HP-UX Virtual Partitions Administrator Guide (includes A.05.09) (5900-2188, March 2012)

NOTE:
• When the system is at the EFI shell prompt in vPars mode, you can use either one of the
following commands to reset the nPartition:
◦ EFI_Shell> parconfig reset
◦ EFI_Shell> fsx:
fsx:\> vparconfig reboot vPars
The standard EFI Shell command reset should not be used to reset the system or nPartition
when it is in vPars mode.
• If the desired mode is not set, you will not be able to boot into that mode. For example, you
will not be able to boot the vPars Monitor (/stand/vpmon) when you are in nPars mode.
Likewise, you will not be able to boot into standalone mode when you are in vPars mode.
• On an Integrity system which has vPars software installed but does not have the correct firmware
version installed, you will see the following behavior depending upon the mode of operation:
— If the current mode is nPars, booting vmunix works as expected. Booting vpmon exits
with an unsupported environment message.
— If the current mode is changed to vPars using vparenv or vparconfig, the hpux loader
does not allow boot of either the vpmon or vmunix. In this case, you should use
vparconfig to change mode back to nPars and reboot the system. You should then
install the required firmware. See the HP-UX Virtual Partitions Ordering and Configuration
Guide for information on the required firmware.
EFI Boot Disk Paths, including Disk Mirrors, and vparefiutil (Integrity
Only)
On PA-RISC systems, the bootloader can boot a disk using only the hardware path of the disk.
However, on Integrity systems, the bootloader requires the EFI path. On Integrity systems running
vPars, the vPars database contains the initial hardware path to EFI path mappings; on boot of a
virtual partition, the vPars Monitor transparently provides the EFI path from the vPars database to
the bootloader so that a virtual partition can boot.
The EFI path changes whenever the boot area changes on the disk. During the initial creation of
the vPars database, during the installation of an OS using vparboot -I, and during the execution
of the setboot command, the EFI paths are updated in the vPars database.
However, beyond the above situations, whenever the EFI path of an existing boot disk changes or
an additional boot disk is added, including adding a boot disk mirror, the EFI mappings within
the vPars database need to be updated. Otherwise, the virtual partition may not boot. Note that
using vparmodify to change a boot path in the vPars database does not update the EFI path in
the vPars database.
To update the EFI path of a boot disk in the vPars database (for example, after creating a boot
disk mirror), execute vparefiutil -u (-u for update) on each virtual partition. Other examples
of when you should use vparefiutil include:
• For a specific HP-UX hardware path, if there is no EFI path mapping, the vparboot and
vparload commands will fail with the following error message:
Primary boot path not found.
Internal error in setting up vPars variables.
"vpar" load failed.
• For a specific HP-UX hardware path, if the EFI path mapping is stale or not up to date, then
booting from the disk will fail with an error message similar to the following:
124 vPars Monitor and Shell Commands