NFS swap partition - summary

From: Daryl Campbell (daryl@cs.athabascau.ca)
Date: Mon Jun 06 1994 - 04:41:20 CDT


The red-eye continues ...

Previous post is at the end:

The solution was to build a new kernel for the clients with a
config line like this:

config vmunix root on type nfs swap on type spec

We had considered that our problem was that swap generic assumed
the root and swap would be on sd0, but that turns out not to be the
case. With 'swap on type spec' you don't have to worry about your
swap being on sd1b or sd0b.
Entry in /etc/bootparams - 'swap=/dev/sd1b' - now works.

Punt the new kernel around to all the clients with:
/export/root% foreach i (clientnames)
? cp vmunix $i
? end

My problem was interpreting the Sun SYS/ADMIN manual to broadly when
it stated:

"Specifying 'swap generic' enables you to place your root file system
and 'swap' space on any supported device."

Thanks for the quick response to the following who were on the right
track:
jun@crick.ssctr.bcm.tmc.edu (Jun Wu)
Dallas N Antley <dna@clas.ufl.edu>

   From: daryl (Daryl Campbell)

   While trying to upgrade a Sun 4/370 server and 8 Sparc 1's to 4.1.3_U1
   today, so staff can use them tomorrow :-( I've encountered the following
   problem:

   Our clients have a local disk configured to use /var and swap. The Sparc's
   are failing trying to boot vmunix after 'root on ...' I'm apparently having
   troubles with my kernel knowing where the swap filesystem should be.
   I have in /etc/bootparams 'swap=/dev/sd1b' just like with 4.1.2, and if
   I create a swap file and edit this entry 'swap=machine:/export/swap/m5'
   things are okay. The GENERIC kernel has 'config ... swap generic'.
   I have tried rpc.bootparamd -d on the server to get some feedback and
   no errors are reported. Help!!! Any suggestions, preferrably before
   midnight tonight;-)

   I've tried booting interactively so as to specify the kernel and swap
   locations '>b le() -a' but can't get enter a response to 'root name:'
   that will get a response from bootparamd on the server without complaining
   about decoding arguments. This one will win you the bonus question
   worth 10 point.

   ps. Tried phoning Sun Solution Centre and found out that we haven't
   renewed our contract for this fiscal year. Ah, such is life at
   public universities in debt-ridden provinces in Canada.

   --
   Daryl Campbell daryl@cs.athabascau.ca (403)675-6379
   Athabasca University



This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.2 : Fri Sep 28 2001 - 23:09:03 CDT