Booting Process

During the boot process, the system tests the hardware, loads and runs the operating system and configures devices. To boot the O/S, the following resources are required: A boot image that can be loaded after the machine is turned on or reset. Access to the root and /usr file systems. There are 3 types of system boots: 1) Hard Disk Boot A machine is started for normal operations with the key in the normal position. On PCI based systems with no key locking, this is the default startup mode. During a hard disk boot, the boot image is found on a local disk created when the O/S was installed. During the boot process, the system configures all devices found in the machine and initializes other basic software required for the system to operate. At the end of this process, the file systems are mounted and ready for use. 2) Diskless Network Boot A diskless or data less workstation is started remotely over a network. The same general requirements apply to diskless network clients. They also require a boot image and access to the O/S file tree. Diskless network clients have no local file systems and get all their information by way of remote access. 3) Service Boot A machine is started from a hard disk, network, tape, or CD-ROM with the key set in the service position. This condition is also called maintenance mode. In maintenance mode, a system administrator can perform tasks such as installing new or updated software and running diagnostic checks. Booting process is divided into 3 phases 1) Read Only Storage (ROS) Kernel Init Phase 2) Base Device Configuration Phase 3) System Boot Phase During the first phase, problems with the motherboard are checked, and the ROS initial program load searches for the bootlist. Once the bootlist is found, the boot image is read into memory and system initialization starts. During the second phase, all devices are configured in this phase, with the help of the cfgmgr command. During the third phase, all the logical volumes are varied on, paging is started, and the /etc/inittab file is processed.

Both hardware and software problems can cause the system to halt during the boot process. The boot process is also dependent on which hardware platform is used. Booting Process steps: Step 1: Check of and initialization of Hardware The initial hardware check is to verify that the primary hardware is OK. On PCI systems, it is handled by a single POST. After this, the system loads the Boot Logical Volume (BLV) into a RAM file systems (RAMFS) and passes control to the BLV. Step 2: Load BLV Once the BLV is loaded by bootstrap code program, AIX Kernel gets control over the boot process and remain booting procedure is carried by AIX Kernel. So far, the system has tested the hardware, found a BLV, created the RAMFS and started the init process from the BLV. BLV Contains AIX Kernel, Reduced ODM, Boot Commands and rc.boot. Boot commands are programs that are called during the boot process (Ex: cfgmgr, bootinfo and so on). Reduced ODM is required here as many devices are configured before hd4 is available, for these devices corresponding ODM files must be stored in BLV. rc.boot is the configuration script that will be called three times by the init process during boot. Step 3: Start init process from BLV to configure base devices The init process started from RAMFS executes the boot script rc.boot1. At this stage, the restbase command is called to copy the reduced ODM from the BLV into the RAMFS. If this operation fails, a LED code of 548 is presented. After that cfgmgr f command reads the Config_Rules class from the reduced ODM. The process invoked with rc.boot attempts to configure devices so that rootvg can be activated in the next rc.boot phase. At the end of boot phase1, the bootinfo b command is called to determine the last boot device. At this stage, the LED shows 511. Step 4: Activate Rootvg The rootvg will be varied on with the special ipl_varyon command. If this fails, LED codes 552,554, or 556 will appear. Then the root file system (/dev/hd4) is mounted on a temporary mount point (/mnt) in RAMFS. If this fails, 555 or 557 will appear in the LED display. Next, the /usr and /var file systems are mounted. If this fails, the LED 518 will appear. The mounting of /var, at this point, enables the system to copy an eventual dump from the default dump devices, /dev/hd6, to the default copy directory, /var/adm/ras. Then the copy of rootvgs RAMFS ODM and /dev directories will occur (copy to disk) and then /usr and /var file systems from the rootvg can be mounted again on their ordinary mount points. There is no console available at this stage, so all boot messages will be copied to alog. The alog command can maintain and manage logs.

Step 5: Configure remaining Devices and then start init process with rootvg In this phase init process reads /etc/inittab and /tmp file system is mounted here. The rootvg is synchronized. This can take some time. This is why the syncvg roovg command is executed as a background process. At his stage, the LED code 553 is shown. At this stage, the cfgmgr -2 process for normal boot and the cfgmgr p3 process for service mode are also run. Cfgmgr reads the Config_rules file from ODM and checks for devices with phase=2 or phase=3. Next the console will be configured by calling cfgcon command. Finally the synchronization of the ODM in the BLV with the ODM from the / (root) file system is done by the savebase command. Then writes error by kernel/application to error log by starting errordemon. Then call rm /ete/nologin, this file do not allow any login during boot. Finally flashes system initialization completed message.