boot
action.
off on Skip the PRI boot path; attempt to perform the HAA
boot path’s boot action.