Last Friday night I put 5.2.1D5 (the successor to 5.2.1P1) on one of the F630's. It didn't panic, and I've got my quotas back. Ahhhh, yeah.
Just one leetle caveat, one which caused me to believe I had a hung filer and to place a down-filer call to NetApp technical support. It seems that 5.2.1D5 sets the floppy-boot? environment variable for you by default. So when you boot, you see something like...
NetApp Release 5.2.1D5: Mon Mar 8 23:54:01 PST 1999 Copyright (c) 1992-1998 Network Appliance, Inc. Starting boot on Sat Mar 13 07:50:19 GMT 1999 Scanning for disk drives: floppy boot? .......................... Spinning up disk drives: 8a.12 8b.12 8a.13 8b.13 8a.14 8b.14 Configuring disk drives: 8b.14 8a.14 8a.9 8a.12 8b.11 8b.12 8b.9 8b.8 8b.4 8b.5 8b.1 8a.3 8a.10 8a.2 8a.11 8a.5 8b.0 8b.10 8b.13 8b.2 8b.3 8a.13 8a.8 8a.1 8a.0 8a.4
and then, apparently, the filer hangs, with the LCD saying "Configuring disk 8a.4" (or whichever one was last).
Turns out that that "floppy boot?" way up there at the top was a prompt. It's waiting for you to type "yes" or "no" on the console. A "no" causes the boot to finish normally. Then a "setenv floppy-boot? false" and a reboot gives you a happy filer.
Thanks to the NetApp tech support guy for reacting so graciously to being beeped in the middle of his Friday night.
Brian
On Sun, 14 Mar 1999, Brian Rice wrote:
Last Friday night I put 5.2.1D5 (the successor to 5.2.1P1) on one of the F630's. It didn't panic, and I've got my quotas back. Ahhhh, yeah.
Just one leetle caveat, one which caused me to believe I had a hung filer and to place a down-filer call to NetApp technical support. It seems that 5.2.1D5 sets the floppy-boot? environment variable for you by default. So when you boot, you see something like...
NetApp Release 5.2.1D5: Mon Mar 8 23:54:01 PST 1999 Copyright (c) 1992-1998 Network Appliance, Inc. Starting boot on Sat Mar 13 07:50:19 GMT 1999 Scanning for disk drives: floppy boot? .......................... Spinning up disk drives: 8a.12 8b.12 8a.13 8b.13 8a.14 8b.14 Configuring disk drives: 8b.14 8a.14 8a.9 8a.12 8b.11 8b.12 8b.9 8b.8 8b.4 8b.5 8b.1 8a.3 8a.10 8a.2 8a.11 8a.5 8b.0 8b.10 8b.13 8b.2 8b.3 8a.13 8a.8 8a.1 8a.0 8a.4
and then, apparently, the filer hangs, with the LCD saying "Configuring disk 8a.4" (or whichever one was last).
Turns out that that "floppy boot?" way up there at the top was a prompt. It's waiting for you to type "yes" or "no" on the console. A "no" causes the boot to finish normally. Then a "setenv floppy-boot? false" and a reboot gives you a happy filer.
Thanks to the NetApp tech support guy for reacting so graciously to being beeped in the middle of his Friday night.
Brian
Hi Brian,
I was not directly involved in this issue, but I am familiar with your case, and I just wanted to quickly clarify something about how the "boot-floppy?" environment variable is set.
An OS upgrade pretty much only affects data that is written on hard disk. When you do a "download", it takes the current boot image from /etc/boot and copies it into the boot block on the hard disk. The "floppy-boot?" environment variable is actually set at the PROM level, and the software has no access to that data (which is why you have to actually halt the filer to even get to the point where you can change that).
If at some point someone has set this environment variable on your system, then you wouldn't see this again until the next time you rebooted. This is a fairly common occurence (it even happens here in our own lab!).
In any case, and RFE #13444 was filed to make the "floppy boot?" prompt more visible on bootup so these types of errors are caught more quickly and don't cause any more un-needed downtime.
----------------------------------- Lee Razo (lrazo@netapp.com) Network Appliance, Inc. Product Support Escalations Santa Clara, Ca. http://www.netapp.com/ -----------------------------------
Lee Razo wrote:
An OS upgrade pretty much only affects data that is written on hard disk. When you do a "download", it takes the current boot image from /etc/boot and copies it into the boot block on the hard disk. The "floppy-boot?" environment variable is actually set at the PROM level, and the software has no access to that data [...]
I agree; this is certainly the way I've always understood it. However, no one can remember setting floppy-boot? on the filer in question, and it certainly wasn't on during the last time it was upgraded. So, please pardon me for indulging in magical thinking, but my "it's-in- the-software" hypothesis was the only way I could see floppy-boot? having come to be turned on.
Anyway, I'm happy about the RFE. If the "floppy boot?" prompt could show up in a more synchronous fashion (i.e., not immediately followed by lots of unrelated output), that would certainly be less confusing.
Brian
Brian,
To add to that I will suggest that the next you bring down your filer you remove the "floppy-boot?" option from your prom settings. To do this, you can run the following command at the ok prompt:
unsetenv floppy-boot?
This will remove the "floppy-boot?" from the prom settings, so you don't have to worry about the filer waiting for user input at that point in the boot process.
Abe. --
Lee Razo wrote:
On Sun, 14 Mar 1999, Brian Rice wrote:
Last Friday night I put 5.2.1D5 (the successor to 5.2.1P1) on one of the F630's. It didn't panic, and I've got my quotas back. Ahhhh, yeah.
Just one leetle caveat, one which caused me to believe I had a hung filer and to place a down-filer call to NetApp technical support. It seems that 5.2.1D5 sets the floppy-boot? environment variable for you by default. So when you boot, you see something like...
NetApp Release 5.2.1D5: Mon Mar 8 23:54:01 PST 1999 Copyright (c) 1992-1998 Network Appliance, Inc. Starting boot on Sat Mar 13 07:50:19 GMT 1999 Scanning for disk drives: floppy boot? .......................... Spinning up disk drives: 8a.12 8b.12 8a.13 8b.13 8a.14 8b.14 Configuring disk drives: 8b.14 8a.14 8a.9 8a.12 8b.11 8b.12 8b.9 8b.8 8b.4 8b.5 8b.1 8a.3 8a.10 8a.2 8a.11 8a.5 8b.0 8b.10 8b.13 8b.2 8b.3 8a.13 8a.8 8a.1 8a.0 8a.4
and then, apparently, the filer hangs, with the LCD saying "Configuring disk 8a.4" (or whichever one was last).
Turns out that that "floppy boot?" way up there at the top was a prompt. It's waiting for you to type "yes" or "no" on the console. A "no" causes the boot to finish normally. Then a "setenv floppy-boot? false" and a reboot gives you a happy filer.
Thanks to the NetApp tech support guy for reacting so graciously to being beeped in the middle of his Friday night.
Brian
Hi Brian,
I was not directly involved in this issue, but I am familiar with your case, and I just wanted to quickly clarify something about how the "boot-floppy?" environment variable is set.
An OS upgrade pretty much only affects data that is written on hard disk. When you do a "download", it takes the current boot image from /etc/boot and copies it into the boot block on the hard disk. The "floppy-boot?" environment variable is actually set at the PROM level, and the software has no access to that data (which is why you have to actually halt the filer to even get to the point where you can change that).
If at some point someone has set this environment variable on your system, then you wouldn't see this again until the next time you rebooted. This is a fairly common occurence (it even happens here in our own lab!).
In any case, and RFE #13444 was filed to make the "floppy boot?" prompt more visible on bootup so these types of errors are caught more quickly and don't cause any more un-needed downtime.
Lee Razo (lrazo@netapp.com) Network Appliance, Inc. Product Support Escalations Santa Clara, Ca. http://www.netapp.com/
-- Ibrahima Bah Technical Support Engineer Network Appliance Inc. 2770 San Tomas Expressway 408-367-3000 Santa Clara, CA 95051 1-888-4-NetApp www.netapp.com
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Brian Rice -
Ibrahima Bah -
Lee Razo